Introducing the Cyclotouring Handlebar Bag
When Rene Herse couldn’t find the bags he wanted for his bikes, he began offering his own, way back in the mid-1940s. As far as we know, he pioneered the forward-opening flap that allows accessing the bag’s contents while riding. Building on those 80 years of experience, as well as 1000s of miles of testing numerous prototypes, we’re introducing the Cyclotouring Handlebar Bag. This is what we consider the ultimate handlebar bag: Light and strong. Simple and versatile. Durable and waterproof.
The Cyclotouring bag complements our Ultralight bag. At first sight, you could mistake the Cyclotouring bag as an Ultralight with added pockets, but it’s in fact a completely new design.
Handlebar bags are the original bikepacking bags, utilizing the space inside your bike—between the curves of your handlebars—rather than strapping bags to the outside of the bike. And there’s a lot of space between your bars. The size L Cyclotouring Bag (above) holds 12 liters! That’s enough luggage capacity for a 1200 km brevet like Paris-Brest-Paris or a two-week tour (staying in inns and hostels, not camping).
As we’ve been riding and racing on rough gravel roads, we’ve found a need to further develop the classic handlebar bag. We’re using a waxed cotton fabric that is truly waterproof and develops a beautiful patina as it ages. We’ve retained the leather edging, because it’s the strongest, lightest and longest-lasting material for this purpose. However, we’ve reduced the leather to a bare minimum, both to save weight and for a more modern aesthetic.
We’ve replaced the heavy stiffeners of traditional bags with thin sheets of plastic that slide into sleeves on the sides of the bag. They maintain the bag’s shape while allowing the bottom to settle into the rack’s contours. That locates the bag securely and keeps it from swaying.
The Rene Herse Bag Stabilizer goes inside the bag at the top perimeter, where it’s held in place by small Velcro flaps (hidden behind the partially removed stiffeners in the photo above). This further stabilizes the bag.
Front and rear pockets keep your small things organized. We’ve eliminated the side pockets, as we’ve found that they created a surprising amount of aerodynamic resistance. Without pockets, the handlebar bag actually improves the bike’s aerodynamics in most wind angles.
The elastic closures are easier to use than buckles: They can be opened with one hand. They also allow overstuffing the pockets and main compartment. The clear map case is a great place to keep your map, cue sheet, GPS tracker, or a photo that inspires you.
Loops for a carrying strap make it easy to take along your bag when you are parking your bike. We are using round loops, because D-shaped loops that tend to rotate until the flat part no longer lines up with the leather support. That’s one small detail of many: We’ve re-imagined every single part of these bags after many years and 10,000s of miles of experience.
The strap for the rack’s backstop doesn’t have a buckle. The clean look is nice, but more important is eliminating the rattling noise that comes with buckles.
The strap is adjustable via a hidden snap. Once you’ve set the diameter of the loop, you turn the strap until the snap is facing the bag, where it’s invisible. The strap adjusts to fit on rack backstops up to 60 mm wide.
A sleeve at the bottom of the bag (not shown) holds an (optional) strap to attach the bag to the rack. We’ve been using a shortened Voilé Rack Strap. This keeps the bag securely in place on rough terrain, yet the bag is easy to remove when we park our bikes: Just unhook the hooks from the rack.
These handlebar bags are designed to be supported by a front rack and attached to the handlebars with a decaleur. (There are also loops so you can attach the bag directly to the handlebars with straps, but you still need a rack.)
For the best aerodynamics and ergonomics, the bag should fill the space between the rack and the handlebars. There is no penalty for having a larger bag—most of the weight is in the leather edging and map case, not in the lightweight fabric that determines the height of the bag.
There are many great handlebar bags out there—in fact, we offer our Handlebar Roll Bags in three sizes, for bikes that aren’t designed specifically to accommodate a large front bag. We’ve designed the Cyclotouring and Ultralight Handlebar Bags from the ground up to optimize them for riding fast and far across varied terrain. Whether it’s touring to visit Japan’s famous Onsen hot baths or heading out to set an FKT in the Oregon Outback (above), these bags offer performance that’s been refined to the nth degree. They are made in the USA in small batches.
More information:
Photo credit: Rugile Kaladyte (Oregon Outback)
