Yep. Custom because I am 6’5” with a long torso. I couldn’t find a bike that fit me! I love my Curtlo!

Ooh, I might try that. 4 bottle bosses and I could make that change to the current design without more sewing...

Cool! I don't follow on the vinyl. If it''s on the interior of the bag, how are you attaching it to the frame?

Do you mean the orange? That’s actually the tent pole bag for my tent. I didn’t put an additional liner in.

One thing I’m noticing is that my knees sometimes brush the top if I overstuff, but I have room to spare on the bottom. If I were to do it over I’d go with 2” on the top back, tapered to 2.5” in the front. For the bottom bag I might go a bit wider.

Well I did it!

I knew I wanted to compartmentalize, so I decided to make two separate bags to have a modular system. That way I have the option to run just the top bag for a long day trip or errand around town.

The bottom bag attaches to the top bag to give it tension. I stitched some strapping to the bottom of the top bag so that I could feed Velcro straps through and connect to the other side. So unlike most frame bags, this has a strap coming out the zipper side and a Velcro panel stitched flat on the other side. Looks a little funny but works great. I also used Velcro to sew an adjustable divider into the bag so that it doesn't bulge out and I can set the width of the bag just right for maximum volume without my knees rubbing against it. The stitching popping through the xpac isn't pretty but oh well.

Tried stuffing the four man tent in last night, but was not successful. I might be able to get it done by separating the fly and putting it with the poles, but I’ll wait until summer to mess with packing experiments.

The sewing took me a lot longer than I expected. My optimistic self didn't factor in the time it would take me to learn to sew and troubleshoot the tension on the sewing machine. Luckily my wife is patient and I've been stuck home for school snow days all week!

I've been looking for a frame bag for my custom XL frame. My bike is so big that no bags I've seen will fit my frame, so DIY it is! Take a look at the photo to see what I mean.

As I prepare to start, I had a couple of questions and was hoping to solicit the wisdom of the crowd:

1. Given the size of my space, should I be concerned about bulging? What steps can I take to reduce bulging? I don't necessarily want to compartmentalize it, but I can if absolutely necessary?

2. Will choice of fabric make a big difference on bulging? I was thinking that X-Pac looked stiffer than Cordura and thereby might be a better option.

3. I was thinking about two separate zippers, but I've hears a lot of folks advocate for roll tops as well. Has anybody actually had a zipper fail on them? I have a cheapo frame bag from Amazon (MooseTreks) on which the zipper failed, but I was thinking if I got stronger zippers I'd be fine.

Any other suggestions would be appreciated!