Sewing Bicycle Bags

When Mark and I bought our tandem we briefly consider purchasing custom frame bags to use the bike’s double sized frame as storage. After a little thought and reflection on cost we realized that we would be better off sewing the bags ourselves. I had sewn my own tarp for backpacking and had a little bit of sewing experience. Mark had no sewing experience, but I was confident that he would be a quick learner.

I was first inspired to sew my own gear when I read Ray Jardine’s Trail Life, an informational book about long distance hiking. Jenny and Ray Jardine sell patterns for a variety of backpacking gear and it is one of there patterns that I used to make my tarp. Making custom frame bags would mean that I had no pattern, but lots of flexibility to choose materials and to make bags that fit our needs. This flexibility meant quite a bit of trial and error for us, but has resulted in a largely successful introduction into making our own bags.

The first decision was choosing what time of material we wanted to use. We were inspired by Oveja Negra a company out of Salida, CO that makes bike bags. Based on what we saw in their bags, we chose to use VXpac 21, a relatively light but tough fabric. This fabric is also waterproof and very abrasion resistant, so it is great for our purposes. We chose some fun colors from a company based out of Loveland, CO called Rockywoods. We also ordered big plastic YKK zippers and designed a simple attachment system using webbing double-backed over a plastic loop. We are still happy with all these selections, although the application of the zippers and attachment points has taken some refinement.

I read a lot of different blogs and articles about sewing bike bags too. There were quite a few helpful instructional posts and blogs that provided most of the groundwork for designing our bags.

When we started sewing our bags, we were using an old sewing machine passed on from one of our friends. She described the machine as running hard, and while it ran slightly smoother with a good cleaning and some lubricant, we were running into quite a few problems with it. We thought about taking it to a sewing and vacuum shop in Denver, but we found ourselves frustrated by the seemingly unreasonable price for even looking at the machine. They also wouldn’t sell us any parts to service it ourselves. For a little while we kept working through the quirks of the machine, but eventually Mark hit a breaking point and started shopping for a different sewing machine on Craigslist. Thank goodness he did! For $40 he found a fifty year old Singer that is incredible. This new-to-us machine sews through multiple layers of thick fabric with ease and the all metal components are a testament to its durability.

Once we were up and running with a more efficient sewing machine I was able to spend more time thinking about design and appearance. The quality of our products has improved greatly from our first bag to my current sewing projects. For me, the most challenging part of the design has been perfecting the zipper. Much to Mark’s amusement, I have spent hours ripping out seems and trying different techniques to make effective zipper panels, sewing in different stop ends and trying out different widths between the zipper teeth and the start of the fabric. While I concede this endeavor is often tedious and sees only marginal performance improvements, I have taken great joy in sewing increasingly improved zipper panels.

Sewing our bicycle frame bags consists of roughly 9 steps

1. Make cutout that fits inside desired frame space
2. Add 1/4″ seam allowance and mark out pattern on fabric
3. Mark locations for zipper and attachment points
4. Cut fabric (this step always feels especially tedious to me because if I’m not paying close attention I usually make mistakes)
5. Cut zipper materials and attachment webbing; singe any raw nylon edges to prevent fraying
6. Sew zipper panel (probably rip seams and sew again if you’re Nic and you’re trying a new technique)
7. Sew in bar adjacent panel attaching webbing as you go
8. Sew in other side of the bag attaching adjacent webbing
9. Big reveal! Turn bag inside out to see finished product

This is more or less our process for every bag, and while we have yet to test them out on an overnight tours, they have already been quite effective hauling snacks, extra layers, and an extensive repair kit on our longer rides. Sewing these bags has been fun and really rewarding, we look forward to stitching together another set for our next tandem!