I haven’t really been happy with the handlebar bag I put on Kuroko not even five months ago. The bag itself is fine, but there’s just not enough room between the handlebar and headlight, and the straps take up more than 1cm of valuable handlebar real estate on each side of the stem.

The capacity, meanwhile, is just adequate. I can shove three or four of Nana’s world-famous onigiri in there if I don’t mind smooshing them a bit, but there’s no room for a windbreaker or whatnot.

So in another snappy beverage-influenced purchasing decision, I’ve replaced the bag with something that declutters the handlebar further and gives me more capacity.

Each rack attached to the fork with three screws (and the instructions sternly noted that for carbon forks, all three screws were required), each with two washers, one on each side of the rack. All that was fine on paper, but in practice I wanted four hands with 12 fingers each.

At last, and with many a dropped washer retrieved from the floor of the Workshop in the Sky, the racks were mounted. And then, much to my surprise, the bags mounted via magnetic catches. I’ve seen many videos of riders with Fidlock magnetic bottle mounts, so I’m not concerned about the security of these bag mounts (at least not from riding conditions).

I knew the combination of racks plus bags would be more than the simple handlebar bag, but I wasn’t expect nearly an additional kilogram. This on a bike that is already not the lightest around. But if this makes for a more comfortable ride overall then I can easily lose an equivalent amount of weight, right?

I like the look of Kuroko with the new bags and minimal saddle bag. I’ve added another beverage-inspired purchase: a couple of CamelBak Podium stainless steel insulated water bottles. It makes for a fetching, coordinated ensemble overall. In a couple of weeks we’ll see how it works with the existing Ortlieb panniers on the back.

In the meantime, the new bags have pockets on both the inner and outer surfaces for the minitool, tissues, etc., in addition to room for lots of onigiri as well as a windbreaker or two. I’ve avoided having bags on the handlebar and fork up to now because of the affect on steering. I’ll let you know in the coming months how this works out.