View attachment 526727
View attachment 526728
View attachment 526736
What are you, the weight police? Anyway, here goes.
Top picture: saddlebag, closed. In the LH pocket is my chain lock with padlock. In the RH pocket is a bottle of water. The rest of my stuff is in the main compartment.
Middle picture: saddlebag, with flap open and lock pulled out to show. Left to right, bag with tools in, glamorous Aldi wind/waterproof jacket in a fetching shade of orange, 2 spare tubes. Surprisingly, I did not find any extraneous junk in there, unless you count the OS maps at the front of the bag. What you can't see is a film container with a few small bolts and nuts in underneath the orange top.
Bottom picture. All is revealed. The contents of the bag on the left of the top picture. The Swiss army knife normally lives in my trouser pocket. It has a handy pair of pliers as well as various other gadgets. The phone and powerbank are not shown as they live in a pouch on my belt. If I was using trousers or shorts without belt loops there is plenty of room in the saddlebag for the pouch. The gorilla tape is a fairly new roll as I used up the old one on a project. I prefer to carry a half used one as it might save me 0.000001 second on my travels.
The spare disc pads are ones I bought some time ago and would probably never change while I was out but as there is spare room in the bag, I keep them in there as I will always know where to find them. So that probably balances out the 0.000001 second I might have gained by carrying a half used roll of gorilla tape. There is a chain tool on the multi tool. There is a suitable Torx key on the multi tool for adjusting the disc brakes but the handle is too fat to be able to put it through the spokes and turn it. (Currently it is pretty easy to turn the adjusters by hand). Ditto with accessing some of the fasteners elsewhere, hence the loose allen keys.
Two puncture repair kits? Well, one of them is unopened, so there is a good chance that the rubber solution will be useable when I need it if the other one isn't. 4 tyre levers is probably overkill as the Panaracer Paselas are pretty easy to get on and off but who knows how brittle cheap plastic might become over time. They might just unexpectedly snap off like carrots if you look at them fiercely. Though as 3 of them are bright yellow, there will be no problem in finding the bits. The multi tool has something that looks like a tyre lever on it but to me looks like a good device for making more holes in your tube.
The tool bag itself is a spare underseat bag. There is spare room in there with all the tools etc in. There is a similar bag under the seat of my folder, that can hold a similar set of tools and a mini mini mini pump (which amazingly works quite well, having used it in anger) and a 20" tube.
The folder is pretty minimalist compared to my usual bike.
The pump on this bike is a frame pump which fits on the, er, frame. In the garage I use the track pump.
The saddlebag is a Carradice Nelson Longflap I think, but the Carradice label has become frayed and unreadable after 40-odd years. It is a bit like the Tardis, as it is much bigger inside than you might think. Just when you think it is full, you can unfold another length of flap from beneath the original, complete with straps, to accommodate more stuff. Plenty of room for extra layers and food without unfolding the extra flap. The saddlebag is strapped to an old Karrimor frame, which allows me to lift off the saddlebag if necessary and take it with me without a load of fiddly unstrapping. Note the strapping points on top for a cape/ winter jacket/ bedroll/ anything you can think of
So there we are. It works for me. No doubt the weight weenies amongst you will want to take a couple of Paracetamols and lie down for half an hour after this, but it gives me worry free cycling. It is a bit like the umbrella theory. If you carry one you may never need to use it. But if you leave it at home, sooner or later you will get a good drenching.