Review: Ortlieb Compact Handlebar Bag

My 15 year old REI nylon handlebar bag finally gave up the ghost. My first instinct was to just buy another one, but REI in its infinite wisdom had stopped making it. Try as I might, I couldn't even find a reasonable replica on the internet. Fortunately, fellow cycle-tourist Pamela Blalock came to my rescue: she had previously upgraded her handlebar bag, and was now willing to give me her old Ortlieb bar bag for the price of postage.

The bag arrived, and I immediately mounted it onto the handlebars of the single and the tandem. It comes with a mounting kit that requires a pretty permanent screw on mount on every bike you use. The benefit is that it's an "easy on/easy off" system, not that the velcro on the old REI bag ever gave me trouble.

It's pretty waterproof, and much bigger than my old bag, with the issue that it no longer has a map case. The older REI bar bag's map case was pretty useless anyway, so I didn't miss it. I can stuff a cycling jacket, a pair of leg warmers, a cheap cable lock, alternate blades for my Oakley M-frames, and it would still all fit. I anticipate no problems stuffing other valuables like smart phones (the bag's waterproof, so even if your phone's not this would make the phone reasonably accessible), wallet or passports while touring, provided I moved items like the lock away. The idea is you can lock up your bike, remove the bar bag with your most valuable items, and eat lunch at a restaurant without worrying about the rest of your gear.

In practice, on particularly rough roads or off-road, the mount shifts a bit. Fortunately, it bottoms out against the head tube, so there's only so much it can descend. Even in this position, I can still get at it while riding. The velcro is kinda loose, but so far, I haven't lost anything from the bag yet, even when the flap flew open while the bike was on the rack of my car while going 65mph.

It came with a shoulder strap that Pamela said was useless, and indeed, it was pretty freaking useless. It's not even worth the weight of carrying it!

It's definitely lighter and higher quality than the other bags that I've seen. I'm not sure it's $50 better than the $20 bag I bought from REI 15 years ago, but to be honest those aren't made any more, so I'm not sure you could do better today.

Recommended.

Epilogue and Conclusion: Tour of the Alps 2014

It was a chore getting the bike box and my suit case back to David's apartment, so I was glad that Arturo came along to help. Packing the bike went easily, however. David brought us to his favorite restaurant in the area. It was strange having to cut back on the amount of food we consumed, since we were no longer going to be eating enough for 6000 calories per day.

That night, rain poured in Zurich, but the next morning it held off on the rain long enough for Arturo and I to get the bike box down to the street and for me to walk the 15 minutes to the Wetzikon train station towing the two suitcases. I took advantage of half-tax card one last time to buy a reduced fare card to the airport, then bought chocolate for Bowen and Xiaoqin back home. This time, my bike did not get lost in transit.

Arturo stayed in Switzerland for another week, hoping to climb the Matterhorn, but fresh snow prevented him from making the climb again. The day after I left, it poured again in Zurich, turning the Sihl into a torrent of water.

This trip was 1687.12km (1048 miles) and 32969.6m (108168 feet) of climb in 22 riding days, of which we had 3 days interrupted by weather and 1 day interrupted by a crash. We had 1 flat tire and1 mechanical due to a derailleur cable coming loose. My bike got lost in transit on the way to Zurich costing us a full day and a half of riding. In terms of mileage it far exceeded the benchmark 2007 tour despite us being weaker than the 2007 team because we had more riding days, but the toll of the years clearly left their mark: we did not do nearly as much climbing. We had much better weather as well,, having no days where we couldn't do any riding because of rain, snow, sleet, or hail. We explored new roads and found some new hotels that I thought were very exciting.

For Arturo, it was notably his first tour, and all through the trip, he was setting new records for longest day on the bike, furthest distance, most climbing, etc. He said that the first few days were terrifying as the descents were scary and the first climb up to Rosenlaui was surprisingly difficult. The biggest lesson for him, he said, was that cycling kills contact lenses. He brought what he thought were an excessive number of contacts,but wore through them so quickly that he was dangerously close to running out at the end. Hiking trips understandably do not expose your eyes to hours of 30mph winds, and despite his protective eyewear it simply wasn't enough. In the past, folks on my trips brought daily wear contacts, so didn't experience this as a problem. He also bonked multiple times on the trip, mostly because he simply wasn't used to having to eat the volumes of food necessary to fuel a cycling tour. Cycling is a deliberately inefficient activity: cyclists trade off fuel efficiency in favor of being able to ride faster all day, and if you're used to hiking having to eat the huge amounts of food just to keep going is not common. The jolting action of walking or climbing prevents you from being able to eat and digest the volumes of food that cyclists regularly down while touring.

