Re: bike messenger bags? - Cycling Mob: Road Cycling, Mountain Biking and More

08-27-2004, 12:56 PM

I've been riding with my circa 1995 timbuktu bag quite a long time and
I like it a lot.

Backpacks can be dangerous on a bike -- they tend to flip back and
forth in time with my cadence and really mess with my balance. If you
wear a courier bag properly it wont turn around. I think that most
people wear them too low on their backs. I wear mine so that the bag
itself goes over my left shoulder a little bit. The other big
advantage of a bag, in my opinion, is that it doesn't try to flop over
your head when you are down in the drop bars. A backpack with any
weight tends to work its way up to rest on my head, while my bag,
cinched just right, stays put.

If you go for a timbuktu bag, be sure to put a d-ring in the strap loop
under the buckle... it makes it much easier to tighten the bag up in
the saddle.

The one downside of wearing my bag this way is that it blocks a bit of
my over the left should visibility, but not in a terrible way.