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Revelate Designs buyers guide
Revelate Designs have done a lot of the thinking for you when it comes to bikepacking gear. Their thoughtfully designed systems suit a wide range of bikes & ride requirements.
If you’re considering a gravel race where you only have space for a bivvy and snacks, Revelate have a bag for you. Or perhaps you are planning a 12 day trek where you will be unsupported & need a lot of gear. There’s a Revelate bag for that too.
How to choose a frame bag
It helps to break down your trip into the things you need to carry. If you are planning to stay a few nights, and need to carry enough water to tide you over between camp sites. Or need to carry cooking water with you too, then you need to be thinking about your frame bag.
Revelate make frame bags that fill your full triangle like the Ripio (suits gravel bikes) or Ranger (suits mountain bikes). So you can carry a hydration bladder inside the frame bag and run a hose up to your handlebars for easy access.
The Tangle & the Hopper are half frame bags that won’t take the entire triangle. So that you can still use the water bottle cages in your frame, if you have them. This is often the better choice for gravel races or rides where you aren’t carrying too much to begin with.
Which saddle bag do you need?
Once you have your water sorted, a great space allocation on your bike is under your saddle. Revelate have perfected the 2 options when it comes to saddle bags. One which remains on your bike as a traditional seat-pack (the Spinelock), and one that is effectively a shell housing a dry bag which can be removed (the Terrapin). Allowing you to carry your gear into your tent or your hotel. For this reason, packing your clothes into your saddle bag is a great idea.
The Terrapin System comes in both 8L & 14L capacities. Meaning you can carry a full winter kit in your dry bag, and a sleeping bag too. While the Spinelock saddle bag is designed to be entirely removed from the bike. The mounting method is, as the name suggests, a locking mechanism. The upper part of the locking mechanism attaches to the saddle rails and remains fixed on your bike. And a pin is removed from the mechanism to unlock the Spinelock from the saddle. This means that the Spinelock is incredibly secure when attached to your saddle. And always goes back on the same way after removal. This reduces the ‘sway’ that can sometimes be felt by a fully packed saddle bag.
Are handlebar bags good?
When it comes to carrying bikepacking gear on your bike, a handlebar bag is a great place to start. Because all bikes, whether flat bar or drop-bar will have space for you to install a handlebar roll. So even if you have a small frame, a Revelate handlebar bag will fit! There are two different styles of handlebar bag from Revelate, the modular system & the one-piece system.
The modular handlebar system from Revelate is the Harness. The Harness is easily installed on your handlebars as a ‘shell’ or a mount that you can then strap & ratchet things into. Things like your dry bag, sleeping mat, jacket, or anything you need. The Harness is a fantastic solution for those who already have a good idea of what they want to carry on the front end of the bike. Or who maybe already have a dry bag that fits perfectly between the hoods of their gravel bike. If this is you, the Harness is a strong & reliable, grippy mount that can be trusted to hang on to your gear in the roughest terrain.
We highly recommend the Harness for your set-up if you don’t already have a system in mind, for its durability & flexibility. The Revelate Harness has a stabilising effect on the handling of your bike. As the added weight gives a less ‘twitchy’ feel to your steering. This is great for technical riding, but its also a good addition to the long flat rail trail rides. Where ‘pushing’ the weight of your bike rather than ‘pulling’ weight on the rear end (like on a rack) can feel easier.
Lightpacking – what is ultra light bikepacking?
Our friends at Revelate Designs are always on the cutting edge of the bikepacking scene. Which makes sense, they make all the gear for the rides.
But the latest iteration of the adventure cycling scene is Lightpacking. We love this idea.
There see two camps when it comes to bikepacking, the folks who take everything but the kitchen sink. In the ‘just in case’ category. And then conversely the bikepackers who start progressively removing gear from their bags as the set-off day gets closer. Until finally they leave with as little as possible. We have one or two of each of these kinds of bikepackers in our Abbotsford Cycles team, so we can see the good & bad on both sides.
The Lightpacking ultra-light bikepacking is an interesting spin on the audax & ultra cycling style of carrying your necessary bits but ensuring they are as minimal and compressible as possible.
Revelate of course have a design for this kind of ride, they have the Shrew, which is a perfect sized seat bag for you to carry back-up clothes but nothing too huge. Revelate also have the Sweetroll & Egress Pocket for a minimal handlebar set up, that still allows you to carry JUST what you need. And closing out the lightpacking bikepacker set up there is the Mountain Feedbag. The Mountain feedbag is a bit of a universal carrier for your cockpit, you can easily cram a phone, a water bottle, a pile of snacks, your power bank or whatever odd thing you find that won’t easily fit amongst your other kit. Hanging two Mountain Feedbags is also a nice symmetrical solution for a very light bikepacking set up that’s light on the eyes too.
