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Bicycle Bags are typically strapped to the bike and offer a lightweight, modular and versatile approach to carrying the kit.

One of the key differences between traditional cycle touring and bike packing is how you carry your kit on the bike.

Pannier bags and luggage racks are a classic approach to carrying a kit on your bike, offering stability and volume for cycle touring. However, a rack and pannier setup can be heavy, and their use is largely limited to bikes with rack mounts.

In the world of packing light and traveling far – an ethos at the heart of bike packing – bike packing bags come to the fore, enabling riders to venture further away from paved roads and tackle challenging terrain, with a lightweight, versatile setup for carrying kit. (How much your bike packing setup weighs will depend on how much you’re taking with you, of course).

Bike packing bags are designed for use on any type of bike, without the need for rack mounts, and you can tailor your exact setup by adding and removing the bags you need for a particular trip. They are generally soft-bodied and shaped to fit a particular section of your bike.

Bike packing bags may not offer the same capacity as a traditional touring bike, and they can be prone to jiggling around a little, but careful bag choice and thoughtful packing can overcome these limitations and give you a versatile, lightweight bike packing set up to carry everything you require.

Working from the front of the bike back, we’ll run through the main bags on offer, their benefits and uses, and what to look out for if you’re investing in a bike packing setup.

• Handlebar bag

A handlebar bag is sausage-shaped, which lends well to storing sleeping kit, rolled up to match.

Items kept in a handlebar pack are going to be a bit awkward to access while riding because typically you will need to undo all the fixings and take the bag off before you can open it, so it’s best to use these for the kit you’ll need overnight but are happy to be without during the day. Small handlebar bags will often have a zip closure for easy access, though.

It’s worth remembering that the volume you can store in a handlebar bag will, of course, depend on your bike’s handlebar. Flat-bar bikes will have the freedom to take a larger bag, while drop-bar bikes will be limited to a bag that leaves space for shifter movement when changing gear.

Handlebar bags usually have adjustable volume, often with a roll-top closure, so offer some leeway for fitting to your bike’s dimensions.