burghboy

I have been commuting for a while and for most of that time I have been taking my dress clothes in on driving days and then biking the rest of the week. However, I recently solved my problem of how to carry dress clothes and/or suit with me without too many wrinkles.

Background: I have ridden a road bike with a rack, but too many close calls on busy streets with cars has made me change to a mountain bike. Currently, I have not put a rack on the mountain bike and I see that as the next step, as of right now I am backpacking my gear. I have tried more than a few bags meant for suits but most of them were too heavy and the weight of the bag was enough to wrinkle my work clothes.

My solution is not perfected but it works so I wanted to share it. I have not tested this in rain, but the worse case scenario is that I add a trash bag to the outside for water protection.

I take a light weight suit bag (nylon or similar) that has no pockets or anything. The bag is just the thin material, with a zipper for the side and a loop on the bottom so that the bottom is attached to the top to essentially fold the bag in half. I put all of my other gear in my backpack and any backpack will do. I fold the suit bag in half by putting the bottom loop on the bag around the hanger hook part. I use a carabineer to attach the hangers of the dress clothes to the top of the backpack (my backpack has a handle at the top between the top of the two should straps). I attach the carabineer through the triangle part of the hangers not the hook part so that they don’t fall.

In order to secure the sides of the suit bag to the backpack I rigged up a solution. This will definitely be improved in the future. I attach a carabineer to the bottom of each of the shoulder straps and use that to attach each carabineer tp a large binder clip (office supply). I clip the binder clip to the suit bag on each side and I make sure that I only clip the bag and none of the clothes on the inside. In the future, I plan to sew a couple of small loops to the suit bag so that the carabineer can be clipped directly to the bag.

The benefits are that the suit bag and the clothes inside hang freely. There is no folding pattern that I have to do just right. I am posting this in case it might help another commuter. Granted it does not look that great, but right now functionality is desired over form. In the future, I plan to rig a custom rack so that the suit bag and then a pannier go on either side of a rack and off of my back.

misterE0

cool...a friend of mine wants to try commuting, but has the same dress clothing issues. The Nashbar pannier garment bag looks interesting.

mdiluca

could you post a photo of your set up as i am interested too?

as

mdiluca

for the nashbar panniers bag it is not even close as large to place
a suit in it

ews

1. Eagle Creek packit folder = no wrinkled shirts.
2. Leave suits at work.

DallasSoxFan

I had the nashbar garment pannier for a day and returned it after I figured out a way to use my car as a closet that I keep parked at work.

Anyway, the Nashbar bag is actually pretty nice, but it is a tight fit for my 43L suits. You can make it work, but you have to be very careful about packing it. You have to fold the suit arms over, the bottom of the jacket has to be folded in or up, and you have to be careful when zipping.

If I didn't have the luxury of keeping my car garaged at work overnight, I probably would be perfectly happy using it.

chingon77

These look pretty cool. I'm interested in getting one of these as my job requires different outfits, usually 1-3 per day. Usually one outfit is a suit. I'm guessing the Packit folder 18 would do the job.