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05-25-12, 04:03 PM
My Topeak bike basket is dead. The metal mesh is starting to rust out and develop severe tears, after about 4 years, 5000 miles, and living in a garage except when I ride my bike. I'm kind of cranky about it, because that's not the kind of durability I wanted. To me, 10-15 years is a reasonable minimum lifespan for a heavily used backpack... and I can't see why a basket should be less durable.
The replacement is a Detours Alki Beach basket. It's new, and a sadly rather confusingly marketed item. The Detours item is not quite what I'd call a bike basket, and not quite what I'd call a handlebar bag. It has design elements from both, and this causes me to have some hope that it will be more durable and suitable for my purposes. The marketing also leans heavily on the fantasy a lot of 35-60 year old women seem to have of biking to le boulangerie et le marche and then heading off for a picnic and being super duper European and bikey and not running into problems from biking in high heels and and and :P. It's all kind of squicky.
Thankfully, the basket itself is not. There's a sturdy (and perhaps needlessly heavy) steel hoop to serve as the basket's frame. Then a bag zips around the frame, with a proper zipper flap, a good quality zipper, and some velcro reinforcement on the flap. The bag's fabric is sturdy, the stitching is good, and the quality compares favorably with any number of good backpacks. The whole design seems well thought out and well suited to repair.
The handlebar mount is plastic (boo) but is easier to install than my Topeak mount (yay!) and it is far more stable and secure. The Topeak basket caused my front wheel to flop at any hint of an opportunity and a lot of anti-hints. So far, I've found that the Detours basket and mount don't instantly cause flopping issues.
My one concern is since it's a solid fabric design, stores I shop at might prefer that I not put my items directly into my basket. It's reasonable that stores want to have some way of watching what all I pick up so they can be sure I pay for it, and my Topeak basket was see through like a regular grocery basket. I'll be asking a few local stores that I know have had shoplifting problems to look at it so I know whether they agree with me or not. If they'd rather I use their baskets tho, the Detours basket collapses nicely, so it should be fine to bring it in and squish it into their basket.
The replacement is a Detours Alki Beach basket. It's new, and a sadly rather confusingly marketed item. The Detours item is not quite what I'd call a bike basket, and not quite what I'd call a handlebar bag. It has design elements from both, and this causes me to have some hope that it will be more durable and suitable for my purposes. The marketing also leans heavily on the fantasy a lot of 35-60 year old women seem to have of biking to le boulangerie et le marche and then heading off for a picnic and being super duper European and bikey and not running into problems from biking in high heels and and and :P. It's all kind of squicky.
Thankfully, the basket itself is not. There's a sturdy (and perhaps needlessly heavy) steel hoop to serve as the basket's frame. Then a bag zips around the frame, with a proper zipper flap, a good quality zipper, and some velcro reinforcement on the flap. The bag's fabric is sturdy, the stitching is good, and the quality compares favorably with any number of good backpacks. The whole design seems well thought out and well suited to repair.
The handlebar mount is plastic (boo) but is easier to install than my Topeak mount (yay!) and it is far more stable and secure. The Topeak basket caused my front wheel to flop at any hint of an opportunity and a lot of anti-hints. So far, I've found that the Detours basket and mount don't instantly cause flopping issues.
My one concern is since it's a solid fabric design, stores I shop at might prefer that I not put my items directly into my basket. It's reasonable that stores want to have some way of watching what all I pick up so they can be sure I pay for it, and my Topeak basket was see through like a regular grocery basket. I'll be asking a few local stores that I know have had shoplifting problems to look at it so I know whether they agree with me or not. If they'd rather I use their baskets tho, the Detours basket collapses nicely, so it should be fine to bring it in and squish it into their basket.