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@BBlack
Not a full blown for sale post yet, bear with me!
Bit of background first, a while ago I thought I'd try my hand at making some DIY bikepacking bags for my mountain bike, I made a frame bag, top tube bag, handlebar harness for a dry bag and a seat pack all out of some old rain camo fabric. It was a learning curve but as a first attempt they were perfectly serviceable and saw me through some good trips whilst I was in Cambodia (Including a two day, 200km ride, through completely unmapped forest in the North East for which I had to carry 7 litres of water but that's another story).
Following on from this I got a Specialized Awol and made a plan to ride from the UK to Greece and back in the summer so with the benefit of experience I thought I'd try my hand at making some more bags. I have a lot of love for the stuff that Scott at Porcelain Rocket comes out with but unfortunately I'm too poor to buy any of it so I thought I'd try my hand at making my own version of their Mr.Fusion seat pack (complete with mini rack) and a similar set up to the MCA handlebar system. I also made a half frame bag as well as another top tube bag. The bags held up fine over the whole 6500km tour however the one problem I encountered was the common problem of filling the frame bag to bursting and then struggling with the zip. As a result of this I knocked up a full frame bag with roll-top closure (and a zippered side pocket) for the Awol which took a lot of time but I'm pretty pleased with it.
Lately I've made a couple of handlebar/stem mounted feed bag or 'stem cell' bag as they are often referred too, these are a fairly simple bag with a drawcord closure but I think they're fairly useful for snacks or even holding additional water bottles. I'm still looking for work at the moment and was set to participate in a clinical trial (11 days stuck in a hospital style setting) so my original idea was to see if there was any interest in me making a batch of these feed bags for sale so I didn't lose my mind with boredom in there. However last week less than 1km from my front door (sod's law after riding after across 10 countries in the summer) I got knocked off my road bike by a fucking zombie behind the wheel of a Nissan micra. My bike is wrecked and I've been left with three broken ribs and a lot of road rash also for obvious reasons I can no longer do the clinical trial either. This means I still have time on my hands so I thought I'd give this a go anyway.
By now means am I a professional with a sewing machine so I won't claim that what I'm making is as good as the stuff by people like PR, Revelate, Alpkit, or Mack Workshop (all people I have big respect for). The stitching may not be as neat but the stuff I have made for myself has certainly stood up to the test so far. I don't intend to start any kind of long term business doing this, just fill my time for a bit while I'm stuck in limbo.
Here's a link to an album with pictures of all the stuff I've made so far:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B4V2zOdRP6_KM2ZQN3hiMGNVLTg
I was thinking of £18 for these including postage (slowly) from York. Currently I have a little bit of the Tiger camo fabric left and some plain black 500d cordura but if there was a consensus on colour I would be happy to order more 500d cordura, I was thinking of the Black Multicam that seems to be very popular?
To start with how about starting a list of interested people below? If this works out I will make a forum donation (I have ran this idea by Velocio).
Thanks, Ben.