Bikepacking - a viable alternative to racks & panniers

see here

Some of the Alpkit gear goes for near retail price. Especially if it's out of stock officially.
Can everyone just not bid on it so I have a better chance? ;)

its double ended so you can just roll up the excess. just because you have 20l capacity doesn't mean you have to fill it

Ortlieb make exactly what you're looking for.

Did you see that it went for £40! Nuts.

When is the alpkit going to be in stock again??

I did.
I had a cheeky bid at £13. With P+P would have been retail price.
But to go for £40 is absolutely absurd.
Happy for the seller though. He can buy two more when they come back in stock.
You can get stock alert emails from Alpkit which is pretty handy.

In a bit of a quandry here.

I'm doing some touring in Belgium in a couple of months. My bike doesn't have any eyelets for panniers (and I bloody hate riding with them anyway so p-clips or a Beam rack aren't really an option for me). I purchased a Carradice SQR Tour Slim which has plenty of room for my belongings but the clearances on my frame are, well, not great, and there's about 50mm between the bottom of the bag and my back tyre. I tried it out on my commute today and it rubbed, I'm guessing when I went over bumps. I will have to return it and look at other options.

I already have a Uraltour saddlebag but at about 10l I don't think it's big enough for a couple of weeks (unless I pair it with a handbar bag?). It also has droop issues unless you secure the straps super tight.

The main issue is a ride a tiny frame (it's an XS B'Twin Ultra 700 AF which is about 49cm I think) -- I have about 11cm of seatpost showing and I'm not even sure there's 20cm between by saddle rails and the top of the tyre.

Suggestions? The Apidura large bag might fit, but £100 was a bit more than I was expecting to spend to be honest.

What about alpkit koala -- thinking of getting one of these for myself.

For the regular size: "Minimum clearance needed between saddle rail to the wheel: 18 cm"

Clearance-wise it would work I think, but the regular is only 13 litres and I think I'd want more space than that for a 2 week (roughly) trip, otherwise I may as well use my Uraltour with a handlebar bag or something...

Yeah so far alpkit is the most affordable.

Just bought one of those lotus handlebar bags....good value for £17, you could hold 13l in the front. 26l total.

Which uraltour do you have?

I have the V1 saddlepack. It's really nice (webpage says 10-11l: http://eng.uraltour.com/saddle-packs/) and I used it from London to Paris with minimal issues other than occasional drooping due to not securing it tightly. That + holding 13l at the front is an option I guess.

EDIT: I've just read your past posts regarding seatpacks fitting a bike with minimal seatpost showing: when I ordered the Uraltour for my previous bike I had 10cm of post showing and about 20cm between the rails and the tyre, and they said this was fine (you only been 16cm apparently). Postage was quick, and the quality it pretty good, though I've not seen any alternatives in the flesh tbh.

I've just ordered a Uraltour V1 myself, I'll let you know how it is. Luckily I've got a fair bit more seatpost on show, I think about 40cm from saddle to tyre too.

The Uraltour V2 is better for those with less of a gap between saddle and tyre, I think?

Is the curse of the small bike unfortunately - also ride a small frame (50) and have little seatpost showing - had the same issue with Carradice SQR.

I mostly just ride with two small panniers and a nice slim rack if I need to carry a decent amount of stuff.

If that's not an option then you're restricted to whatever you can get into the biggest saddle* and handlebar bags you can fit. With regards to handlebar bags, I've found ones which velcro on rather than using a Klickfix style mount better for bigger loads.

*you might have found your limit already - the apidura ones all need 18-20cm clearance as a minimum.

Not sure if this has been posted yet, but bears repeating if so;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=232&v=CkHb4MmGfFk

Just saw that the Alpkit 13l handlebar bags are now available for preorder. Got myself one and a Koala. They're expected to ship on Apr 20.

Restrap on a small discount at Wiggle atm.

Re: Alpkit-I wouldn't buy anything but drybags. Bought a Koala and wasn't impressed-stitching came away after a couple of rides. Might just have been bad luck but buy cheap buy twice and all that. Restrap keeps its resale value pretty well because its solid...

I say that having just bought a full set in anticipation of making up for all the riding I can't do just now : / Alpkit drybags/Koala will be getting shoved in the holster now.

what do you recommend instead of the koala?

Koala is quite flimsy and not rugged enough to use as a seatpack-really hard to get fixed in place and too flexy/floppy unless absolutely rammed solid with stuff, which in turn stresses all the stitching... I had to resort to tying inner tubes around mine in frustration a few times.

I'm hoping the Restrap holster design will provide that stability and support to prevent needing to cram the inner bag so solid, not got experience of anything else to recommend yet tho.

anyone used this? seems good and nice price but worried it will just slip like mad http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Bikepacking-Slinger-Bag-Versatile-Bag-for-Bottom-Tube-Forks-Bars-Seatpost/112354208421?_trksid=p2047675.c100005.m1851&_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIM.MBE%26ao%3D2%26asc%3D40656%26meid%3Da5b69f655cad4e97ac407dec634c79e5%26pid%3D100005%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D6%26sd%3D112222915305

I've got a revelate Pika that I managed to pick up used.... It's really good, but pricey new?

Just discovered https://reveal.bikepackingsecrets.com/ because of a video from Mike Hall
, has anyone purchased and can tell if content is good enough? Website looks a bit funny like a tv commercial, but content seems legit

Posted this in Restrap thread a while ago... not sure what wiggle discount is but we setup a code for LuFFguSSeRs that gives you 15% off anything on the site. Apologies if you missed it.

LFGSS15

Wah! Think Wiggle was 10% will crunch the numbers and see if it's worth the return, cheers for letting me know tho

I absolutely agree. I have bought a lot of product from Alpshit, but the Koala is by far the worst of them.

Have checked it out and it's much of a muchness but will return to Wiggle and buy from Restrap direct so yer pal gets a bigger cut-I don't know why I didn't check out the Restrap thread first either, being ditzy I guess.