Carradice Saddlebags

Although I don't have it anymore, my Nelson had the same micro cracks to the white leather straps. Fairly soon after I got it actually (purchased new from Condor). I've always kept the leather nourished with leather dubbin wax, and never had any issues over the years. Fairly certain this is only cosmetic...

There’s no going back from that. Once the surface starts to crack the leather is weakened. I reckon if you use that bag every day you might get 20 years out of those straps. Add a bit of moisturiser and you might get 30 years.

Well, I like to get my moneys worth ;)

Fantastic. The straps that come loose are easily replaced (I had spares anyway), so will treat everything I can and hope for the best. Cheers.

Yeah, going to try and bodge one together as I baulked at paying £50 for a nitto one (which I’ll end up buying anyway when my bodge doesn’t really work).

tbh this is why I buy second hand carradice bags and not new ones, the leather is three times the thickness on some of the old ones and will never stretch and break

Whats the best way to support a carradice bag on the bars?

cheapo solution is one of these https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/403889591826

Mount the bag to the extensions and rest the bag against the bars?

'toher way round. Attach the extension so its under the bars (i.e. between your front wheel and bottom the bars). Then attach the bag as normal to the bars. Rotate the extension forward enough to push the bag out of the way of the cable, and loop the back strap round the extension to hold it in place.
does that make sense?

Yeah totally, thanks!

Request for anyone who might have a useless / ruined carradice pannier that happens to have this kind of cinch used to grip a strip of webbing. It's part of an old way they used to prevent sway, a strap that runs down the back of the pannier with a hook at the end. This clip grips the strap when you have tensioned it. It's about an inch wide.

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I need one of them!

Try cam buckle as a search term if you’re happy buying new. Will be a quid or two.

Awesome, thanks for sharing this knowledge!

Anyone doing anything funky with their Carradice in terms of a rack or anything?

I'm running a Classic Rack at the moment but I have two issues,

1) The prongs that slip into the saddle loops are getting bent so that they are becoming a looser fit around the rack, I imagine they will eventually give way.
2)I'm always worried that I break the cantle plate on my Cambium saddles. I have previously broken a black plastic one so don't use them anymore but I have Cambiums with metal cantle plates on a couple of my bikes.

Other than these issues I like the Classic, its stable, its really quick to fit and remove, it leaves the bike 'clean' when it's not fitted.

The SQR rack was good, especially my modded version, but the block takes up so much real estate on your seatpost that it becomes impossible to put your bike in a workstand.

I wonder if I should just go to something like a Bagman QR but I've heard the support loop can work it's way out of the clamp block quite easily so maybe just the Bagman clip thing and build a rack to support the weight of the bag. Something like this,

I do like how the Classic rack hooks into the bag loops so maybe I could make something or cut down a Classic rack but I dunno if this would work so well if the weight of the bag was supported by other means, I kind of feel like they need a good bit of weight on them to keep them in place.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CEW_gXklh78/ seems pretty funky

Yeah Clandestine has done a few of them I think. They do tick a lot of the boxes.

I like that at the moment I can grab the bag and it’ll go on any of my bikes that have a Brooks saddle. I like to use the bag on my klunker and my two fixed bikes and I’ve just put a Brooks on my Brompton…

Maybe I should get another bag, smaller, and keep it on a classic rack and build something like the Clandestine rack for my main bike.

I’ve tried a number of iterations for this and my favourite one so far has been the bagman QR bracket and a small nitto rear rack (Nitto R10?). Easy on/easy off with the QR clamp yet it was nicely supported by the rear rack so didn’t swing around and I could have it sitting flat rather than pointed slightly down as it would be if attached to the seatpost.

However it does require a few QR clamps if you want to use it on multiple bikes. Worthwhile for me as I don’t have a brooks on everything so YMMV.

I’ve now gone for a QR bagman with the bagman supporting struts rather than a rack as my go to. Not pretty, but functional! (apols for poor pics)

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I don't mind the look of the Bagman support and I barely ever use my gravel/commuter without the carradice anyway so it's not like I'd be riding around with it empty a lot.

Wouldn't want an empty bagman on my klunker or fixed wheel bikes though...dilema!

I wonder if I can come up with something quicker for getting the bag on/off the Classic rack and Bagman QR so it was a quick job to grab the carradice and whichever mount suits the bike I want to use it on.

That's probably where it becomes worth having two bags.

[…] something quicker for getting the bag on/off the Classic rack and Bagman QR

Your ideas are intriguing to me, and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter; in my case a Bagman QR on the big bike, Classic rack on the Brompton. I might try a couple of small carabiners on the bag loops for the attachment to the rack… leaving them on the rack when using the Bagman:

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Will the saddle side bit of the Bagman qr attach to the straps directly rather than to the dedicated plastic piece it comes with?

Those carabiners look like a few things I found when googling but they all looks a bit sway-ey to me.

What you're describing sounds kind of similar to the way Restrap/Pelago attaches the rando bag to the commuter rack. I think they are fidlock components

Will the saddle side bit of the Bagman qr attach to the straps directly rather than to the dedicated plastic piece it comes with?

Yes, that’s how I use it—the plastic bit interferes with precludes the use of the Classic rack. The triangles on the orange handle stop the loops from falling inside.

[carabiners look] a bit sway-ey

Yes, and metal/metal rubbing, so it’ll probably wear quickly. Maybe another hole and a Voile strap around the dowel? Fidlock is a nice idea, I’ll have a look & see if anything springs to mind.

FYI, you can buy a lot of the fidlock components from http://www.contactleft.co.uk

I have been considering a nitto R14 and a Hobopieces, as my big carradice doesn't actually fit the bagman QR expedition - the vertical distance between QR and bottom of the rack is smaller than the distance between the dowel and the bottom of the bag. I think the rack sizing is based on saddle loops + bagman standard support.

In my case I think it would actually be cheaper and nicer to get a bag made that fits as I'm happy enough the the QR system, and have ideas about a better saddlebag (for me)