Poor man's decaleur
 

Mrs non-fixie and I have been taking a liking to front bags recently, and with the number of bikes we're riding, we are short of decaleurs. In fact we have none.

I have been looking at them, and the ones commercially available are quite expensive and not very flexible. Switching them between bikes of different heights and stem lengths is a bit of a chore, if at all possible. And having a dozen or two made to measure is not really a viable option.

So I have been looking into making them myself, with my basic tools and my limited skills, and just before giving up I came across the Minoura SwingGrip. It has a useful length, swivels to accommodate different heights, mounts on the stem with a simple clamp and best of all, it is cheap.

So I bought two of them, as well as a length of aluminum tubing and a couple of plugs and got to work.

Before:

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...ae1fe54757.jpg

After:

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...ad90d2f5f9.jpg

Did a quick fit for size on a bike I am currently working on, and it fits nicely. I may have to enlarge the rear hole in the strut to accommodate the front brake cable:

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...b7bc338a4b.jpg

Well done! Similar design to what [MENTION=381793]gugie[/MENTION] makes though his are particularly/custom for the height of your bag, length of head tube, etc.

Nicely done non-fixie
Can you take a side shot of the front (full fork and bars) ?
Thanks

Nice! If the tubing diameter that your bag leather straps attach to is 16mm, Ortlieb pannier bag quick release hardware will clamp to it quite securely, yet easy to get on and off.

Thank you! But gugie 's racks are in a different league altogether. Maybe later, when I'm old and rich ... :)

There you go. Mind you, this is still very much work in progress. That horrible stem is just a placeholder and the racks are held in place by a only couple of bolts to see how things would fit.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...409f52b899.jpg

Thanks for that! Looks well engineered. The tubing I used is 15x1 aluminum, commonly used for curtain rods, I believe. But I don't think such a system would work very well with the hinge in this contraption, though. Anyway, I like the vintage look & feel of the leather the straps and buckles. :)

I do need a solution to keep the bag from sliding left and right. A couple of wraps of black cotton Velox bar tape will probably work to keep the straps from wandering about, but something in polished aluminum would be nice too.

A screw and nut going through the tube, butted against the leather straps on either end would do the trick. In my "Ortlieb hack" solution, the triangulation of the extensions is fairly wide, and the Ortlieb hooks can be adjusted so that they're right up against the tubing intersection, which stops the sliding action.

The piece I would add for peace of mind is a strut between the handlebars at the stem and the SwingGrip at the cross tube. I would feel far more comfortable hitting a bump or heave at speed. Even just a strap between the two would help but that would tend to want to pull the cross tube back and add some compression and upward bending to the SwingGrip.

I have bike that tends to speed wobbles; getting worse as I age and become more timid. I just purchased an Arundel HB bag; now strapped to the bars, to see if that will help. If so, I am looking a good decaleur. Bike's got a 1" threadless and minimum spacers, 120mm -17 stem. (I've never been fan of HB bags but if this works, I'm willing to change. I love this bike but I want the grin of the descent back!) I'm open to ideas.

That looks much better than what I did with similar parts and purpose:

https://live.staticflickr.com/4358/3...c4d94a99_c.jpg

Excellent suggestion. I like simple solutions. :) The straps actually fit fairly tightly, so something small should suffice.

I noticed that. Pretty neat!

The bag - at least the Ostrich examples we have - are secured to the rack with a strap, so bumps should not be much of an issue in this respect. The decaleur's function is mainly to keep it from toppling forward and swinging from side to side. Also, such a strut would have to be made to measure for each bike, which kind of defeats the purpose of this project.

Having said that, it will still need to be tested in practice. Not ruling out the strut just yet. ;)

Effective or not, I felt the screws that secure the hinge looked a little too cheap and modern:

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...8785c800c0.jpg

So I spent the better part of the evening rummaging through my boxes with leftover nuts and bolts looking for something a little more pleasing. I believe we're making progress: :)

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...21d0cff297.jpg

I know a guy...

Ahhh! My eyes!!

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:thumb:

good to see the ugly potence hath flown the coop! ;)

nice guidonnets; mrs. non-fixie is sure to like those :)

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https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...409f52b899.jpg

am i the only one or does anyone else wonder where non-fixie secures his seemingly endless supply of 49D's?

...or perhaps there are only two or three sets and he keeps moving them from progetto to progetto? :lol:

BTW - all best wishes per La Triumverata! :love:


Buon Natale

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Clever. I've used a couple of those swing grips. I like them, but it takes a while to put one on, and they don't hold up to many installations/removals.

I'll readily admit to liking the cinq vis concept, and the Stronglight 49D in particular. It has this angular vintage French industrial look while being one of the lightest cranks ever. I always keep an eye out for them, and manage to find just enough to feed my habit. :)

More often than not it means buying a bike, or what's left of it, like the latest set I found a couple of months ago. Luckily this one came attached to a rather nice frameset:

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...879f4f3614.png

I guessed as much, given the somewhat flimsy clamp design, but I hope that by just loosening it up a bit I can slide it off the stem and onto another one. We'll see. It was cheap enough to want to try it.

[MENTION=173992]non-fixie[/MENTION], I think you'll be fine. I can't remember what makes the problem. It might be that I broke or lost an essential part, and there are no replacement tiny bits. Overall, it's a very nice gadget. I wish they were longer.

Great adaptation! But I don’t understand how the aluminum bar attaches to the strut hardware. Any chance you could show a close up of that connection? It appears to utilize slotted openings to attach to the bracket, something more possible for more limited workshop equipment.

These are the original parts. The black plastic bit fits in the strut end and holds the 5mm bolt. This bolt threads into the rectangular plate which is placed inside the bar, behind the slot.

I reused all except the bar and the bolt. The new bar is a bit thinner at 15mm, and I found the original bolt hit the other side when tightened, so I ended up using a shorter one. I didn't bother with a slot in the new bar, I just drilled a 5mm hole in the middle.

As you can see on the left, the stem side can be turned 90 degrees for a horizontal mount on the bars instead of on the stem.

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...4c82a49c40.jpg

I ee the system now. How did you line up the backing plate with the 5 mm hole on such a long bar?

Good question. :)

I used the wedgebolt of a long stem, similar to the one you see in the later pictures, to hold the backing plate in place. Just because that's what I had laying in front of me. That worked well enough. A wooden chopstick or a pencil would work too, probably even better.

I totally understand. I really don't like obstructing the view of the ground directly in front of my front wheel, but I have to get some of the weight off of my rear wheel or my backpack. I really appreciate your post of the now proven modification...