Handlebar Roll and Cheap Standoff Option

[Smo]

So I wanted to share the handlebar roll I made recently, and also the option I found for cheap handlebar standoffs.  EDIT: I should note that the first picture is taken *before* I found the handlebar standoffs that I refer to.  So yes, it looks horrible, but see the last pictures for my current foam, which looks better and has been performing very well for me.

The bag is on the medium/small side of things, at 6.5" in diameter and a max packed length of about 20 inches.  That comes out to about 10-11 liters, which is just enough for my winter bag, and enough for my summer bag with a couple other things thrown in.

I decided to make it versatile, since I'm running H-bars right now but I don't know if I'll keep them forever.  So I made daisy chains on top of the bag, so that I can move the attachment points in or out.  Under the daisy chains are plastic stiffeners made from some thrift store placemats.

I have it attached 12 inches apart in four places on the H-bars, and it is incredibly stable.  Much better than my friend's roll that had straps about 6 inches apart.  Running the stiffeners and daisy chains out that far limits how tight you can pack it, but I don't see myself ever wanting it smaller than 12 inches wide, so it's not a big deal to me.

The only downside to the moveable straps is that they are a bit harder to use as a result.  The buckle wants to move when you tighten it, so you can end up with it up around the handlebars.  I haven't figured out a great solution to this yet, but if you're careful it's pretty easy to manage them right now.

And now for the cheap handlebar standoffs - a $4 pair of knee pads from Home Depot!  The foam is thicker and stiffer than a sleeping pad, and much better than what I was using before (which you can see in the first picture).  It's about 3/4" thick and cuts super easily with a razor blade.  I hold it onto the daisy chains with velcro loops (hence the holes cut into the pieces).

A side effect of the daisy chain and running H-bars is that I was able to put some shock cord on the top.  A great place for rain gear.  And none of the pictures show it, but I improved the straps to attach a sleeping pad to the front by trimming them and adding looplocs, so the slack won't hang down.

[Smo]

I forgot to talk about the seam sealing.  I've found that seam grip works pretty well with Xpac, with the exception of corners.  Any leaking that does happen seems to happen *through* the seams (it ends up wetting the grosgrain ribbon).  So instead of using grosgrain I folded a strip of Xpac over the seam and sewed it on.  Then when I applied seam grip I pressed the seam to the fabric so that it glued onto it on one side, then seam gripped the other side.  I haven't filled the bag up with water yet, but i suspect that this will be pretty waterproof.

My next experiment will be to seal Xpac seams with 3M 9485 transfer tape, which is still in the mail.  We'll see how that works.

[Racingguy04]

I experimented with seam sealing with seam grip recently an found it lacking, but I haven't used grosgrain or anything on my seams. I wonder if something like a flat felled seam would work, but taping seems easier.

[dream4est]

IMO foam spacers on a front harness is a cop-out to a proper design. That looks horrible and performance degrades over time. I have 2200 miles on my no foam harness design and it works way better and does not degrade over time.

[Smo]

dream4est:  Do you have any pictures of your design?  I'm always interested in new ideas.  Personally I've used different methods of attaching stuff sacks strapped to the bars without spacers, but I haven't designed anything specifically to work that way.  This works better than any of methods I tried to strap things on without spacers.

FWIW I've now taken it on singletrack and it is fantastically stable (although since I have H-bars my 4 points of attachment are not a fair comparison to a normal roll).  I rode about 30 miles on dirt roads and 30 miles on singletrack with my sleeping bag inside and a pad strapped to the outside.  No discernable movement or affect on steering at any point.  So functionally, the spacers have worked great so far.  The only concern I now have is the longevity.  These have worked much better than other foam that I've used, but there is still a little bit of compression.

Also I edited the post to make it clear that the first photo isn't the spacers I'm referring to.  I agree that those look terrible; they were what I put on it for testing while I looked for something better.  IMO the spacers from the knee pads look fine.

[dream4est]

Ive got pix posted of 2 different models in a thread:

http://www.bikepacking.net/forum/index.php?topic=5335.0

I made a harness in reverse with drybag attached - a sweetroll with a mini harness ? Its simple but simple is good. I realized that I could eliminate the long straps around the bag. My spacers have never failed. I had a front harness buckle come unclip once or twice. My bar mounted velcro dealio came apart once. I think those were due to tired guy not putting sleep kit back in correctly and jamming it in there too hard.

I think in your design style you should make some type of permanent spacer and sew a cover for it and then sew it into the strap dealio you got going on there. Like a hard rubber elastomer type material sculpted to the right size or sourced just right size. It wouldnt degrade and may offer some slight compression to aid in cinching straps. Its what I think all makers who use the foam should do.

[Smo]

Nice bags, and thanks for the detailed response.  I like the idea of a more elastomer-like substance, although sourcing something like that in reasonable quantities could be problematic.

As for sewing it on permanently, the only problem I see is adjustability.  If I wanted the entire daisy chain to be usable, it would have to go the entire length of the bag.  Also I think if it were wide enough to work for something like my H-bars there, it would be too wide to work on some flat bars without the foam hitting the brake levers.  I wonder if there's an intermediate solution that still hides the foam.