Acorn Bags: Handlebar Bag Review

It’s high time I wrote a glowing review of my beloved handlebar bag made by Acorn Bags. If you’ve perused my bike photos, you’ll notice that my handlebar bag is the one ubiquitous item found on both my touring and mountain bike, and it’s for a good reason. The bag is a great size for day-long excursions as well as a nice accessory-piece for multiple day rides. If you go to Acorn’s site, http://www.acornbags.com/index.html, you’ll see that Ron (the owner) describes his bag as a glove compartment for your bike, which is an excellent description. I can say with certainty that if you go with an Acorn Bag, you won’t be disappointed.

Top View.

Front View.

Side View.

Finding the Right Local Company

When I was trying to find a handlebar bag to use for bike touring, I started out the generic and boring way: I typed ‘handlebar bag bike’ into google and checked out the bags that came up.  After scrummaging through the riff-raff, some of the usual suspects began to appear.  Ortlieb makes a nice looking bag, Blackburn and Giant both had noteworthy waterproof bags, and a few of the other big contenders appeared as I scrolled through the initial options.  As I looked into some of the reviews on these bags, however, some smaller companies began popping up in the form of alternative advice from other reviewers.  To spare you the gruesome details of this hour long search, I saw Acorn Bags on one of the reviews and decided to look it up.

Acorn Bags is run by a husband/wife team in Southern California, and their designs are simple and functional. Although there are limited reviews of their products, the bags themselves seemed very well-constructed, so I decided to go through with my arbitrary decision and purchase the Acorn handlebar bag.

Product Review

I was initially concerned about the canvas material not being waterproof, but this hasn’t been an issue for me so far. I haven’t been in any downpours with the bag, but I have dealt with a bit of rain, and nothing on the inside of the bag was wet at all.

As seen through my pictures, the bag fits a surprisingly large amount of materials. Although a banana and apple are not likely going to be a feasible option when you’re out in the middle of nowhere, you can see that they easily fit into the bag. What I usually carry is my map, phone, wallet, keys, and a snack pack of either jerky, mixed nuts/trail mix, or gummy worms. This all fits in the bag with room to spare. And that’s not all!

That banana started to bruise just thinking about being in a canvas bag for an extended period of time. So I ate it after this pic.

My favorite feature on the bag is the two small pouches that face the handlebar. I found that the left side was a great place for ClifBars, and the right side fit a point and shoot camera perfectly. It was thanks to these little pouches that I was able to quick snap a picture of a passing wolf on my Canada trip, as well as countless other wildlife and miscellaneous quick-happenings that would have been lost without the blessed pouches.

The leather straps on the bag are sturdy and secure the bag snugly. However, as an added bonus, the bag comes with two elastic straps that clinch onto either the bottom section of your drop bars or else the top of your handlebars. Although the bag is secure without these straps, they do provide some extra peace-of-mind in case one of those leather straps dramatically snaps and sends the bag falling into your spinning tires or something. Part of the stability also comes from the small wooden dowel that runs the length of the bag. This helps keep the bag’s shape and keeps it pushed up against your handlebar.

Complaints?

NONE. This bag has fulfilled all my hopes and dreams of what a handlebar bag should be. If you’re in the market for a solid handlebar bag and don’t want to cater to ‘the man’ (‘the man’ being Ortlieb, Blackburn, Planet Bike, etc.), go for the little guy. Buy an Acorn Bag.

Categories: Bikes and Gear