Then my girlfriend was chucking out an old basic rucksack, and so I thought I'd have a very quick bash at making something myself.
I started with a bunch stuff:
The woven poly tarp material isn't ideal but the best I could find at the time - it's from a gazebo that was being thrown away on a campsite. The webbing is from an old tent from a festival I've cannibalised for many things, and the corrugated plastic is a letting agent's sign.
I thought the padded straps from the rucksack would be ideal fork crown straps as they should give a bit of a protection, so I left them on.
But then decided to cut them off and attach properly at the right length.
Webbing ladder on the "back."
An arrangement of corrugated plastic, held in place and the sharp edges covered with a liberal application of duct tape. I later changed this for a different arrangement, then after testing, decided just to stick a single simple rectangle of corrugated plastic in the main part, with the corrugations running horizontally to give a lot of horizontal stiffness, but a bit of vertical compliance.
Packing foam both sides to stop any rubbage.
The "finished" product, with Alpkit straps threaded through the webbing:
Mounted to the bike in the garage:
And with a 20l dual Airlok. This is where I decided more lateral stiffness is required.
I slit one side open and popped the rectangle of correx in. Further testing:
Still sitting a bit too low in reality. The added correx is moving inside the cover, being pushed to the bottom and the fabric at the top bunching up. I've added a couple of lines of robust stitching underneath to hold it up. I'll test this on my commute today and see how it goes.
It's very rough around the edges - I might take it apart and tidy it up, and replace the green tarp material with something more suitable - but for zero outlay and a a couple of hours of bodging time I'm pretty happy with it so far.
#selfplug
) but trust me it's betterer!
