If you’re serious about bikepacking, on road or off, this system is up there with the best.
- Brand: Tailfin
- Product: Bar Cage & Bag
- Price: cage £110.00, bags from £40.00, 2 x straps from £10.00
- From: Tailfin.cc
- Tested by: Heather Oliver & Stephen Turner for 3 months (words by Stephen)
Pros
- You forget it’s there
- Rock solid
- Great bag
Cons
- Premium price
- Torx bolt heads rather delicate
Our rating
Bar bags. When they’re bad, they can ruin a trip; when they’re good, you barely notice them. To which, we’ll open by saying the new Tailfin Bar Cage Bag system is delightfully forgettable — in the best way. Even at £150+. it just works. As the saying goes, quality lasts long after the price is forgotten.
The system consists of an alloy bracket on your handlebars, which connects to an open cargo cage — the kind you might be more familiar seeing bolted to a fork. It’s one of those “why didn’t I think of this?” ideas Tailfin does so well.
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The almost infinite adjustability means you can tuck luggage neatly under the bars without it rubbing against (and ruining) your headtube. Smart. And, true to Tailfin’s modular approach, every element is replaceable if needed — though the build quality inspires plenty of confidence.
The actual bags are typical Tailfin. A ripstop nylon with well engineered additional support in high stress areas. We’ve thousands of kms of evidence to say they’re going to survive just fine. Notably, we’ve dragged one of their downtube packs through all seasons and terrain, and still it sits there, unblemished. Waiting for us to realise the inner tube that’s been inside for the last 18 months is the wrong size for whichever bike we’ve strapped it to.
The bag orients with an open clasp that only fits one way — a small but brilliant detail. One of our biggest gripes with bar bags is getting them centred and tight, only to watch them squeeze themselves off to one side once the going gets rough. This clasp also gives an additional axis of support that tightens everything up. Add in air-release valves for compressing the roll-top bags and hardware that just works, and you’ve got a rock-solid setup. No rattling, no knocking, no bouncing. Bliss.
There are also mounts for lights and GPS units that attach to the cage. The GPS mount is excellent: simple, solid, and easy to position anywhere on the cage. The light mount is more suited to “be seen” lights than serious night riding, but thanks to the adjustability of the system, you don’t actually lose much bar space. We were able to run an Exposure SixPack alongside the bag and still see the trail ahead without a ten foot blind spot ahead of my front wheel — a rare luxury when bikepacking in the dark.
It’s not quite perfect. Tailfin continues to use Torx bolts in high-torque spots like the bracket-to-cage linkage, and they’re just not up to repeated tightening during setup. Even with quality tools, we managed to chew through a couple while test-fitting. We’ve since swapped them for sturdier Allen heads from my ever-expanding “just-in-case” hardware stash. A small annoyance, but worth noting.
Finally. We want to talk about strap-on-ability. We might need to coin a new phrase for this. But the point is important. Because it’s a cage, you can carry a few spare straps (Tailfin, Voile, shoelaces, whatever) and easily strap on most anything to the outside of the bag. This is mega for waterproofs where you don’t want to keep stowing them away in changeable weather, or for baguettes when you’re visiting the last shop before setting up camp.
Overall
If you’re serious about bikepacking, on road or off, this system is up there with the best we’ve ever used. If they revise the Torx bolts in key areas, it’d be full marks from us.
Addendum: Since this review, we have found out that the washers supplied on our sample unit were the wrong size, which has been amended for the consumer product. If we’d had the right size, we would have been less mardy about the Torx bolts, so we’re bumping this up to a 4.9/5.
I first came across the Tailfin rack a few years ago – bumped into another rider whilst doing Badger Divide, and thought “ooh that looks nice". looked it up when I got home, saw the price went “Nah…."
Fast forward a couple of years and I’ve got really bored of faffing around with tailpacks – pain in the arse to pack and unpack, always wobbling around and awkward if you run a dropper post – esp. on a gravel bike where you don’t have much drop to start with.
So I gave I and ponied up for one. By the time I’d unpacked it, I was really impressed. Having spent a week using it doing TNR, I’m very impressed indeed. Well designed, well made, good quality. It just worked painlessly. Stable, quiet, easy access, easy to attach and remove. A good few other riders I bumped into were quite taken with it too – especially the one who was shedding bits off his “classic" rack and was getting very grumpy about the fact (a section of the route much rougher than he’d expected). I could have spent less (went for the carbon option), i could have spent a bit more. It should work on my hardtail and the SO’s bikes too, so will get decent use.
Based on that, if I needed a capacious front carrying system (rather than the 4l bar bag I have for snacks, which still annoyed me a bit by bouncing round in my line of sight), I’d have no issues ponying up for a Tailfin. If it Just Works ™ and doesn’t piss me off, its money well spent. Value for money =/= cheap. Sometimes it is, but far from always.
No, if the product is sourced from the catalogue of supplier in China where no-one ever rides let alone uses this stuff. Or your ‘design’ means moving some stuff around and picking a colour.Yes if you run a company of smart designers and engineers in the UK who design well, make stuff to spec inc investment in tooling, and maintain quality standards. There’s plenty of the former out there and not much of the latter.. Tailfin are well ahead in the latter area.
I don’t have any of their kit as I have other solutions that I’m happy with. Would I buy their stuff? 100% yes. I’ll spend £1000s on a bike and that bike gives me the most pleasure when I have 3-7 days free to ride and travel. So a £250 (or whatever) addition that adds to that experience is fine. It needs to solve problems I have or be better in use and for many riders their kit does just that. No affiliation etc, just glad to see enough interest in this area of cycling to support a UK brand making premium quality kit.
We have loads of options there already, so much so that it’s a crowded market and some of it is junk imho.