{} .a Transcontinental Race – bar / saddle bags. {}

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Rapha designer and 2012 24hr TT Champion Ultan Coyle asked me to produce a set of units for the 2015 Transcontinental Race he’s competing in, the race from Flanders – Istanbul. http://www.transcontinental.cc/. We had about 6 weeks to turn it round. As it turned out not enough time to dwell on the finish but at the last recorded Transcontinental reportage it seems the design held firm through the descent of Col D’Assettia and a Montenegrin taxi strike.

If and when Ultan returns I may get the opportunity to better finish the bags and take some better images.

The brief included two units – a front unit to hold: iphone6 / dynamo power storage units / map cards / USB transformer / gloves / gels etc. And a rear unit to hold mechanical’s, tubes, multi-tool etc – also ideally an overnight bag to specifically hold: bivi / coat / sleeping mat / toothbrush etc. The bottom section depicted here is bolted onto the seat stays but other than the Velcro straps the top unit is only mechanically locked onto the frame via a locking slid mounted on the lid.

Specialized were happy to sponsor Ultan with the new TT Shiv model but as the bike didn’t come through in time Ultan thankfully allowed me to crack on and design the units for his Trek Speed Concept instead.

The  front and rear units would be home to:

Front – iphone / dynamo battery / map cards / gloves / front light etc. Rear (bottom)  – mechanical, tubes etc, (top) – Bivi / coat / sleeping mat / rear light.

We began with a few templates and sketches that were determined by the dimensions of specific contents and aerodynamic fit to the frame. A card template was cut and married to the frame so we could better imagine the final design.

The rear unit/s.

The front unit.

The pattern was made using various densities of uni-mould foam that get sanded to the required shape. The skeleton foam is denser than the grey foam and resists over-sanding. The pattern is then coated in body filler that’s sanded and then primed with several layers of pattern coat primer. Finally the pattern get several layers of release wax before the mould can be cast. I formed this unit as one and then cut it into the two separate units.

The above pattern was for the Tri bar clamp.

Next was to generate the moulds. The unit were divided using acrylic sheets into isolated sections that would make up the split moulds. In the blow image a two part mould for the front unit, the two sides of the bar bag, the other units were made as three part moulds.  The first stage once the acrylic sheet is in place, was to apply a thick black gel coat painted on to the unit to form the detailed surface layer of the mould. Multiple layers of fiberglass are then added to give the mould it’s strength.

In addition to the basic units I had to come up with a way to connect and lock the rear units together to stop them from swinging around or knocking the seat post on those alpine gravel roads. The solution… as the two unit are braced onto the frame the depicted slider mechanically locks itself together.

I then produced the wet lay up and bagged the mould to create the units.

The units were trimmed, the release agent removed and a finish applied.

To generate the lid of each unit, after the moulds were formed, I bagged the patterns once more with carbon laid up only around the lid area and cut the lids to size. The bottom lid slides onto the unit and is held in part mechnically and also by the locking screw at the rear.  The lid to the top rear unit was hinged with this 7g barrel hinge. In 7g I managed to sqeeze a Kevlar reinforcement, carbon pivot and Teflon washes.