I bought my Carradice Super C Handlebar Bag sometime in 2010 or 2011. I think I learned about it while reading one of the blogs of Emily Chappell as she was preparing to leave her London courier job to ride around the world.

There’s no shortage of bicycle handlebar bags out there. Most of them have more intriguing designs than the Super C. The Super C is a simple box. The sides and bottom are rigid (with corrugated plastic). Inside, it has two open top pockets on either side and a zippered pocket near the back. On the outside, either side has mesh pockets. These do not expand much. I move my shoulder mounted OC to one of these when I am not wearing a backpack, but otherwise these external side pockets are mostly useless.

The Super C has two killer features that I think make it superior to the vast majority of its competition.

First, it mounts with a Rixen & Kaul KLICKFix bracket. This piece of Teutonic wizardry allows the bag to be attached or detached from the bike in about two seconds. Most other bags utilize straps of some sort, which are fine if you’re out in the back of beyond, but fiddly for frequent donning and doffing. In an urban environment, I want to be able to quickly pop the bag off my bike and throw the strap over my shoulder whenever I park. When disembarking a ferry or train, I want to pop the bag back on the bike immediately so that I’m not causing people to stack up behind me and wait while I’m routing straps. When I’m walking around with the bag over my shoulder, I don’t want to worry that I may discover a loose strap fell out when I get back to the bike. The KLICKFix addresses all of these concerns. When the bag is on the bike, it is held securely. I’ve had the Super C on plenty of miles on bumpy gravel with my skinny 32mm tires, and never had an issue. I’m sure there is some maximum recommended weight limit for the bracket, but I’ve never thought about it. As long as you aren’t loading the Super C with lead, it’ll probably be fine.

Second, the Super C has a detachable light bracket on the bottom. Either because of their height or how much real estate they take up on the bars, most handlebar bags (including the Super C) are not compatible with lights mounted on the handlebar. Most bags do not provide any alternative solutions for a headlight, instead expecting the user to workaround the problem with some sort of fork mount solution or an accessory cockpit bar mounted above the handlebars. Those alternatives work, but I find them annoying. The Super C provides a simple bracket that pops into the bottom of the bag. Anything that can mount to a handlebar can mount to the bracket. If you don’t need the bracket, you can twist it off and leave it at home.

The rest of the Super C is pretty basic. I’ve made a few modifications that make it more useful to me.

A D-ring on either side of the bag allows a shoulder strap to be mounted. I keep Peak Design Anchor attachments on mine, to which I usually keep attached the original model of the Peak Design Leash. When I’m out on a weekend ride, I’ll often have a camera or binoculars in the bag. Both of those have Peak Design Anchors on them. Keeping Anchors on the bag as well allow me to have a single strap I can move around to whatever thing needs it.

The lid of the Super C sports a removable map case. It attaches via two snaps near the handlebar-side of the bag, routes under a piece of webbing on the opposite side of the lid, and then folds back over itself. This was a key feature in the pre-pocket-computer-age when I bought the bag, but these days I rarely attach the map case. Instead, I used my awl to add what I will optimistically call bartacks on either side of the webbing, just a few millimeters from the edge. This provides a channel which allows me to slip in a Duraflex Siamese Slik Clip on either side. That, in turn, allows me to attach a simple zippered pouch on the top. I appreciate having something like this for small items I may want while underway.

On the underside of the lid, I added a similar length of webbing with clips on either side. This allows me to run another pouch inside, which won’t get buried in the main compartment. I frequently clip my first aid kit in here.

The lid of the Super C closes with two side release buckles. These are very inconvenient to open or close when underway. You can do it if you’re motivated, but it takes concentration of effort. This shortcoming is where the Super C differs from most randonneuring bags on the market, which usually close with a piece of shock cord that gets pulled back and looped around the stem. Fortunately this is easy to add. I routed shock cord through the webbing that the buckles attach to, and ran an ITW GTSP Cordlock through either end. This works great to secure the lid, and makes it easy to get into the bag midflight.

I left the shock cord much longer than it needs to be to wrap around my stem. The front of my bag has a JK/47 Cyberpunk pin, secured via locking pin backs. If I close the lid with the buckles rather than the cord, I can use the cordlock to extend the length of the loop enough to run underneath this pin. That gives me a “V” of shock cord on the top of the bag which I can use for extra carrying capacity. I use this to carry lightweight but bulky things, such as a puffy jacket in an UltraLiteSacks Zippered Cube Ditty Bag.

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The front of my Super C also features a panel of loop velcro. Since the bag has a hard liner, I glued it on instead of sewing it. I think I used Fabri-Tac. Originally I thought I’d use this to mount my Orfos Pro light, but later I decided that using shock cord to attach the light to the Super C’s light bracket was a better option. Now the loop panel is just used for fun morale patches – mine usually sports the emblem from Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai.

Carradice products are handmade. They include a tag where the maker writes their name. My Super C was made by Kelly.

Often I find that the human-machine interface is an area where investments pay dividends. Bar tape on a bicycle is one such example.

