Evolution
Four of the nine rando bags I’ve made (one of the other five is currently in pieces until I go out and get some new violently orange fabric for it, another – the first cordura bag I made for a Nitto F15 handlebar bag mount – is sitting in the mass of fabric and sewing bits that is my office, and the other three are no longer in my possession) over the past year and a half. Seven of those bags (starting with my original big rando bag) have been made since December 31st (when I realized that even though I had a rack, I didn’t have anything to put onto it and so couldn’t ride on the new years R200 that was being put on out on the west side) and I’ve finally started to get the production process down to the point where I don’t end up screaming and hurtling the half-sewn bag to the floor while I’m trying to sew the bias tape onto it.
I’m going to have to, sooner or later, buy or duplicate a Nitto front rack so I can have a fitting fixture that’s like 90% of the front racks out there. Right now I’ve just got photos of Nitto front racks with rulers photoshopped into them, and I’m absent-minded enough so that this isn’t the best way to do things.
My preference in fasteners keeps changing, too. Rando style is all for elastic cords and toggle fasteners, but I’ve found that elastic cords are really a pain to fasten when you’re threading them down between a decaleur and the handlebars (the MLCM has the handlebars placed much lower than the saddle, so there’s basically no room between my el-cheapo Velo Orange decaleur and the bars, plus toggle fasteners tend to rattle if they’re at all loose fitting when closed. So I’ve gone to adjustable sidelock latches instead, even on my historical reenactment fabric bags (I could use marine hardware, but (a) it’s hard to get and (b) it’s expensive!) and I’ll leave off revisiting that decision until a bunch of the bags have a few thousand miles under their belts.
And the newer bags are all lined; my prototype big rando bag isn’t, and the interfacing gets grubby really quickly and never really gets clean, even if I dump the bag into the wash. At least if the bags are lined (ripstop nylon is my lightweight liner of choice for the next six months or so :-) the lining will get all grubby instead.
Comments
Comments are closed
I like your bags, its nice to see someone else sewing. Someone emailed me your blog. Let me know if you ever want to talk on the phone about sewing stuff.
-Ely http://ruthworkssf.blogspot.com/