Note: Redshift Sports sent over a Top Shelf Handlebar Bag for test and review to Guitar Ted Productions at no charge. Guitar Ted is not being paid, nor bribed for this review and all opinions are his own.
In this 'final word' post I wanted to address a couple of things and then we will get to my take on this handlebar bag at the end. First let's take a look at my experiences with a fully loaded bag.
In the previous post on this bag I showed an image with the bag fully loaded with the exception of the central area. I ended up utilizing that left over space to carry a light wind vest. It barely rolled up small enough to fit, and I did not feel 100% secure about the magnetic top keeping everything inside on its own. Fortunately those two side zippers will securely hold the top down and my slightly overstuffed bag was safe and did not cause me any worries.
I even utilized the mesh outer pocket to hold my gloves, and they did that well. These were Summer weight, Hand-Up brand gloves, for reference. I did not carry the GPS device on my last rides before this update, and you can see in the image above how the bag wasn't "level", which I found slightly annoying. However; Erik at Redshift suggested that I could level the bag by using some "bag shims". Essentially these are foam blocks with a slot in the middle. The strap, which would attach the lower part of the bag to the Top Shelf Bar where it passes through the stem, is where this foam shim would go. It would sit between the bag and the handle bar with the strap passing though the shim, then around the handlebar.
I did not have access to these shims and I did not have time to make anything, but I agree that this would be a great solution. I hope to try that out when I have more time to fiddle with things like this during the Winter.
I did have to stop and fetch a multi-tool for a repair. With all the organizing pockets in the Top Shelf Bag, finding and retrieving the tool was easy. So, that was another plus for this bag that I found.
Overall I think this handlebar bag has provided me with a great experience even though I don't think I've plumbed all the benefits that the Top Shelf Bag has to offer.
Final Word: Besides the tilt of the bag overall in my situation, this bag gave me no problems and I enjoyed using it on casual rides and longer gravel rides where self-support requires that I carry a bit more than usual. The Top Shelf Bag has great capacity overall and excellent pockets with which you can organize your things.
The construction, fit and finish, and looks overall are very good. The bag is a perfect fit for the Top Shelf Bar, as you would expect, which is a nice benefit of staying in the Redshift family of products. I did not try the bag on other handlebars, but I don't think the experience would be a good with other handlebars which don't have the Top Shelf's design. In my opinion, the Top Shelf bar design is a key factor in why the bag works better than most handlebar bags I have tried.
I would like to see Redshift provide the foam shims for leveling the bag in the future, but otherwise I would highly recommend this bag to any Top Shelf Bar owner.
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