Another day in Carradice

Bicycle Basecamp Contributor, Simon Nurse of Cycle Stuff 

After banging on and on and on (and on) about British manufacturing, small companies, ‘sticking it to the man’ etc. etc., you would be forgiven for wondering if I did my bit at the London bike show. Well, I can assure you I did. Not as much as I would have liked to, but that level of indulgence would have seriously reduced my waning green credentials further. Even my giant book of useful excuses would struggle to justify more expenditure on another bike. BAGS however, are a different case entirely. 

In cycling, something as simple and prosaic as where you position the load can make a tremendous difference to your whole experience – especially where load carrying is a regular occurrence (commuting for instance). Recently I’ve been suffering from a bit of back pain.  More than a bit actually. Doubled over, slapping the table, blubbing like a big girl’s blouse back pain. Nobody’s fault but my own of course. There’s only so many books, bike bits and laptops you can carry in a rucksack. So I invested in this little beauty below – the Carradice‘Junior’. Manufactured in Nelson, Lancashire (a stone’s throw from the in-laws), it’s a beautifully made Cotton duck saddle bag with a whopping 10 litre volume. I transferred all the heavy bits from my rucksack today – lock, multi-tool, pump, tubes, sports kit, lump of iron-ore* – and the difference was immense. The bag sits in a nicely designed frame with a spring mechanism that makes removal a synch and the extra weight affects handling very little. It’ll get battered to hell in my hands, so let’s see how it fares (Being UK made and damned lovely to boot, I have every confidence). 

Incidentally the Carradice stand was thoroughly excellent at the show. The staff were friendly and helpful, the products pretty and practical. But what else would you expect from a British institution that’s been around for 70 odd years? Hopefully I’ll catch up with them next year (we’re signed up already for next year’s show)

To confirm those nagging suspicions, the blog post title was borrowed from a Bike Show podcast, which was in turn, a pun borrowed from the dire Phil Collins track ‘Another day in paradise’. Thank you Bike Show. – the song is now permanently stuck on my mental turntable and I’d much rather listen to something else. Swines. 

*I don’t really carry iron-ore, but I’m at a loss to explain why all this stuff is so bloody heavy.