The Hunt for the Perfect Bike Bag

Being a woman living in Seattle, with a bike as your only mode of transportation, can be hard: rainy days, asshole drivers, lugging your daily essentials on your back as you knife through traffic, just trying to make it to your destination alive.

Hello, I’m Ariel Wickham Earnhardt, though my friends call me Earl, and I’m a recent graduate of Industrial Design. I drink scotch neat, jam on vintage bikes, sport an entirely black wardrobe, collect bones, sketch vivaciously, and am on the perpetual search for the perfect carry.

“Since I ride wherever I go, the relationship between me and whatever bag I own is a very intimate one. I need it for EVERYTHING EVERYDAY”

Since I ride wherever I go, the relationship between me and whatever bag I own is a very intimate one. I need it for EVERYTHING EVERYDAY. I’m always searching for the right pack for me, but being a girl, with my style, can make it hard. In this hunt I’ve found three main issues which have hindered me in finding my ideal pack.

First problem: Performance and Appearance

As a cyclist living in the city (even a city as laidback as Seattle) there is still a certain city “attire” you feel the need to keep up. Especially if you want to avoid looking like a lycra clad roadie. And while there’s no shame in that look (I myself suit up for long rides) it’s just that look isn’t for everyone, everyday. The everyday Jane who just wants to be a bad ass cycling commuter who is presentable at her destination.

Wanting to avoid this particular appearance was my first challenge in finding the right form of carry.

In addition, being a bit of a bike snob means that I want, no NEED, my carry to match the aesthetic of my bike. Here she is, check it.

Beautifully lugged vintage Ishiwata 022 steel frame, hand-built from a small company so hipster that no bike mechanic has heard of it, Brooks saddle and full campy components, save for the Mavic Open Pro rims…bored yet? Okay, I’ll shut up about the bike and get back to bags.

“I need a bag that is versatile in both appearance and performance”

I need a bag that is versatile in both appearance and performance. It needs to hold up to the elements, carry anything from groceries to laptops and books, yet still match my aesthetic.

Not knowing the brands out there that would provide this need, I only had other young fellow cyclists and bike messengers to refer to. The range of carry was this: whatever was free, Dank Bags, Chrome Bags, and the kitty litter bag messenger bags my fellow school mate was selling from his alleyway garage apartment.

In the end I purchased a Chrome backpack… The Falcon I think it was, or whichever bag in that family that was medium in size. I chose Chrome for its noted durability and its relatively unobtrusive “classic” look.

Second problem: Proper fit

After a few uses however I discovered this wasn’t the bag for me. Firstly, the length was an issue. It seemed to hit my back in this weird spot, I don’t have the bag now but I recall that being a real pain.

Secondly, the shoulder straps never fitted right. Pulled to an “average” length the straps sat too wide on my shoulders. Pulled any tighter and the straps sat correctly between my shoulder and neck, but the area where the straps came together at the back would jab into my neck.

And lastly, a very common female problem, the chest strap could be positioned either sitting right across my Ta Ta’s, or directly below them, making it more of a waist strap. Both of these positions pulled the straps so that ‘the girls’ were being made to bear some of the weight. OUCH!

“My theory being that having the same volume distributed diagonally across my back would resolve the length issue”

Frustrated with this issue, but still wanting the same volume-sized pack, I swapped it for a Chrome Citizen. My theory being that having the same volume distributed diagonally across my back would resolve the length issue. And also having the main strap run between ‘the girls’ would solve the boob smashing. It worked, so I decided to keep the bag.

As these main fitting problems had been relieved with this switch I didn’t further my search for the “perfect bag”. And so it was that this little messenger and I were to be glued to each other for the next four years. In those years, I made only one change to the bag. I found some stupid dope metallic gold duct tape and plastered it over the secondary color area of the flap. Soon friends and folks around town knew which crazy cyclist I was. So if you are a Seattleite reading this who knows this bag I’m sorry for yelling at you. But you were probably the one in the wrong, or on your phone…just saying.

Third and MAIN Problem: I’m a girl, NOT a girly girl

In all of that time it NEVER once occurred to me that there was a very good reason I didn’t have luck with bags fitting properly. The reason revealed itself to me in an ergonomics course. We were on the topic of percentiles so we all measured ourselves to find out where we were on that scale. Being in an all-male class, it soon became evident that being a 5 ft tall woman made me very different from my classmates, and that much of the world was not designed to fit me.

“It soon became evident that being a 5 ft tall woman, much of the world was not designed to fit me…”

Not only would products not be designed to fit me, but anything that was specifically designed to fit the needs of petite women was procured from the “shrink it, pink it” recipe. This is the design idea that if you take a design, shrink it, and make it pink the product will then appeal to females. I won’t go off into my full blown rampage about this. All you need to know is that I want to burn all things born of this design strategy.

After graduating, my income increased a little and I wanted to treat myself to a new bag, one that I could carry into my “fashion” industry office without looking like the street punk my Chrome wrapped in duct tape portrayed me to be.

So to help start my search process I read a review here on Carryology comparing two messenger bags, the Chrome Lieutenant and Mission Workshop Rummy (I ended up purchasing the Rummy for my current pack). After reading the article it became clear to me that because of my anatomy, any reviews of bags online or from my peers wouldn’t be of much help to me as they were mostly reviewed by folks of the opposite gender and build.

And that is why I am here. Reppin all you ladies out there facing the same issues I unknowingly did for so long. My mission: to find the most awesome bike bags for the petite ones among us and report back to the Carryology massive. Stay tuned…