Bag Entreprenuers?

[Benny]

I have been working on a concept for a bike packing specific backpack / pannier and a commuter specific backpack / pannier.  From talking with others it seems like an innovative idea and it certainly is much more tailored to specifics than the name brand bags that I have researched.  Does any one have experience or work in the field to give guidance for me to explore the viability of this?  I am business savvy, but not within the industry of cycling bags etc.

[jeremy11]

I run a part time bike bag company specializing in custom frame bags and Everything Bags.

www.cleavelandmountaineering.blogspot.com

I have made one pannier/shoulder bag that I've used for bike commuting to engineering school and work for the past four years.  It has roughly 12,000 miles on it, but I've only made one of these ever.  If there's a market for these I think the design would be worth pursuing since most of the stuff on the market is way too complicated.  In particular, the interface from bag to rack is too proprietary, too complicated, and too failure prone.  Here's some pictures from when it was much younger.

email me for further discussion - jeremycleaveland AT gmail

[sherpaxc]

Hey Jeremy, question for you.  I see the new Salsa Anything bag sure looks a whole lot like what you were already offering.  I'm a big Salsa fan and have ridden one of their bikes for a long time, but man, it sure seems like they ripped your design off.  Did you work with them on this?
http://salsacycles.com/culture/new_product_wednesday

[bmike-vt]

no offense to jeremy, but the anything cage bag is more a ripoff of Scott @ Porcelain Rocket... he's been making something that works with the old (and now the new) anything cage for a long time.




jeremy's bag is more of a fork / frame harness type system - it replaces the cage with a stiffened fabric frame.
very different than what salsa (or scott) is offering.
(i have 2 of scott's bags on the way...)

salsa's bag (which requires the anything cage or anything cage HD) is also self contained and waterproof.



jeremy's bag / rack combo: bolts to the fork or frame instead of the cage / bag combo, still requires a waterproof bag if you want to protect your gear.

[sherpaxc]

Yeah, you're right, and I knew that but was shooting from the hip when I saw his post.  I guess in the end, everyone is borrowing the basic tenets of frame bags/seat bags from Jeff at CDW and Eric at Epic (Revelate).  Nothing wrong with that I guess, and Eric is surely making a solid name for himself by partnering with Salsa.  I was just curious if Salsa reached out to Jeremy, or Scott as it were. 

[jeremy11]

Salsa didn't consult with me about the Anything Cage HD http://salsacycles.com/culture/product_process_the_anything_cage_hd
and I was a little shocked to see them talk about the R&D process like they came up with the idea out of nowhere... perhaps they did and just never stooped low enough to see my little micro business.

Their coming out with the Anything Cage HD is a rather obvious admission of the weakness of their previous design.

I did think about a molded plastic version of my Everything Bag a while back (long before Salsa) but don't have the order volume or distributor network to make it work.

While the Anything Cage HD does fix a number of the problems with the original cage, here are a few design details in which my Everything Bag still wins out.

1. The Anything Cage HD (ACHD)  has a stiff rounded back so will only work well with rounded objects.  The Everything Bag (EB) has a flat framesheet with fabric sides so conforms to whatever shape you put in it - rectangular, round, odd shaped, you name it.  The following picture shows the Everything Bag carrying a rectangular 2 liter juice bottle - try that in a stiff round plastic cage!



2. The EB has a broad enough bottom and metal cam buckle straps so if you're carrying a Nalgene bottle, and run the straps just a tiny bit loose, you can get the bottle in and out without adjusting the straps.  Does this work on the ACHD?  I don't know but suspect not.

3. When ladderlock or side release buckles are tensioned over a round hard radius, the friction decreases with the angle of the straps.  So when the radius gets to small, the buckle creeps open or jolts open.  This is one of the major reasons the EB uses metal cam buckles which do not slip no matter what the angle.  I don't know if the buckles supplied with the ACHD suffer from this problem, but I'd be surprised if they didn't.

4. The ACHD has a wider plastic frame than the EB so when the plastic is bumped against a rock or tree or the ground the longer lever arm will put more force on the bolts, mounting bosses, and plastic frame, increasing the likelyhood of failure.

5. The EB is available with p clamps and hardware to mount on just about any fork on the planet - including suspension forks.  Only forks with sever tapers from top to bottom do not work.  The ACHD could also be used with p clamps but they leave you out in the cold to figure it out for yourself.  P clamps are readily available, but are not typically found at your local hardware store in sizes over 1 inch.  So that leaves the customer to figure it out for themselves, and more than likely, they'll have to get a bag of 25 when they only need 6 of them.  Salsa would be wise to come up with a molded plastic widget that fits on a wide range of diameter fork legs and allows the cage to be bolted on...  I would do it but don't have the sales volume to justify getting a plastic mold made.

[Smo]

I also run a small bike bag company, and I've made some bikepacking-specific panniers that worked really well on singletrack.  I haven't made backpack straps for them but I think that's a really good idea.  Feel free to email me at info@roguepanda.com.