This post doesn't really fit in with the earlier photo posts, and yet it does in a way also. I need a bag to carry photo equipment at times, not to mention extra clothing during the changing seasons time. I had a nice Topeak trunk bag that I really liked..... I used it on my mountain bike, and my old road bike, which I no longer have. Topeak uses a propriatory fastening system using a track and rail setup that, coupled with a plastic spring loaded clip in the front eliminates the need for velcro straps hanging all over the place. I found it works great, when used with their racks. And that, is where the reason for this post can be found. It seems that I have two Topeak racks, one I keep on my mountain bike, and one I had on my old aluminum framed road bike, when I replaced the aluminum framed road bike with a new touring bike however, the new bike came with a very sturdy rack. Couple that with the addition of fenders, and the removal of that rack and switching to the Topeak rack for occasional use became an impractical task. So, after looking at both the rack and the bag for a bit, I found that the rack on the new Cannondale Touring bike also came with a kick-up portion in the front, and it did appear to be similar size to the Topeak rack...... hmmmmmm.... I wonder if that would clasp onto that rack, I thought. Well, lets try..... so I did, and it did, perfectly. That didn't do anything for the rear of the bag however, as the Cannondale rack had no track to hold onto the rail on the bag, but the bag was being securely held to the rack by the front clasp, so I looked for a solution. The solution is simple, cheap, not quite as convenient, but it works, and I don't have to discard a perfectly good bag that I already had.
And then, just to be sure it stayed in place, because this was not the original designers intent as to how this design was to be used I added some extra insurance....
The end result, is a functional, usable trunk bag for my everyday chores, plus, it's not so easily stolen by a snatch and run thief as the original design. And...... I don't have to spend $$$ for a new bag that had velcro straps to hold it on. Yes, if I want to remove it, I have to cut the zip ties and replace them when I put the bag back on, but those are very cheap, as well as compact and light if you want to take a hundred along with you. I used the rear tailight slot to fasten the rear of the bag, which is not really as secure as I'd like. Another solution would be to go down to your local sewing center and picking up a 1/2 inch wide velcro strap that is male on one side, and female on the other, cutting it to size and running it through the shoulder strap holders you see just above my improvised mounts. You can run it all the way under the rack and fastten it between the front and back shoulder strap mounts, which are quite secure. This was to be an experiment just to see if such a thing was feasible, and it is. If I decide to make a more permanent mounting, I will drill through the plastic rail on each side at the bottom of the bag, and run my zip ties through that and around the rack providing a much more stabile mount. This seems to work just fine the way it is however, and I'll leave it like this to see how long it lasts. If it fails, (when it fails) I will report it here as well. Of course, if you have the bucks, and want a new bag .... that's the way to go, but if you're like me and have an old bag laying around, and hate to see it go to waste, use a little imagination and ingenuity, sometimes it pays dividends by providing you with a usable, funtional unit for hardly any cost at all. Plus, I think it look fine on the bike as well. See..... I told you this would be a blog about "practical" bicycling.
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