Anything Cage Alternative

[Eugenemtbing]

Thanks to inspiration from Jeremy11 and others, I am sewing up an alternative to Anything Cages for the Fargo V2 fork on my 29er On One Inbred. 

My goal is to make what essentially will be dry bags for light items that will mount with 3 bolts on the fork.  The carcass will be potions of used Coleman water coolers I got for $3 from Goodwill.

Here is my start.

Cut a cooler down to appropriate size and shape:

[Eugenemtbing]

[Eugenemtbing]

Double layer to make the attach point a little stouter:

Drill and mount:

Some 1/4-inch closed cell foam to bury the bolt heads and limit abrasion to contents of the bag:

[Eugenemtbing]

Next will be sewing a roll-top dry bag out of 1000 denier Cordura.  This will slip over the plastic "spine" and ride up higher than the top of the plastic.  Might do a horizontal nylon strap at the mid point and a silnylon sock on the inside.  Will let you know as it comes together.

[thesergeant]

Pretty Clever!  I'm tempted to try this with a few old naglene bottles. Excellent work!

[Eugenemtbing]

My daughter and I finally got around to making our first dry bag portion of this setup.  It turned out well -- big enough for a Jetboil stove and then some in each bag.  Will have to make sure I don't overweight the bags after I mount them in my Fargo fork.

[fotooutdoors]

Very nice looking!  My only thought is that the heavy cordura may be overkill weight-wise, but I guess it is a relatively small amount of fabric, so a bit of extra durability may be the way to go.

[Eugenemtbing]

Yeah, the stuff I am sewing up is on the heavier side.  Went with Cordura and silnylon for everything at this point because I didn't know what I was doing and I didn't want to screw up expensive stuff like X-PAC fabric.

I am buying some X-PAC now and will eventually make better, lighter, more well thought out gear to replace what I am currently using.

[fotooutdoors]

I was even thinking that you could use coated packcloth or a heavy oxford for the bags, so I wasn't necessarily suggesting the expensive stuff.  That said, seam seal some lightweight X-Pac and you will have a very waterproof and durable bag.

[Eugenemtbing]

Seams sealed on my two fork bags.

[Eugenemtbing]

Finishing them off...

[Eugenemtbing]

[Racingguy04]

Sweet idea, I may try something like this on my non fargo fork, think it could be secured with hose clamps and zip ties instead of bolts?

[jaymtb]

Hi,
Looks good.  Have had Anything Cages fatigue and crack.   That  could allow contents into spokes.   Ditched them.

It may be good to have a piece of vertical alu strap drilled for screw holes that would work like a big washer inside plastic, and/or use round head screws that have a larger base.   Since the fork is round and old jug  halves are  round in opposite direction, there may be a bit of back-and forth wobble that may fatigue area around screws over time.   Perhaps a spacer between fork and old jug to fill this gap would help.  It may be possible to heat-shape the plastic to fit around fork better.  I'm thinking of trying something like this to fit a larger diameter shock fork.  There,  a lack of braze-ons is another problem. 

Have used hose clamps and larger bottle cages on a shock, with bungee cord loops, but this method looks more versatile. 

Thanks for posting. 

Jay

[Eugenemtbing]