Alpkit Koala bike packing and handlebar bag ideas please

Being new to bike packing I’ve started started looking at simple day bags, bags like Alpkit Koala.

This bag looks great, will fit on my CX’er nicely and now I’m looking for a handlebar bag too, but can’t seem to find one in Alpkits range.

So essentially I’m looking for a real seatpost mounted bag, range 15-8ltrs enough to take spare Jersey, food, tools, tubes, down jacket you know that kinda thing. And the bar will need to hold phone, Chargers, food, gloves and such.

I know there are lots aon the market but sure you’ll have far more experiance than me on this kind of thing.

I’ll use it for multi day trips, overnight in hotels,then carry on and off-road trips like the Santiago de Compastlla and such.

Thoughts ?

Ta

Used the Alpkit Koala on a 100 mile SDW ride on my cx bike. Wasn’t hanging about (av 11mph) so the bag got rattled to hell.
Forgot all about it within mins. Brill product.

I’ve just bought a Koala for a five day B&B based gravel / lanes tour to Snowdonia and back. I’m pairing it with a small frame bag that still allows two large bottles, plus a Topeak bar bag. I’ve been very pleased that my kit fits in with room to spare 🙂 I’ve not used the Koala yet but I like the way it fits to the bike – looks very well made too.

Revelate Pika works well on cx/gravel setup as doesn’t need huge clearance over back wheel.

That’s an Alpkit airlock dual 20L strapped straight to the bars, they do a 13L and all sorts of other sizes in the single ended “airlock extra”

Bloody marvellous, thanks chaps.

Alpkit it is and thanks for the hint on the bar bag, perfecto.

8)

I used an old pair of bar ends J shaped. Put them either side of the stem and strapped a dry bag to them. Worked a treat. I used an alpkit bag as they have the loops sewn into them.

I don’t have any good photos but hopefully this helps. Rear saddle bag is a ktm with a rain cover.

Alpkit do a harness that goes on the bars and is reinforced with carbon fibre struts to make attaching e.g. a dry bag easier, but it’s quite expensive and as cookeaa shows, not really necessary.

All rather brilliant stuff this so thanks..

I’ve already done a 2 day’er but I took my camelbak and filled that with stuff and whilst good I just couldn’t (like most) get on with something on my back weighing me down..

I’ve been scanning (just started) the Bikepacking thread on here. Whilst I knew it was on here I thought a simple question about bags was Ok, now I’m off over there <<< to learn what others are taking/using and enjoying and finding useful.

Thanks again..

Alpkit do a harness that goes on the bars and is reinforced with carbon fibre struts to make attaching e.g. a dry bag easier, but it’s quite expensive and as cookeaa shows, not really necessary.

That’s the ”Kanga” about three time the price of the dry bag you’d put in it but I can see the benefits…

I’ve dangled that airlock off the bars on all of my bikes now, best fit was on my Road bike with all the cables routed under the tape, the Picture above was taken last week on my newly built London Road with an old Tiagra shifter where the side exit gear cable had to deal with a bit of interference from the bag.

Also be aware that the webbing straps do have the potential to abrade/damage bar tape if they’re bouncing about on it so do think about positioning…

My Fixie uses a cross top lever which the dry bag can make accessing a wee bit harde, for that reason I now mount it out back on a beam rack (it’s my commuter bike)…
I might buy a couple more cheap beam racks for possible future touring/bikepacking jaunts with mates, they are actually really handy for a tenner from fleabay if you want to load up the rear without a full on pannier…

The Airlock Xtra Works OK on the MTB with wider, flatter bars (720mm) obviously.

TBH the dry bags are so cheap it’s worth buying a few in different sizes, along with some webbing/straps/bungies/velcro from ebay to experiment with load set ups, you can strap a ridiculous amount of stuff to a bike with very little adaptation or extra racks needed…

I remember reading another post, possibly on a different forum (the horror), suggesting that a universal basket mount, possibly with some sort of board attached, might make a low budget Kanga stand-in.

I’ve had to use the Kanga on my 29er, as otherwise the bag would hang down onto the tires. Others with 29ers have (apparently) also had same issue. The Kanga allows you to mount the bag a bit higher up.

I did toy with the idea of using one of those stubby little handle bar extensions for mounting lights or computers as a little support to do just the same thing.

one of these things:

Just to keep it up, away form the front wheel…

Have seen tri-bar extensions used to provide support for bar bags – looks a good solution if you’re handy with the hacksaw

I’m really liking my alpkit gear. I’ve got the large Koala which wasn’t staying incredibly stable on my first outing but sorted for the second with an extra compression strap around the bag and through the seat rails. Very stable with various weights of load (over several days I worked out better ways to pack my gear).

The drybag on the bars will attach without a Kanga to hold it (again, an extra compression strap to fix it to the frame underneath the bag). However, this has caused some rubbing of the lacquer at the headtube. Being a raw 456 it’s notoriously less durable than other bike finishes so I might try an alternative fixing.

I bought a bar mount from Amazon for my phone which sits above the drybag and a cheap, small pack that sits on the top tube behind the stem that contains a couple of powerbanks and will take the phone when I need to keep it dry.