# Carradice Barley Hack - QR with Seatpost Setback



## Nickel II (Jul 18, 2003)

I wanted to offer this up for general consumption as I learned about about different hacks from the board and also because I love using the Barley Bag over my old rack and rack pack. The rack on the back of a fixed gear/single speed just didn't look right.

This is a Carradice Barley Bag Hack mounted on an IRO Mark V Fixed/SS that I use for commuting.

I have to give credit where credit is due. Part of my hack is based on DrRoebucks as seen here. I love his QR hack, but I found very few visually pleasing setback seatpost hacks that I came up with one of my own. Took about a whole day to piece it all together but well worth it.
http://forums.roadbikereview.com/showthread.php?t=95020

Also - maybe it is because of the way I pack my clothes, but I don't find that the bag sways at all, which is a common complaint I've read about larger saddlebags.

Now for the rest of the story. For the QR portion I used these hooks:
http://www.berkeleypoint.com/products/hardware/fixedbiminiclip.html

Step 1:
Like DR's, I also mounted the hooks in reverse to logic and removed the "clamp" portion of the clip by cutting them off with a dremel and filing down the sharp edges. The way it is mounted, there is no way the bag is going to shake loose. Tough to believe until you do it. Pics below of the hooks mounted to the bag. I used ZIP ties to attach the hooks to the wooden dowel. THe leather straps needed 1-2 extra holes in them to get the hooks snug enough.

The hooks offer a great QR feature. No way was I going to unstrap the leather straps each day but I loved the idea of a bag that hooked to the back of the saddle.

Step 2:
I needed some sort of setback option for the seatpost as the bag hit my legs. I thought this was a great option, but many reviews said attaching the damn thing was a pain. They were right.

This is a viewpoint handlebar spacer that I intended to mount to the seatpost.
http://www.performancebike.com/shop/Profile.cfm?SKU=22874&item=40-3582&slitrk=search&slisearch=true

The problems with this are that it is such a pain in the a$$ to get mounted, and once mounted, you will never want to remove it. Great idea. Horrible implementation. Because there are times I would want to remove this during maintenance of the bike. BUT - It does come apart into different pieces. So it gave me the idea to head to home depot for some other way to mount it to the seatpost to push the bag back farther.

Pic # 3 and #4 is what I came up with.
Pic three is a clamp I found in the electrical section of Home Depot. Pic 4 is black rubber coating I coated it with.

Essentially this clamp wrapped around the seatpost and I used a 1.25" #10 bolt and nut to tighten it down (so note - I did not use the bolt in the clamp picture). The viewpoint clamp then attached to the back of the clamp (in reality, I assembled the viewpoint attachment to the clamp, then attached the clamp to the seat post). Hope that makes sense.

You can see in pic 5 the whole thing attached to the bike w/o the Bartey Bag mounted. I even have room for a rear light. Looks pretty slick and stealth. Some people use the bagman racks. My whole point in getting the Barley Bag was to not have any type of rack attached to the bike.

Sure, my mount is somewhat permanent, but it is low profile and stealth like.

Step 3:
This part is pretty easy! From behind the bike...
1. Rotate the bag forward
2. Insert hooks in Brooks 
3. Pull towards you
4. Let bag hang down
5. Strap bag to the viewpoint

Note you cannot see this in the pic, but I replaced the last leather strap with a velcro strap to attach it more quickly and more easily from the viewpoint.

Two final pics. Hope you get the idea. Very difficult to convey everything, but I think the pics help.

I can get the bag on and off in about 10 seconds. Compared to the rack and rack pack I was using, I saved about 3 pounds and I love the looks a whole lot more.


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## wayneanneli (Jul 8, 2004)

Very nice. I'm going to use some inspiration from your and DR and see what if I can do something similar for my Barley. Thanks for taking the time.


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