Decaleur options

[Ryan Ray]

Hello I have a haulin colin rack and it pushes the tombstone a bit out of reach for a base-of-the-stem mounted VO decaleur. The Nitto/Compass stem mounted ones line up perfectly but are quite a bit pricier ($130 vs $30). Is there anything in-between?

[Colin B]

The Berthoud is great and comes in a couple sizes. Got mine from bike touring news for maybe $90 I think.

[Rob Riggins]

How about the Tanaka decaleur Soma offers? It is $80.

Has anyone used one? I'm curious because my VO decaleur puts the bag too close to the handlebars.

The Tanaka appears to allow adjustment of the position.

On Wed, Nov 4, 2015 at 6:46 PM, Colin B <colint...@gmail.com> wrote:

The Berthoud is great and comes in a couple sizes. Got mine from bike touring news for maybe $90 I think.

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Rob Riggins

[danmc]

The Tanaka decaleur is pretty flexible as you can adjust the installation height and the arms which hold the bag. For a threaded setup it can clamp on the stem and for threadless you can remove spacers.

I have one in the parts bin if anyone wants detailed pics or measurements.

Dan

[Evan Baird]

The new Tanaka ones have a spring loaded quick release that fixes the offroad jiggly issues I had with the original one. Prolly says it's too heavy, but I had an early protoype on my dirt touring rig and I broke the bag mount on a camping trip so I'd say the strength to weight ratio is just about right.

[Ryan Ray]

It looks like it requires spacers for 1" stems right?

Also, didn't you used to work at Free Range?

- Ryan

[Jim Joy]

Do you know of anyone who has these in stock? Soma and anyone else I could find all show them as out of stock.

[Andrew Squirrel]

"Tanaka ones have a spring loaded quick release"

Why isn't this mentioned on the Soma website?

Seems like it would behoove them to bold, underline and increase text size to mention that feature since it has been one of the primary reasons I have never recommended the Tanaka nor the VO decaleur.

I'd be interested in seeing some closeup photos of the mechanism.

On Monday, November 9, 2015 at 10:30:25 AM UTC-8, Evan Baird wrote:

[satanas]

FWIW: I bought a Tanaka decaleur with my GR frame around New Year and then found that: 1) it's really heavy, and 2) it wouldn't fit anyway as the steerer wasn't long enough.

The Berthoud decaleur was available in the UK (eventually), so that is what I ended up with after a not very successful homebrew solution which used the GB 22 bag's straps. I ordered the shorter length vertical bolt (for 3T stems, etc) GB decaleur version, and had a number of problems with it.

1. First up, even the short length was too long, so the first thing which had to be done was modify the arms to make them shorter, fortunately a quick job with an oxy torch nearby. Wallbike sells CNC'd adapter plates which give much more adjustment, but I was travelling in Europe so that wasn't a viable option. 

2. The decaleur would rotate sideways if anything was bumped, seemingly no matter how tight the bolt was; this shouldn't be a problem with the horizontal bolt version. 

3. The largest annoyance however, was that the decaleur/stiffener doesn't go the full width of a Gilles Berthoud handlebar bag, the result being that the bag deforms at the ends and moves around, causing problems with hand clearance,  pockets, stability (not proven but suspected), etc.

4. Finally, the locking pin which holds the two parts of the decaleur together has a small hole drilled in one end to take a safety pin. I initially assumed this was meant to keep all the parts together during shipping, but it is in fact necessary, otherwise vibration can cause the locking pin to come out and the bag to come off. This didn't quite happen, but it was close. The safety pin is thus crucial, and both delicate and potentially easy to misplace; fortunately mine survived the trip.

After PBP I had a good look at one of the Alex Singer bikes and noticed that with their decaleur and a *full-width* metal stiffener, there was no movement whatsoever - much, much better. Unfortunately, the way the Berthoud decaleur is made means there is no extra length to attach any sort of stiffener inside the bag, so one would have to construct something that would go around the decaleur attachment, and with separate mounting bolts. I didn't have the time or resources to do this.

If you're sure the Nitto/Compass decaleur will work I'd be inclined to go that way, as I gather it's a clone of the Alex Singer design, and that is rock-solid, when a decent bag stiffener is used on the inside at least.

Rear-mounted bags are a lot easier to get sorted!!!

Later,

Stephen

[Nick Favicchio]

Decaleurs are vital. Decaleurs suck.

Both of these statements are, in my experience, true. Comments like Stephen's make me think this isn't just my experience.

https://flic.kr/p/AE2kko

This is the one Mark had made up and was kind enough to sell me an extra of. This is the smartest design of what I've seen. Very solid and very simple to get on and off the bike.

[Ryan Ray]

My LBS has one of these burly Nitto ones in stock (attached) and I might just go with it despite the cost. If VO made their stem version or if they made an extra long steer tube version I would just go with that. If I end up with a custom bag I might just go with leather straps which I will only use off road or camping anyway. I have the Haulin rack and whatever bag I get will be quite large and will have some other form of securing to the rack anyway.

