aka a stretch and some new skills
A friend recently posted that she had started making themed bracelets as an outlet for creative energy. I’d recently been in a bit of a creative slump (read: unmotivated), so I messaged her to ask if she’d like to do a swap. Bar bag for bracelet. She said yes.
We went back and forth a bit on logistics. I just wanted to nail down color and size/shape preference before getting to work. Her primary ride is a sweet thing in royal blue. She indicated a preference for something loud, like hot orange or pink. I procured some Challenge EPX200 in “bright orange” and some 210D HDPE Gridstop in “Burnt Orange” from RBTR and presented those as options to her, in addition to some Fuschia EPX200 I’d already gotten to make into a half-frame bag for the woodlands.
She chose the blaze orange EPX200 and I got to work. I also bought some royal blue webbing to serve as a mounting/lashing point and some blaze orange grosgrain to use as pull tabs.
The biggest challenge in construction of this bag was going to be the round ends. For a while, I’d shied away from making things which required sewing round pieces, because I was intimidated. On this project, however, I decided to dive right in. I looked at Tim from LearnMYOG’s tutorial on YouTube and got cracking. I also surprised Krysta with a light blue lining to improve waterproofing and overall feel as well as stretch side pockets made of a fun, floral lycra print I’d picked up a while ago at my local fabric outlet.
I went with a fairly standard construction with no stiffener. Krysta had said that her main requirement for the bag was that it hold gummy worms. One #5 YKK aquaguard coil zip on top. A piece of webbing running parallel to the zipper serves as the mounting point, where straps can run through to mount it to the bars. I also used some Lawson’s Glowire with the spectra inner strands removed as zipper pulls. I like to remove the metal pulls because they tend to rattle around on the bike. No interior pockets, no key ring. Simple and clean. I’m super pleased with the way it turned out.
I’m still waiting for my bracelet.
Elliot DH 