Vaude Silk Road Plus Rack-Top Bag
by Ted Johnson
I’ve had this Vaude Silk Road Plus Rack-Top Bag for several months, and it has totally become my manbag.
Clearly I’m not the guy you want to put in the spotlight to make cycling chic.
So, bike fashionistas, move on. It’s utilitarian time at Commute by Bike.
Both Silk Road models attach with Velcro, so the Silk Road Plus fits any rack I’ve ever tried. The little pop-down panniers are just big enough to be useful, but not so big that I have any heel-clearance problems when they’re on the rack of my folding bike.
The other day I found another opportunity to put my stepdaughter at risk on the Hebb e-bike. This time I had a helmet on her head, and I had her sit on the rear rack–exceeding the recommended weight limit for the rack.
But I had to figure out what to do with my rack-top bag. It turns out it can be a handlebar bag in a pinch.
All hail Velcro!
I even made an amateurish video about the bag back when we were preparing to go to Interbike last year. We were testing our new camera and microphone–not doing a real product review–and you get to hear me say voddie about 25 times as I mispronounce Vaude.
If you can trust these two Australians, it’s pronounced VOW-day:
Wow, I’m bummed. A month ago just bought a Topeak and had to buy a Topeak rack for it–actually, all I needed was the plastic strip that the bag slides into–I removed it from the Topeak rack and fastened it to my IRD Himalaya rack, but I had to buy the whole rack
Are the pannier bags big enough to hold an 8.5×11 folder/binder?
Are the pannier bags big enough to hold an 8.5×11 folder/binder?
Yes and no.
I have put manila envelopes of that size in the panniers, but wasn’t able to enclose them entirely and zip the pannier closed. It worked fine as long as I wasn’t going over serious bumps or otherwise tempting the contents to fly out.
OK, I feel better. I teach, and I really need to be able to carry papers with the zipper closed. I still wish Topeak would sell just the plastic strip their bags slide into…