Radial Cycles Porter saddle bag review

Having only launched at the Milton Keynes round of the Cyclo-Cross World Cup last November, Radial Cycles is certainly one of the newest brands to spring up in an attempt to grab a share of UK’s cycling boom.

We’ll hopefully have a few of company’s bikes in for review in due course, but in the meantime we’re taking our time to look at a few items from Radial’s extensive range of parts and accessories. First up is the Porter saddle bag.

This saddle bag comes in two sizes, medium and small. The small version that we had in to test was certainly one of the most compact bags we’ve seen, fitting snuggly under the saddle well out of the way of our pedal stroke, even on a narrow saddle, such as the Essax Adrenaline R. The Velcro straps used to keep it in place are very secure and did a good job preventing the bag from moving from side-to-side.

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Of course the small size means that this isn’t exactly going to be your saddle bag of choice for a multi-day touring trip (Radial offer other models in significantly larger sizes), however it is, just about, the right size for the everyday essentials. It was snug, but we were able to fit an inner tube, tyre levers, and a decent-sized multi-tool into the Porter’s main compartment. A small secondary compartment is located on the side and is perfect for storing keys and loose change if you’re worried about losing them from your back pocket.

The main problem we had was when it came to getting things out of the Radial Cycles Porter saddle bag. The decision to include two pockets on such a small saddle bag means that the zip to access the main compartment has been moved to the side of the bag. This made it awkward to access items in the bag, and we found ourselves emptying the bag completely in order to find what we were after.

However in general the Porter saddle bag is very well constructed, with the tarpaulin and ripstop nylon construction proving very sturdy, and the reflective details giving a final nice touch.

For more details visit the Radial Cycles website.