I'm making a frame bag for my new (to me) mountain bike. It's a disk brake bike so I can't mount any decent racks to it without doing something that'll likely be annoying. (Or spending significantly more money on a rack than I'd like.) So I figured I'd try out a frame bag. Not wanting to buy one (I'd be very... very annoyed by the fact it wasn't made for this specific bike and only "kinda" fits) I'll make one. The sewing should be pretty easy.
Anyway, I've thought of a few features I'd enjoy and am implementing.
Outer U-Lock sleeve/pocket with velcro strap to hold the lock in place.
Two main compartment interior with an aluminum piece separating the two. The aluminum piece serves two jobs. One, it serves as a mounting place to screw into the bottle cage bosses on the downtube and seat tube and two, it serves as a stable shelf for the top compartment so that heavy things won't push down on the relatively fragile fabric compartment separator. I mainly did this because I wanted to store my chain lock in the bottom compartment and I didn't want it bouncing everywhere.
Lastly, I've implemented an small interior pocket for storing small items like tools and tubes. This pocket has a velcro closure flap.
The overall bag has two zippers, one following the top tube, the other at 90 degrees about 2 inches away from the seat tube. This will allow you to access both compartments individually and also fold the entire side of the bag out so you can access everything. I don't have waterproof zippers, so I'm just putting a flap over them (like in a winter shell/rain shell.) (And honestly chunky plastic zippers are better for this application. Less likely to get caught on things. I believe I have
#8 or
#10 zippers (BIG ass zippers, think duffel bag zippers.)
I'm using duck cloth for the outer fabric. Seeing as this is the first frame bag I'm making, I'm not going to spring for cordura or anything expensive yet. Maybe if I make another. I'm also lining the inside of the bag with wool (it's what I had and got it on sale) The bag needs a lining because I'm using interfacing to make the fabric less flexible, so the interfacing needs fabric on each side to hide it.
Is there anything else that you guys would put on a frame bag if you were to make one? I'm still in the cutting out fabric phase, so I can still make adjustments.
