gaz said:
How much can you fit in the barley comfortably?
I will be looking at using it daily with a shirt, socks and underwear, with the need for some space incase i need to carry extra clothing.
As I see it, a 'day bag' and a 'riding to work' bag have different requirements, don't you think? With a 'day bag', you wouldn't need to carry clothes etc, so in theory you shouldn't require as much space?
But using mine as my "riding to work" bag, I tend to keep a few days worth of shirts at work, so I do not need to carry these all of the time.
So on a normal day, its underwear, socks, two lots of sandwiches, cereal bar, yougat, fruit, Goretex Pac-Lite, ID lanyard, rather a large bunch of house keys, work keys, arm warmers, pair of lightweight woollen gloves, Multi tool, 2 x Park tyre levers, 2 x inner tubes, Quick Link, 2 x mobile phones, (ones mine, ones work) wallet and finally some loose change. I have still got room, if required to fit in a rolled up polo shirt if required?
But a big plus with the Barleyman, it has half a dozen little "D" rings on the top. So "if" in the event you do need to carry more stuff, and I have in the past, just attach to the top of the bag. The Pendle does not have these little "D" shaped attachment hoops.
As for the saddlebag support/carriers, well by far the better option IMHO is to fit a rack. But personally I hate the look of them, despite how practical they are! When I first went down the saddlebag route, I bought one and fitted it.
I absolutely hated the look of it, and there was no way that it was going to removed or refitted quickly, or without doing some damage to the paintwork at some point.
So it didn't even remain on the bike for an hour, before it was off and on e-bay.
I really wanted some thing that could be fitted and removed without any hassle, so when the weekend came it could be removed.
I then looked at the SQR mounting with a great deal of interest, but as all my bikes have carbon seat posts, I was worried about the possible damage it "could" cause by keep fitting/removing it.
So that was the reason behind my choice of the Q/R Bagman Sport, and I have to say that I have been 100% happy with it ever since. Apart from the day when it fell off, due to design fault, which has since been rectified by Carradice.
The two little grub screws had nothing to purchase on, so the stainless steel bar section simply slid out! Basically, all you need to do is to either "spot drill" or even centre punch where the grub screws locate on the ss bar.
The Q/R Bagman support takes seconds to fit it to any of my bikes, and does just exactly what it says it can do. Then just as quickly, its removed so that the bike goes back to looking normal again.