On Nov 11, 2011, at 1:06 PM, Larry Powers wrote: > While I believe that my gigantic Berthoud handlebar bag is the best bag for > randonneuring, I am not suggesting you go out and buy one right away. I road > most of my early brevets with a Little Joe bag and a map holder on my > handlebars. Use what you have because you may find that after riding a few > brevets you don't enjoy it so why spend a lot of money up front? Second if > you do like it you can spend your first rides looking at what other riders > use and determining what you do and don't like about your current setup. You > can then make changes to your rig as the $'s allow.
This is great advice. Randonneurs are usually happy to talk about their setups and the pros and cons. > While there are a good number of steel bikes with classic randonneuring bags > at brevets more people are riding go fast racing bikes with minimal bags, > especially at the shorter distances. Even at the longer distances you will > see riders who are on go fast bikes with just a small trunk bag. You need to > do some rides and see where you fit between the carry everything riders and > the minimalist riders. Yep, I've seen people with 20 lbs of gear for a populaire and people with little more than a patch kit and a tire lever for a 600 K (my friend Doug) There is a six time PBP "ancien" here who rides an Italian steel racing bike (Guerrciotti, IIRC) with a rear rack and trunk bag. Obviously works for him! No fenders, either. Oner thing for me is that I insist on fenders on my bikes for rainy rides. I dislike riding in the rain to begin with, let alone riding in the rain with water spraying up from the wheels as well as falling on me from the sky. > The big plus to a handlebar bag is that it has a great out of the way map > case on top of it. It also supplies a place for the things you want to get > to easily while riding: cell phone, camera, food or wind breaker. I have > found that the mid to large handlebar bags that do not use a front rack did > throw off the handling of the bike more then I liked. Smaller bags can be OK > but most of the bags that mount to the bars hold the bag very high. early on > I used a Boxy Baggins on a Nitto handle bar mount and as long as I kept the > load light it was not a problem. The Boxy Baggins/Little Joe was my second > generation brevet rig. Note that a handlebar bag can cause some real issues > with cable routing. This is a good point, especially with brifters. I use downtube shifters on almost all my bikes nowadays, just two left with brifters (tandem and my old 'cross bike). > The Berthoud bag on a front rack with a decular works very well on my > Rambouillet as long as I don't over load it. I still use some type of bag > under my seat to carry a few small heavy items. If you decide to buy one of > these buy the model with all elastic loops. I bought one with leather straps > and buckles and it is a nightmare getting in and out of the pockets while > riding. Mine has the elastic for the main compartment but buckles and straps for the rest. Getting into those little pocket while riding is a pain, but I don't keep anything in them that I'd need while rolling. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch?hl=en.
