Restrap Race Aero Bar Bag

Restrap's Race Aero Bag is designed to work with aero bars on long-distance adventure rides. It fits securely to the bike, and even when loaded up there is minimal sway. The two-piece design makes it easy to grab or remove kit from your bike should the need for speed be important, and though it's not cheap, it's exceptionally well made.

As the name suggests, Restrap's Race range is designed for adventure riding or events where it's not just the distance that is a factor, it's also about speed.

While there is a 'standard' Race bar bag in the range, for these types of rides many riders use tri-bars for a bit of aero assistance and comfort, which makes the fitting of standard bar bags tricky.

The Race Aero Bag uses a holster and dry bag design, just the same as the Race bar bag and Race Saddle Bag, but with the cradle using four straps, two for each tri-bar.

It makes the holster very easy to set up, regardless of the shape of the extensions; straight, curved or whatever, the straps give a secure fit.

Extra slots in the holster for threading the straps through cater for different distances between the two tri-bars, allowing you to go wide or narrow depending on your setup.

Dimensions-wise, the bag and holster are about 170mm wide when fitted to the bike and 160mm deep, so there shouldn't be any issues with front tyre contact. Length is around 330mm.

Once the holster is fitted it's just a matter of inserting the dry bag. This is fully waterproof and has a volume of seven litres.

With the bag being positioned at the front of the bike you aren't going to want to carry anything heavy as it'll affect handling, but you can cram plenty of lighter stuff in there such as a jacket and other clothing or, as I did, a sleeping bag, inflatable floor mat and inflatable pillow.

The dry bag has great waterproofing, and Restrap recommends rolling the end over three times before clipping it closed to stop water ingress through the opening. I rode in the rain with a headwind, and nothing got in.

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The bag is secured in place with a strap and magnetic clip from the holster, and it stays put even on rough gravel tracks, but also makes grabbing the dry bag off the bike easy, when darting into a shop or something where you don't want to leave your kit unattended.

For extra carrying capacity there is elasticated cord criss-crossing over the top of the holster, ideal for stuffing a paper map, route notes or gels and the like.

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Restrap's bags are handmade in its Yorkshire factory and come with a lifetime warranty – not that you should need to use it, as the Aero Race Bag is so well made.

The holster has a hardshell carcass made from VX21, which is a waterproof material made from layers of PET film, nylon and polyester.

It's very robust and durable, so you aren't going to need to worry about bumps and scrapes. All of the strapping is also very tough and there is no weakness to any of the stitching around the clips and buckles.

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It's a bit of an investment at £99.99, but if you do want a large volume bag designed specifically for tri-bars, there isn't a huge number of options.

Apidura's Racing Aerobar Pack is a similar idea and is cheaper at £84, but it only has 2.5 litres of space.

Conclusion

The Race Aero Bag is made to Restrap's usual high quality, and is very useful considering the amount of storage it is capable of handling.

Verdict

Excellent build quality, and a bag you can rely on when speed is important