by Thor Dieringer
February 13, 2025
1 min read

Clearance, Suspension Forks & what’s on the horizon

In the first two installments of this series, most of this conversation has been focused on the handlebars - which makes sense since we make handlebar bags ;). What we haven’t touched on is the relationship of the Bag to the other parts at the front of the bike.

Clearance

Properly mounted ( level, with Bike Mount bolts set to recommended torque), your Bag should never contact your front wheel. Given the direction of rotation of your front wheel, even if the worst was to happen - your Bag make contact with your front wheel - it is unlikely that a flip over your bars would result but with all the possible variables, we can’t say that chance is zero. Determining how much space your have between your handlebars and the front wheel is the most critical. To find this measurement on your bike, you will need to determine the distance from the center, top of your handlebars and the horizontal line intersecting the top of your front tire, as shown in the image below.

The Big Handlebar Bag

To fit the Big Handlebar Bag, you will need minimum clearance measurement of 200mm (~8 inches).

Our Big Bag, due to its larger dimensions, starts to run afoul of the front tire sooner than the Handlebar Bag as we move down on the frame size scale. To help expand the fit range beyond our Standard 31.8mm & 35.0mm Bike Mounts, we introduced the 31.8mm - High. This adds 35mm of clearance and creates an allowable minimum clearance measurement of 165mm.

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The Handlebar Bag

The original offering of our Bag requires a minimum clearance measurement of 170mm (~6.7 inches).

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Suspension Forks

The application of suspension forks to bikes has been ever-expanding since their inception. When we launched our first Bag, for several reasons, we erred on the side of caution and made the broad statement “not for use with suspension forks.”

We have opened this recommendation up after some more comprehensive testing and research. Our stance now is that if the minimum clearance dimension can be achieved with the suspension fork fully compressed you can use our Bag on that bike. ONE CAVEAT where our original recommendation still holds true; If you’re planning to huck your bike off drops, clear monster gaps or otherwise utilize a long travel suspension-equipped bike, our product is not safe to use and we maintain our recommendation not to use our Bags in such conditions.

Capacities

One last detail is that all of our Bags (Original and Big) are rated to carry 4kg (~8.8lbs) of stuff. We’ve done some destructive tests to much higher weights but the handling and, thereby, the safety factor began to suffer significantly.

Looking forward

We’re constantly being asked, “What’s next?”. And we could write a VERY long post about this singular topic - maybe we will. To stay on topic, though, we are focusing on how we’ll be expanding our Bike Mount offering to welcome more handlebar types. For 2025, 22.2mm diameter fitments are our focus. Whether this will be a singular solution hasn’t been finalized, but addressing the Brompton/folder bike rider and bars that quickly taper to 22.2mm after the stem head is at the top of the list. We might even expand into offering a clear anodized/ silver finish for those rocking more traditional bike components. Stay tuned.

Up next…

As we roll deeper into February, we’re going to shift gears to discuss the different types of technology that our System accommodates.

Until then, happy riding!

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The Route Werks System: Part 3

The Route Werks System: Part 3