- Ryan

[Berry Bakker]

I started out with a VO threadless decaleur. Did not quite like it because

1. it can freely rotate

2. has a fairly short reach

3. sat too high for my tall headtube + GB25 combo

I have since modified it to solve these issues. Since I only have a few basic tools at my disposal I came up with the following. Cut of the headset spacer from the VO decaleur. Then take a brake cable hanger which includes a clamping bolt, and file away some material to make a place for the remainder of the decaleur to fit. The two pieces are clamped together using a bolt, a nut, and some washers. I added some epoxy to make it look a bit neater. It's been holding up for a few thousand miles, although the epoxy has cracked so there must be some flex in the assembly.

Some pictures:

https://flic.kr/p/uBaX83

https://flic.kr/p/uRrqhW

Op dinsdag 10 november 2015 16:33:53 UTC+1 schreef Nick Favicchio:

[Andrew Fatseas]

I have a Grand Bois decaleur that came with my Grand Bois bike.  It's a slightly older design, but very similar to the one for sale at Compass

https://www.compasscycle.com/shop/components/stems-decaleurs/grand-bois-decaleur-for-np-pearl-stem/

It's light, rigid, secure and simple to install.  I actually bought a second stem mount to put on another bike so that I can quickly swap my handlebar bag between bikes. The whole setup works perfectly.

Not cheap but works very well.

On Thu, Nov 5, 2015 at 10:27 AM, Ryan Ray <ryan...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hello I have a haulin colin rack and it pushes the tombstone a bit out of reach for a base-of-the-stem mounted VO decaleur. The Nitto/Compass stem mounted ones line up perfectly but are quite a bit pricier ($130 vs $30). Is there anything in-between?

[adam...@spottedfoobar.com]

I had an older Tanaka and it was very heavy.  In the end, i found the entire decaleur thing unnecessary.  I got a bag from Acorn that uses velcro straps underneath the bag and i think maybe i added a zip tie or two. This worked fine -- just like the velcro-based solutions that have been used on rack bags for years.

[aztris]

I have the Grand Bois as well. Very light, very strong.

However, there is one fundamental issue; bar/bag height. Since it is not adjustable, chancse are either/both your bars/bag will not be at the perfect height. My bars are slightly lower than I'd like and the bag still slightly too high off the rack. Neither cause any real issues, except visually (which does drive me a bit nuts).

[Sam]

Here is the solution I came up with, built by my friend Jeremy of Gallus cycles in Denver. 

https://galluscycles.wordpress.com/2015/03/28/gallus-day-decaleur/

This one went on a bike that ended up in Australia, detailed here. (Ride report - See the bottom for discussion of the bike and pics of the chromed decaleur:)

https://galluscycles.wordpress.com/2015/10/25/guest-post-greenhills-loop-by-alex-gow/

Jeremy is machining jigs to make a run of decaleurs based on this design. Give him a call if you're interested in one.  

Best,

Sam in Seattle. 

[Mike Schiller]

I like the design of that decaleur Sam.  Is there a way to fit it to a 4 bolt stem with horizontally positioned bolts?

~mike 

Carlsbad Ca.

[David Cummings]

This can't be the first person to use a QR setup, can it? Just about any angle can be accounted for - amazing and beautiful! As long as the bag and devalue mate at the correct height and front-to-back position, it's golden.

Cost?

[Sam]

Mike, I think just about any mounting strategy could be made as a custom, including twin-bolt setups for a four bolt faceplate.

Jeremy and I have discussed the options available for single bolt stems  (eg Nitto technomic...) as a batch run. He is planning on producing a set of these soon, and is machining the jigs for cranking them out in his shop. I think minor changes to mounting strategy (length and angle) would be pretty trivial, but would require a bit of measurement and discussion.

He has made another adjustable one-off for a customer who wanted to utilize two bags of different heights, that example could be adjusted for the tall or short bag with a bolted joint in the extension portion. Sorry, I don't have pictures of this. 

David, I haven't seen any other similar designs anywhere, despite it being a simple solution. That's why i floated the idea with Jeremy one night over beers.  I got fed up with friction pin setups that didnt hold the bag on rough roads, or upon hitting potholes unexpectedly. I once lost a full Berthoud bag in traffic this way, and nearly crashed as a result. The QR holds the bag rock solid, even upside-down.

Not sure about price, you'd have to reach out to J. Hes a young guy running a one-man shop, and great to work with. 

Best, 

Sam in Seattle

[Hugh Smitham]

Sam,

I like the look of this design. keeping the bag solidly mounted & QR has me interested.

~Hugh

On Monday, November 16, 2015 at 11:59:46 AM UTC-8, Sam wrote:

[Daniel Jackson]

Sam this looks great. Let us know when they might be available.

[Peter Adler]

Me too, assuming there's a horizontal bolt (Nitto, Cinelli 1A etc.) option in the works.

Peter in Berkeley