I lost 5 pounds on the trip, but for the first time didn't lose strength, indicating that this time, either I ate enough or my metabolism had finally slowed to the point where I was no longer losing muscle by working this hard, or that the tour was indeed easier than in past years where I lost this much weight. Arturo lost 9 pounds. This was by far the best tour in recent years. I'd failed to replicate the 2007 tour in recent years because of weather conditions, and it was good to see that in good weather, this tour is just as pretty as I remembered it.

Few cyclists choose to ride the Alps the way we do, but the ones that do are rewarded by views of some of the most beautiful places on earth as well as the complete freedom to explore as the weather requires. The photos do not do it justice. You have to see it in person to understand.

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July 14th: Schlanders to Valdidentro

From Tour of the Alps 2014

We'd spent some time the night before looking at things to do in Merano in case the weather turned sour, but woke up this morning to sunny skies! I figured that the worst case scenario was that we ended up getting stuck at Trafoi or Hotel Franzenshoehe for the night, so there was no way we wouldn't ride today. Rather than return to the bike path where we left it the evening before, we simply rode out of town following road signs until we once again saw the bike path signs, which took us into the Stelvio national park. The popularity of this tourist route became evident soon, as water fountains, park benches, and bike stands liberally dotted the route. The first fountain we stopped at, however, was infested by bees, and unfortunately Arturo threw away his water before discovering that. This was easily fixed at the next fountain.

From Tour of the Alps 2014

I was concerned about leaving the bike path at the right place, since on the map the bike path did not appear to intersect with the Stelvio route. However, the bike path dumped us right onto the foot of the Stelvio climbs with no confusion, and after a stop to purchase lunch to carry up the mountain, we soon found ourselves climbing the 48 numbered hairpins on the Stelvio.

From Tour of the Alps 2014

Despite having ridden the longest ride of his life the day before, Arturo was now in his element. Thanks to a genetic mutation which meant that he had fetal red blood cells as well as adult red blood cells, he had a hematocrit level that was just below the legal maximum in racing. That meant that at altitude, his performance barely suffered, while mine took a hit. Thus as the rode rose above 1500m, he steadily pulled away from me, until he was at least a minute ahead by the time we got to the 22nd hairpin and it was time for lunch.

From Tour of the Alps 2014

We ordered coffee for me and a hot chocolate for Arturo, and then broke out the lunch we'd bought down below without guilt. The day look decent, and it looked like we would be able to summit, as opposed to having to stay at the hotel tonight. Some clouds looked threatening, but it was a far cry from the continuous rain the forecast had trained us to expect. After lunched we made our way up to the summit, all the way being passed by unloaded cyclists, many of whom would not have caught us if we'd been fully loaded.

From Tour of the Alps 2014

At the summit, we were greeted by the circus show that was the Stelvio summit, with multiple support vans waiting, a bank, several stores selling various paraphernalia, and unfortunately, dark clouds that signaled impending rain. We put on everything we owned, and then I started the descent, forgetting to take a summit photo for Arturo. It started raining heavily until I got down to the Umbrail pass intersection. It was still cold, so I kept everything on until I got all the way to the Bormio intersection, where I waited for Arturo. It was his second time coming down the mountain, so he didn't stop for photos nearly as often as before, so he made it down a mere matter of minutes after I did.

From Tour of the Alps 2014

We looked at the map and decided that we'd try to make it up Val Di Dentro as far as we could before the rain came down the mountain and overtook us. Every meter we climbed today would be one meter we wouldn't need to climb the next. After about 6km, we started feeling raindrops, so we stopped at the visitor center. We ended up picking Hotel Miravalle, which was in the right direction towards the pass tomorrow. We arrived at the hotel just as the rain was coming down. Despite the lack of negotiating leverage, we checked for bed bugs before putting our bikes away in the very secure bike storage.
"You realized something?" said Arturo, "We completely rescued an entire day of the tour. We were expecting to have to spend the day exploring Merano by train, and instead we got a full day of riding today." Looking at the map, I was elated to discover that the ride to Livigno and past it back into Switzerland the next day would consist of passes entirely new to me. With a dinner with generous portions, we went to sleep knowing we'd done the Stelvio the hard way the day following a very long day in the saddle. Whatever else happened, we'd become acclimated to cycle touring.

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