Saddlebags

What's in yours?

Over the weekend I spent a day with friends from a company with whom I do a lot of business.

At the end of the month they are riding from London to Paris to raise money for charity.

The aim of this get together was to provide an introduction to group

riding - preparation, awareness, communication, navigation etc. to try and minimise the issues they'll face over the 3 days of their ride

As you would expect, levels of experience and quality of equipment varied considerably.

One common factor in this kind of endeavour is the borrowed bike.

Generally, but not always, the bike's availability to be lent out

means that it isn't being used and may not have seen the light of day for sometime.

A rustic repair

To cut a very long story short, one rider (now universally known as

Banger) experienced a series of blowouts due to a perished sidewall

and corroded, detached bead.

It got to the point where I had to delve into the bottom of the bag

labelled desperate innovation and used old tyre, gaffer tape and cable ties to get him through the last 10 miles. Another experienced rider provided the tape while the rest of the kit came out of my saddlebag.

A number of people have been surprised I had cable ties in my bag. I am surprised they are surprised -  which made me realise saddlebag contents, beyond the obvious basics, are very personal and built up over years of bad experience.

With this in mind, I thought it useful to share the contents of my

bag. Following the experience of this weekend, I will be adding a

small roll of gaffer tape to this list.

Tyre lever

Inner tubes

Old sunglasses bag to store the tubes

Pump

Patches

CO2 inflator

2 x CO2 cartridges

2 x lengths of old tyre rubber

Cable ties

Topeak multitool- I like the Allen keys on this one

Knog multitool - I like the chaintool and bottle opener on this one

15mm spanner for single/fixed issues

2 x small Victorinox Swiss Army knives (I didn't realise there were

two until I emptied the bag)

A short length of chain

Connex quicklink (in an old patch box)

And it all fits in a large Topeak saddlebag. This bag has definitely seen better days and needs to be replaced before I start spreading the contents of my bag around the lanes of Essex. If I remember correctly,

it was a Christmas present in 2009 so it hasn't done badly...