When I rode from the Southern Sierra Nevada to Bend, OR last year, I had everything on the rear rack: two makeshift panniers plus a bear canister and my zlite. It worked but the weight distribution was terrible and accessing stuff was fussy.
Bikepacking rig 2023
For this year’s ride through Utah I wanted to base my setup on Tristan Ridley’s approach: a handlebar bag, a full framebag, and a 35L pack on top of the rear rack.
Bikepacking rig 2024: a vast improvement. The green bag holds food.
I decided to sew my own framebag, and for it to be rolltop. I almost always prefer ‘bomber’ over ‘performance’ and have an innate aversion to moving parts. Plus you can overstuff a rolltop in ways you can’t overstuff a zippered pack. And zippers break. “The top is open and just flops over to close” doesn’t break.
I started research with this tutorial on bikepacking.com, which is for a zippered framebag. I couldn’t find a tutorial for rolltops so I just gathered as many images of rolltops as I could find and figured it out myself.
I’ve only got two simple sewing projects under my belt (a bivy bag and tarp) and the seam geometry around the rolltop bent my brain. I eventually just started sewing the thing, trusting I’d figure it out as I went. (I also only had two afternoons to finish the project before we had to leave, so I was on a time crunch).
The tricky thing is that a rolltop framebag is different from a rolltop pack in that a framebag is more of a roll-side-top-thingy. It’s not as simple as the ‘top’ being open, because it’s actually the top right seam that’s open. There is a true ‘top’ to a framebag, the panel that runs along the top tube.
Anyway, figuring that out was a trick for me, exacerbated by the lack of images I could find. So, here are a few images of my framebag to help anyone else out.
I flop the rolltop over like this when riding so it doesn’t rub against my leg.
Some notes:
I regularly carried 5L of water in the framebag (3L dromedary plus two 1L water bottles) on top of a spare tube, water filter, my tarp, lube, pump, and a spare layer or two. Also, sometimes, a pack or two of tortillas. No problems having that much weight.
I flopped the rear end of the rolltop over the top tube, otherwise it rubs the inside of my thunder thigh.
Most rolltops use webbing straps with plastic clips to secure the top. I used paracord and trucker’s hitches just because that’s what I had on hand, and I think I prefer it. Simple, difficult to break, bomber, easy to replace, etc. It doesn’t look as clean but I’m not exactly trying to win Instagram, so, meh.
Many framebags have internal velcro fasteners to keep the bag from bulging. I didn’t have velcro, so I sewed some webbing loops inside just in case I needed them. I didn’t need them - even when I overstuffed the bag, it didn’t bulge in the middle enough to rub my legs.
Besides taking more care for tidier sewmanship, I wouldn’t do anything different. I really like how the framebag performed and I can’t think of any improvements I’d want to make.*
*If I regularly biked in rainy climates, I might want the fabric to be waterproof. My framebag is slashproof and actually did pretty well in moderate rain, but in steady heavy rain it soaked through eventually.