I wrote ages ago about how you can circumvent the issue of not having anywhere to secure a rack, particularly if you have a road bike. That was 2 years ago. It seems that nowadays there are so many ways to carry things on bikes ever since the whole bikepacking scene has become more mainstream.

Without further ado, I present you my latest instalment of no-rack wonders:

My Arkel Seatpacker 15.

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Right. So this is what it looked like out of the box. I pulled out the inner layer for you to see. (I wish they would take pictures like this on the website – I wanna know what’s inside!) They even included a longer bar to swap out for the seat clamp in case you have one of those fancy Brooks saddles. I read in forums that they didn’t include that when the Seatpacker was initially sold.

As always, wonderful quality from Arkel. I always end up debating for weeks because of their higher price point (Arkel if you see this please give me a discount – haha!) but I’ve never been disappointed so you can take that for what it’s worth.

Being a short-ish person, I own an XXS Kona Sutra Ltd so naturally I was really concerned about choosing the wrong sized bag. I wanted as much space as possible but obviously I don’t want the seat bag to be rubbing against the wheel. After agonizing over the provided measurements for a few days, I thought screw it just buy the bigger one. Again, having some pictures for size reference would have been really useful.

The seat rack itself is pretty genius and basically consists of a clamp for the seat rails, a sort of clip for the seat post with a piece of velcro to secure it in place. I was set up within minutes. As for the measurements, I thought these pictures might be useful.

This is the SHORT edge of an A4 sized piece of paper. I’m actually cutting it a little close so I’d suggest at least this amount of space between the seat and the tire. It looks fine in the picture below but when you load the bag, it will sink a bit from the weight.

After that it’s just a matter of sliding the seat bag onto the rack, secure another velcro and you’re in business. Love it.

– J