Fifth Season Canvas Bulldog Front Handlebar Bag (Bright Blue / Black Wool)

The Fifth Season Bulldog Front is a handlebar bag designed for long rides where you don't need a huge bag but need a spare layer, food, a camera, gloves, a place to stash your balaclava or pogies.  Also works great as an accessory bag on the front of a handlebar roll.  In this capacity, it's good for the same stuff, but also a fine way to transport a 6 pack of your favorite beverage, SunnyD.  

Big main pocket with an optional stiffener made of out recycled coroplast signs or an optional inner pocket for storing stuff like the keys to your Ford Fiesta and your Chuck E Cheese Fun Pass membership card.  You might want to get both, even though you can only use one at a time.  The stiffener is nice to use when the bag is running as a standalone handlebar bag.  The inner pocket is good for bike packing trips where you are using the bag as an accessory bag on the front of a handlebar roll.  

Features!  

Two front pockets, ideal for stashing something thin, like a pair of wool gloves, or a bunch of Topps gum from the baseball card decks.  Everyone knows that's the best gum going if you like gum that tastes like cardboard.  Two D rings placed at the corners of the roll top make it so you can add a shoulder strap and use the bag for off the bike adventures.  The D Rings up high, so you can really cram a bunch of stuff in the bag, like a baguette and a magnum of Sutter Homes wine.  If it's raining, just roll it shut and use the webbing on the back of the bag for your shoulder strap.  Use whatever for a shoulder strap or get the official Fifth Season one because it looks nice and it matchy matchy.  

When you roll the bag shut, there's an easy one hand buckle thing to close it up.  The daisy chain of webbing along the front of the bag is a good place to strap bulky items, like a wet raincoat or another baguette.  All of the hardware on the Bulldog Front bag is metal or wood, no cheesy plastic bits.  

The bag is made from waxed canvas, wool and hemp webbing and a metal side release buckle.  There's nothing that's gunna delaminate, crack with UV exposure, flake, or do any of the other crap that plastic fabrics and closures do.  When the wax wears off, you can rewax it.  If you wanna be super eco about it, use beeswax.  If you are ok with paraffin, which is a waste product from making kerosene, then use Carradice wax or Otterwax or Filson's wax.  Those are all a paraffin / beeswax blend of some sort.  Paraffin is the same stuff that's used to coat apples and shiny candies and such, so it's pretty benign.  

Most bags are 100% plug and play.  Most of our bags are not.  They're not hard to set up, but they require a bit more thinking.  The Bulldog Front Sack comes with 3 toggles attached to a length of waxed cotton cord.  Two go around the bar (I suggest untying the knot, wrapping the loop around the bars, then retying to get it snug without guess work) andone goes around your headtube. If you can tie your shoes, you can tie a fine knot to secure it. If you want to get fancy, use a square knot.  Why use wood toggles and waxed cotton cord instead of velcro?  Velcro is for kids shoes.  It also doesn't do well with dirt, fuzz, nor does it age well.  It's also made using really gnarly chemicals like hexamethylenediamine.  If you lose your toggle or the waxed cord, a shoe lace works fine, as does any other strappy thing, like a zip tie or a piece of bailing wire.  Toggles have been used on bags and jackets for a very long time, with the earliest documented use dating back to the Bronze age, aka over 3000 years ago.  If it was good enough for the Mycenaeans it's probably good enough for a bike bag.  

Strap the bag in place, you are good to go.  

Fifth Season sacks are highly water resistant.  They are not waterproof.  The seams will leak if you submerge the bag.  The bag will not easily wet out, nor will your stuff get wet in a typical New England rain storm.  I've filled these bags with water and hung them from a branch.  Full of water, they eventually start leaking from the seams.  You could carry water from a river to your camp site with one of these bags and not get your feet wet from the bag dripping. 

One size.  

Rolled size:  8 inches wide x 8 " tall x 5" deep, aka 20cm wide by 20cm tall x 12.7cm deep.  5 liters or 320 cubic inches.  

Made in Vermont in a one gal workshop.  

Fugazi and their associated record label Dischord were a major inspiration for Fifth Season Canvas, Tanglefoot Cycles and Discord Components.  You can see it right there in the Dischord / Discord names.