I never had one, what do you think is the best design based on your experience?

The fixed one like Salsa EXP Cradle or just a cheaper strap with some spacer from the bars (like Topeak front loader)?

I don’t plan to put more than 13L

If your using a Jones style bar (On One, Geoff bar) then none. Just strap a dry bag direct to the bars with a pair of Voile straps. Works a treat.

I’m a drop bar guy actually

I tried to strap the tent but takes space for lights, gps, fingers and so on..

worth mentioning I have a Ti frame so not worried about gear rubbing the frame paint

I tried the alpkit joey and one of they tough drybags as a way of dipping my toes in without spending too much money. Some years later I’m still using it.

12 quid to try it out is surely a good place to start.

I use the Salsa Anything Cradle. I bought it to allow a bit of clearance for brake and gear cables that I couldn’t get with the fabric harnesses. It is very good and stable but damned expensive.

Turns out you really can carry anything with it too as I often used it to carry the sprogs 16″ bike on the school run.

jonm you just won the Salsa’s EXP “craziest application” contest

Apart from the fixed cradle solutions (such as Salsa and Specialized) I don’t get why there’s such a big price gap between other rolls.. I guess they all rely on the headtube rubbing the cables on it, right?
So as long as they have spacers they’re fine?

What about Topeak then?

The straight cut harness doesn’t rub on your cables or headtube and works well on drop bars too.

Straight Cut Design Handlebar Harness

The salsa is neat and works very well but I only got it because I had cable routing issues with every other one I looked at.

The straight cut harness doesn’t rub on your cables or headtube and works well on drop bars too.

That looks a very similar design to my original Wildcat harness Wilcat Lion

Used my Wildcat on drop bar, Jone and normal mtb bars very successfully.

I’m a drop bar guy actually

Pair of Tri bars?

I’ve got an Alpkit Kanga, and while it’s mostly great, it’s a lot more faff than just strapping stuff directly to the bar and accepting the loss of a hand position (one I tend not to use anyway).

Off-road I’ve got some geoff bars and will supplement them with a set of straight-ish equivelents. Despite the extra metal they’re actually lighter than a harness, and make carrying stuff a doddle. The only downside is they’re not adjustable, so work best with 2x drybags, e.g. sleeping bag in one and mat/bivi in the other. If you put it all under it rubs the front wheel, if it’s all on top it’s top heavy.

I use a Revelate Harness. Teamed up with a 13L Alpkit drybag so it fits between the levers on my Woodchipper bars.

It’s low enough that I can still fit a light to the bars and not so low that it causes tyre clearance issues.

The rubber stand-offs mean I still have lots of hand positions.

P1010496 by Colin Cadden – Flickr2BBcode

DSC_0144 by Colin Cadden – Flickr2BBcode

FTR in the end I got the Topeak Frontloader and did the Danube bike path.

Quite happy with the harness, stable and the spacers were big enough for my fat fingers.

The drybag could have been bigger in diameter (for drop bars).
Air valve very useful.