First Look: Defiant Pack Bikepacking Bags

Defiant Pack is a small company of bicycle enthusiasts that design, sew, test, and offer a variety of bikepacking bag products made in Carbondale, CO. The brand began as UpSki in 2012, building bags for use in wind mountaineering (windpowered snow skiing uphill). In 2014, the company began to use the brand name Defiant Pack when designing custom bags for bikepacking and cargo bicycles. In 2015 they added many stock bikepacking bags to their line, such as seat bag harnesses, handlebar bags harnesses, and top tube bags. All bags are available with a variety of color and material choice options. When viewing the products on www.defiantpack.com, it is apparent that this bikepacking bag company’s approach to bag construction is different than most. You won’t find any zippers on any of the closures of their bags. All Defiant Pack bags use zipperless construction and side release buckles for the bag closures instead zippers. The attraction of the zipperless construction mainly revolves around the avoidance of broken zippers, which becomes more probable when over-stuffing a zippered bag. When out on an extended trip with many miles still left to carry gear on the bike, a broken zipper on a bikepacking bag can lead to a very challenging situation. Eliminating the zippers could potentially make for a more robust bag system, that in turn may allow for a higher probability in continuing a trip with all your gear intact when compared to a zippered bag system. All Defiant Pack products are sewn using waterproof materials, but the bags, while designed to minimize water entry, are only claimed to be water-resistant, not waterproof. Defiant Pack recently sent us some of their bags for an upcoming review. They sent a Custom Zipperless Frame Bag, a Malamute Seat Harness and Bag, a McClure Handlebar Harness and Front Bag Kit, and a Daly Top Tube Bag. The only zipper to be found was on an internal zipper pocket on the McClure Front Bag. Custom Zipperless Frame Bag These frame bags are custom built to your frame pattern. It should be noted that Defiant Pack has kept many existing frame templates in their bag construction library from frame bags they have previously built. Their list of existing pattern templates for frame bags can be found here. These custom bags come equipped with flat-mounted buckles which enable easy one-handed opening. They use plastic stiffeners and screw-mounting to give the frame bag a clean look and help reduce rubbing to your frame. The custom frame bag comes in at $160 for most bags (+$10 for XL frames.) Features:

• Bull nose: a wide nose and narrow rear to maximize bag volume
• Zipperless flap opening with main buckle on right (drive side)
• Internal flap side pocket
• Easy-open single handed buckle
• Internal compression straps as needed
• Black ballistic cloth for high wear fabric against the frame
• Hydration hose pass-through
• bottom drain-hole

Basic Options

• Mount style: Bolt-on attachment (with Reinforced Velcro straps as needed) or All Velcro
• Primary Fabric •VX42 White
• VX42 Black
• VX42 Grey
• X50 MultiCam (+$5)

Malamute Seat Harness and Bag

The Malamute Seat Harness and Bag are designed to minimize sway and interface with your seat post flawlessly. The Malamute comes in two different sizes (small and large) and can be purchased with or without the dry bag. Features:

• 1lb total weight
• Aluminum strut and seat post clamp for increased rigidity
• Harness design to allow full removal of the bag without detaching harness
• Orange rubber Voile straps for seat post attachment

Fine-tune your system with these purchase options:

• Full kit: harness and bag ($130)
• Harness only: (includes harness, strut, and clamp) – use it with your existing seat bag or a dry bag ($95)
• Seat post clamp: for seat post diameters 27.2, 30.9, and 31.6.
• Strut: standard length 16″ is also compatible with Defiant Pack’s other seat bag, the Pearl Pass as well. Defiant Pack can also cut this strut in custom lengths of 8″ – 18″.
• Bag size: small and medium available (we recommend size small for most bikes)
• Bag color/material: various colors/material options- all waterproof fabrics. Black, Grey, White, Yellow, Red, Camo. At this time bags are being made to order – just add a note to your order and they build what you want.

Looking at the Defiant Pack feed on Instagram, the photo below shows how this design has been in the works for some time as Defiant Pack displayed the various iterations they have tested along the way:

Seatbag progression

A photo posted by Defiant Pack (@defiantpack) on Oct 22, 2015 at 11:56am PDT

McClure Handlebar Harness and Front Bag Kit

The McClure Front Harness & Bag Kit has been designed with the Colorado Trail in mind. The McClure acts as an external accessory pack with compression features and a harness to hold your favorite dry bag in place. It is the only handlebar bag that they make, and they are confident in it’s ability. Sold as a complete kit for $113. Features:

• Harness ($38 if purchased separately)
• Two 32″ XXL orange Voile straps ($8.50 if purchased separately)
• McClure Bag and accessory straps ($59 if purchased separately)
• Strap Width: 6″ width designed for straight, drop, and H bar handlebars (3″ width version for riser bars)
• Max dry bag/stuff sack diameter: 10″ (note: dry bag not included)

Daly Top Tube Bag

The Daly Top Tube Bag is a zipperless bag with a roll top and buckle closure. Defiant Pack designed this bag specifically to be used while on-the-go. The Daly bag is easy to open and close while riding, and you can even leave it open while you pedal without having your items fall out. The price of the bag is $43. Features

• Plastic rigid colored base inside of bag
• Front One-Wrap attachment with adjustable height
• Bottom One-Wrap attaches around the top and down tubes avoiding interference with velcro from frame bags
• Comes with sticky velcro to use for added support and rigidity
• Length: 6 in
• Height unrolled: Tapered from 10 in – 7.5 in
• Height rolled: Tapered from 6 in – 4.5 in
• Width: widest is 4.5 in and the front is 3 in

Custom build time is currently 2 weeks.

Defiant Pack offers free USA shipping on all orders over $50.  They offer $8 shipping on orders less than $50.

www.defiantpack.com