Global Cycling Supply claims that their Adarga Leather Handlebar Tape is “the finest leather handlebar tape on the planet.” It is my first leather handlebar tape, so while I cannot compare it to other offerings, I can say that I have been extremely happy with it over the past 10 months. It is an improvement over the discontinued synthetic Fizik tape I previously preferred.

The feel of the tape is very pleasant, both when riding with gloves and gloveless. It has held up well across all the seasons, on pavement and on dirt. It offers comfort, grip and purchase; whether conditions are hot, dry and dusty, or cool, grey and wet.

My primary concern when ordering it was the lack of padding. The synthetic tape I used previously was 3mm thick, while Adarga has no padding beyond the minimal thickness of the leather itself. I run the tape on Rene Herse Randonneur Handlebars. My experience so far has been that well designed bars, such as these, make the extra padding unnecessary. I like being able to feel the firmness of the aluminum below the leather, and have found no issues with comfort, even after long days in the saddle on rough roads.

Installing the tape was not too difficult. I was surprised at how tight I had to pull it to get a good wrap – much tighter than I could pull a synthetic tape without tearing it – but once I figured that out, the installation went smoothly. The backside of the tape does include a narrow adhesive strip that helps the tape stay in place during the wrapping process. I didn’t measure the length of the tape, but I ended up snipping off about 6 inches for my 440 mm bars.

Global Cycling Supply is the side-hustle of the owner of Law Tanning. I suspect the guy knows how to make leather and what characteristics are important in a handlebar tape. The Adarga leather formula is billed as being based on a process previously used for British military gloves. I ran the tape for about 6 months before applying a very light coat of Obenauf’s LP. I don’t know if this was necessary, but I end up applying LP to most of the leather things in my life, and it did darken the black tape an aesthetically pleasing amount.

With synthetic bar tape, I find that after 10 months of use the tape is still perfectly functional but has signs of wear. The Adarga leather tape still looks like new. I expect it will provide many years of service.

Gevenalle CX Shifters are the best change I’ve ever made to my bike. I don’t understand how STI brifters have any market share in the world where Gevenalle exist.

The left Gevenalle shifter is friction only. Shifting the front chain ring with friction is objectively superior to indexed. It allows me to make minute trim adjustments based on where I am in the rear cassette. This is especially useful with a triple crank (which I still run, because why wouldn’t I want more gears). With indexed shifting on a triple, you often end up with some gear combinations that cause rubbing front or rear if your cable tension is not perfectly dialed. Not so with friction. Just give it a slight nudge.

The right Gevenalle shifter can switch between indexed and friction shifting. I started out using it in indexed mode. After a few weeks of that I decided to give friction mode a whirl. I had never used friction shifting before. 9 months later, I’m still in friction mode. I do still think there is a place for indexed shifting in the rear, but I enjoy friction and have no current desire to switch back. (I haven’t even thought about cable tension all year!) I do, however, value the ability to switch between the two.

The real magic of the Gevenalle system is being able to jump the cassette between multiple gears with a single movement. An STI shifter may allow you to jump between 3 or 4 gears at once. With Gevenalle, you can dump the entire cassette in one smooth movement. That’s not something I do often, but I absolutely do dump or load about half the cassette at once. They market this as a feature for cyclocross racers, but it applies just as much to anyone who rides with other traffic.

This video is what helped sell me on the shifters when I was considering the purchase. It demonstrates the big cassette movements possible, as well as the ergonomics of using the system. Whether I push or pull the shift levers depends on where they are in relation to the brake lever. It takes a few minutes to get used to, but quickly becomes intuitive. As someone who spends most of the time on the hoods, I found that I didn’t need to change my hand position to actuate the shifters. Shifting from down in the drops is difficult or impossible, but if I’m down there it’s usually because I’m cruising down hill, already at mach 3, and not intending to shift anytime soon.

The Gevenalle shifters can be praised for their functionality. They are lightweight, simple, durable, and rebuildable. They don’t care if they’re caked in mud or bathed in the blood of your enemies or whatever. But they’re also just really fun. I shift a lot more frequently with these than I ever did with STI. They inspire a closer connection to the vehicle, perhaps similar to manually shifting an automobile. Having both visual and haptic feedback on where you are in your gears and how much move movement you have in either direction is fantastic. I refer to the front shifter as my hyperdrive switch. Anytime the rear shifter is moved all the way outboard and I flick the front all the way to the right I know shit is about to get real.

Many of the strengths of the Gevenalle shifters could also be claimed by bar-end or downtube setups, but Gevenalle allows you to keep all your in-flight controls in one place. I value being able to shift, brake, and flick my ding-ding all without moving my hands. I think this is especially important for city riding, when everything else on the road is actively trying to kill you. (And I still like using my bar-ends for mirrors, too.)

With Gevenalle, the brake cables run under the tape. Shift cables shoot out the side, like STI shifters of yore. When I installed them I made sure to cut my cables and housing long enough so that I had enough space to move the cables aside and shove my rando bag or bikepacking harness between them. It hasn’t been an issue. Back when STI shifters had this kind of cable routing, I used v-brake noodles to open up space for a bag. I haven’t found that necessary with Gevenalle shifters.

I’m not sure that I’d ever want to use a non-Gevenalle shift setup on a drop bar bike again.