Another seat bag revision

Well, the R&D saga continues with yet another revision to the seat bag design. I've lost count of the pattern and concept revisions. This time I took the huge seat bag pattern and trimmed a little off the nose area, then added gripper fabric to the velcro. A few little other tweaks finished it out. The initial impression - after a 3 mile singletrack night ride and a photo op this morning, is that this is the best one yet. Holds more stuff than the others, doesn't wiggle quite as much, and fits a thudbuster post. I still tapped the seat bag on the tire on one bump though, so clearance is a little more limited than on the smaller bags, but it still fits on my Fisticommuter over the OMM Sherpa rack.

It is made with Dimension Polyant VX21 fabric, tough gripper fabric under the seat rails and around the seat post, a 1/8" plastic framesheet, really fat thread, and a bit of reflective tape so the bag doesn't get ruined by some inattentive motorist.

One of these days I'll get some packing peanuts and figure out volume on the little bag pattern and this pattern...... but right now, I have stuffed in there, an old Golite Coal polarguard jacket, a fleece vest, a homemade Primaloft vest, long underwear bottoms, homemade windcoat and windpants, and maybe a Golite Virga rain shell.

But, I'll need to ship this one out soon and refrain from riding it more, as it will probably end up riding a whole lot of dirt soon.

Another full kit to crank out this weekend, then a casual hiking overnighter with some good friends in this area. Hopefully it will actually remain casual (none of the pictured talus ridge action) as my tendonitis likes rough hiking worse than biking..... but it is time to gently test out the hiking legs again.

And, here's what we're working on at the day job:

Alpine Trail

A couple years ago, I got tipped off to the Alpine Trail by another poster in Mike Curiak's classic trip report "Big", and finally got around to riding it. I started Friday night and got back to the car on Sunday morning.

knee deep stream crossings and bike pushing through willows..... a great way to wake up.

The Alpine Trail is dirt bike legal, so there are a TON of rocks on the trail....... consequently, there was a TON of hike a bike. I probably pushed for 90% of both big climbs.....

the descents were also rather rock filled and bone jarring.....

There's a Beaver Lake nature center near home where I've done a lot of running and skiing - so had to take a picture.

the original plan was to go out and back on the Alpine Trail, but I really didn't feel like repeating all that gnarly hiking, so took the Cimmaron road past Silver Jack reservoir out 21 miles to Highway 50.

Ice Cream and running water really hit the spot on such a hot afternoon.

yet another climb. this one was only 4 miles long.

got off pavement after about 10 miles and took the Alpine Plateau road for another 15 miles (all uphill) or so before finding a camp site. There was no water, but was a fire ring, to warm my leftover pasta and roast marshmallows!

sheep are cute - but not when they're upstream of my water supply. good thing I didn't get that water.

This is the hardest I've pushed the tendonitis/muscle strain in my left calf, and after about 90 miles and 8,000 feet or more of climbing, it doesn't feel too bad. But the ice pack sure feels good.

Crazy Time

Well, it's been a busy few days. Thursday and Friday night 2 seat bags got made, Saturday a huge Fargo bag and a bar bag were born, then Sunday and Tuesday night a full kit was finished up.

we're also running bonkers on the day job: working maintenance-construction for Camp Redcloud. Here's one of our three big projects. The other two are a bath house and a yurt.

but I did have time to sneak in a ride up Cinnamon Pass on Saturday morning, and a ride to church and back on Sunday.

Good thing I like to make stuff.......

Tis The Season!

Well, more thread is in - 3 spools each having 4 ounces of thread, black 1000 Denier Cordura is in for frame pack tube panels and reinforcements, gripper fabric is in for seat bags, everyone's asking for rush orders, and I need to move my sewing room..............

Destructive Testing

So today I had some fun with fabric scraps. I made a bunch of little stitched loops, clipped a piece of webbing into them and stood on it to see how strong it is with different stitch patterns. Most loops failed with the fabric breaking at the first line of stitching. Every method took at least body weight. The strongest method was a loop of VX42 with two lines of stitching parallel to the loop's plane - the fabric broke under a fairly hard bounce test.

And since I didn't take any pictures, here's some test engineering footage from a homemade climbing cam I made a couple years ago.

I made a 7" cam with 3/4" 7068 T6 Aluminum axle to break as proof of concept before spending time on the nice refined 8 1/2" monster cam.

The 7" cam pulled out above 14 kN.

There's just something really fun about destructive testing.....

Where'd all that thread go?

Well, I've gone and about sewn myself out of thread again........

But at least I got a lot done this week.

Bar bag, 2 bags for Niner Air Nine Carbon medium frames, and a bag for a sick Vulture Cycles titanium break away do everything bike. Lots of features on each bag, and hopefully they'll all get beaten good and hard real soon.

Thanks everyone for your support.

I suppose its time to get some more Dabond T-70 Polyester Thread:

From the description page

"Polyester thread looks, feels, and performs like nylon thread but has superior resistance to sunlight (UV), moisture and mildew. This makes polyester thread the first choice for sewing, binding or wrapping anything that is consistently used outdoors or in moist areas.

Size 69 is a light-to-middle weight polyester thread used for sewing awnings, banners, flags, patio furniture, sails and tents. Tensile strength is 11 pounds. Noticeable stitching. Use with either a home or commercial sewing machine. This is the heaviest size that most home sewing machines can use. Use a size 16 or 18 needle. Thread diameter - 0.01 inches."

For years I've used thinner polyester thread from www.thru-hiker.com, and have almost sewed through a second 6,000 yard cone..... but for bikepacking stuff its nice to get something beefier. I've used the thru-hiker thread for everything from primaloft pants to tarps to aid climbing ladders without it ever complaining, so the bigger thread should be even more reliable.

A great way to celebrate the 4th

Make something in the U.S.A.

The day off on Monday was leveraged to good purpose by sewing all day long. I was able to plow through 2 multi-featured packs, one for a Surly Troll, the other for an Air Nine Carbon.

The grey Troll pack is the second panel loader I've made (they're just so great for finding stuff!) and also has a full panel map pocket on the left, reflective tape, and a hydration tube porthole.

The Air Nine Carbon pack has VX21 side panels to save a bit of weight, tapered front for more volume in a small frame opening, two compartments, padded down tube and seat tube, a hydration porthole, and left map pocket.

No wonder they took so long...... you guys are getting serious deals, but thanks for the practice.

I spend the weekend helping guide rock climbing camp to a secret climbing location a friend and I developed and just recently got permits for guiding. (My summer job is working maintenance at Camp Redcloud).

It is a great spot to explore! I actually managed 3 trad leads, 2 of routes I know well, and a short but kinda scary first ascent.

Here's a few more pics from the area:

hanging off a junky knifeblade piton in homemade aid ladders

the rack for "Offwidth of Doom" (5.10) - 3 #6 camalots, 3#5 camalots, 3 #4 camalots (only needed 1?) and a couple normal pieces for the start.

Anyway, I was reminded how scary climbing is - especially rappelling...... and thus how biking is superior for mortal man.