Made the bag I wish canyon had

I wanted a bike that could have all the attachments and extras but didn’t have to have them always or go through a process to remove them. There were many QR racks QR aero bars exist but for bags canyon and fidlock seemed like the best option. I ran the frame bag and loved how easy it was to remove so I thought I’d gram a top tube bag with the same system. That proved to be a tough find

Canyon obviously didn’t make a top tube bag and while there were fidlock ones they were the water bottle attachment which left more visible when detached than i liked. Looking further I found two companies that had what I would have liked 1) the rose bag which I’m unable to get in the US and the stealth bag which had been discontinued and after reaching out to the company informed me their attachment wasn’t very secure. (If there are others lmk but I couldn’t find)

This set me to make my own bag. I ordered the medium “Canyon LOAD FidLock QuickLoader Grizl” because it’s all that was in stock if I were to do it again I’d order the 2XL just to have more fabric. I’m by no means a bag maker so my techniques may be untraditional but I used acetone to take apart the old bag and started cutting with a saw I glued the downtube mount and the front top tube mount to cardboard for rigidity cut more the shape I wanted glued that together then wrapped it in parts from the original bag. Only thing to note is you gotta cut close to the mechanisms for the front and back to get that 64 standard top tube spacing correct.

Could it have look better? not if I’m the one doing it I’m pretty stoked how it came out. Not so sure about the cardboard frame holding out long term but I may go to a local bag maker (I’m fortunate enough to have one in my city) if it crumbles who could make something more serious. It’s big enough to hold my phone and some gels. It is tall because the attachment part takes up a lot of space but that just makes all my stem spacers look better