Frame bag for (very) small frame.

[whitestone]

In an attempt to make things a bit easier for Cath at the YD200 we went through quite a bit of rationalisation of gear. Being small she's always struggled to be able to get everything on the bike and has ended up with a pretty hefty backpack. She ended up with a Camelbak bladder inside a Wildcat Ocelot partial frame bag which while it worked had two disadvantages:

1. You can't see how much water you have left. When it's on your back you do have a bit of an idea that there isn't much weight there anymore.
2. Refilling is a pain.

Fitting a water bottle cage fills up most of her frame (Cotic Soul XS), there's definitely no room for the Ocelot as well. So looking at various sites I drew up a template as they suggest and did some measuring. Only one problem, not cost but time. She's wanting to use whatever we'd come up with for the Cairngorms Loop in three weeks' time. Not long enough to get a commercial custom frame bag. Make one ourselves?

Then I had a thought. I've an Alpkit Fuel Pod (medium size) that's meant to be a top tube bag but it looked like it would fit. Strapping it to the seat tube with the taller end by the bottom bracket it was a perfect fit! Slightly awkward to open because the zip pull is against the bottom of the bottle cage but since it's going to be for spares and tools that's not really an issue.

So not MYOG more "bodge your own gear" or "repurpose your own gear". I'll add a photo this evening.

[GregMay]

With note to filling water bag kept in frame bag:

Get a CB line splitter: https://www.merlincycles.com/camelbak-q ... hnEALw_wcB

Keep tube and line back into frame bag attached to bike all the time.

Split, take out bag, fill bag, replace.

It works well. Did it for all of the TDR with no leaks.

[whitestone]

As promised here's a couple of shots of the setup.



The water bottle is 500ml in size just for comparison. A strap around the top tube will help stability but we didn't fit it for this test.

[Bearbonesnorm]

Shame there's no cage mounts on the DT Bob or you could have secured it with those?

[whitestone]

Shame there's no cage mounts on the DT Bob or you could have secured it with those?

Cotics only have the one set of cage mounts - on the downtube. I have mentioned it to Si