Bikepackers, Share Your Gear Opinions to Help Launch A New Project (and win an REI gift card)

If you’re a regular reader, you may know I’ve been turning my attention to new projects lately. As much as I love writing, I also have roots in software development. I still can’t tear myself away from the world of bikes and bikepacking, so I’m joining the two with my newest side project.

Introducing…. drumroll please…. BikepackBaggregator.com!

Baggregator?? Bag + Aggregator = Baggregator. What can I say, the site basically named itself. :)

This new project is, simply put, a better way to learn about and choose bikepacking bags and racks. It aims to solve these problems:

• Bikepacking gear is hard to discover if you don’t know where to look. A lot of great options are made by small brands with small marketing budgets, easy to miss if you don’t happen to hear about them.

• Choosing gear can be confusing if you don’t know what you’re looking for, and there’s no other place to compare side-by-side based on the factors that matter most to you (price, weight, capacity, waterproofness, bike compatibility, and more).

• It’s hard to know if a particular product will work on your bike with your other gear and style of riding, especially if you ride a small or otherwise unusual bike or do things differently from the norm.

Just a few examples of the many unique and detailed product searches Bikepack Baggregator enables:

• seat bags for low-clearance setups (like small 29ers or full-suspension bikes)
• racks that mount to bikes without eyelets
• ultralight low-profile cargo cages
• fully waterproof half frame bags
• affordable large-capacity seat bags
• handlebar harnesses made in the U.S.
• seat bags that come in colors other than black and grey
• small bikepacking-style panniers

February Giveaway: Share Your Gear Experience, Win an REI Gift Card

Part of Baggregator’s magic will be crowdsourced experience about bikepacking bags/racks and how they work with different bikes and riding styles. But getting traction on new projects is hard, and crowdsourcing doesn’t work without… crowds.

So to kick this thing off, I’m reaching out to all the bikepackers who read this site (that’s you!) and inviting you to share your product reviews and/or bikepacking setups (combo of bike and bags) on bikepackbaggregator.com.

For a little extra motivation (I know you’re all busy), during February each review or setup you submit counts as a raffle ticket. At the end of the month I’ll randomly draw two winners and send them each a $50 gift card to REI, or we can discuss a different store if you prefer.

Plus, your hard-won experience will help other bikepackers make the best gear choices the first time, saving them money and frustration.

Important Details

• For a Review or Setup to count as a raffle entry, you must include a valid email address (so I can contact you if you win). Email addresses will never be sold or spammed, and you do not need to check the “send me updates” box (unless you want to follow along, which would be awesome).

• Each Review or Setup counts as one entry, so the more you share the better your chances of winning.

• Reviews and Setups must be approved before they go live, and if not approved they won’t count as a raffle entry. I will approve all entries that are genuine (you clearly have actual experience using the gear) and thoughtful. You don’t need to fill out every optional field, but you do need to make an effort to be helpful.

• In early March two gift card winners will be chosen via random drawing from the pool of all Setups and Reviews shared during February 2025.
  

See the Giveaway page for more details.

How to Contribute

To share your hard-won bikepacking gear experience, head to the Contribute page. Here you’ll find links to write reviews and share setups. I invite you to share either or both; there’s a little overlap but they serve different purposes.

Write a Review

A review focuses on a single product you’ve used in depth. Unlike a traditional product review, it’s more than just a rating and text blurb. You’ll answer questions about how a product fits into your overall bikepacking system, which will help others understand if it would work well as part of theirs.

To create a review you’ll fill out a form with your answers, and optionally upload a few pictures of the product on your bike.

The form asks about general likes and dislikes, as in a normal review, but the secret sauce is all the other stuff. You’ll have the option to:

• Say what type of riding and packing styles you use the product for
• Mention the bike components and other gear you use the product with (for example, which panniers you use with a rack or whether your seat bag works with a dropper post)
• Describe the bike(s) you use it on

This stuff is optional, but filling it out helps Bikepack Baggregator make recommendations about which gear works best on which types of bikes.

At the end you’ll find a section for your information. You can stay anonymous or add a name and links to your online homes (Instagram, YouTube, etc). You do need to enter an email address if you want to enter the raffle!

You can only review products that are already in the Baggregator database. If you use a product that isn’t, suggest it and I’ll do my best to add it so you can review it.

Once they’re live, reviews show up on the product page and are also used behind the scenes to fine-tune gear searches. Here’s an example of a review:

Share a Setup

A “setup” is a particular combination of bike and bags/racks that you’ve ridden for a specific trip (or many). Some people have just one setup, while others have a variety depending on the terrain and type of trip. Feel free to submit more than one!

A setup starts with a picture of your loaded bike. You know, one of those “bike portraits” we’re always taking in scenic or quirky places.

Next you’ll tag the bags and racks in your picture by choosing from dropdowns or typing in your own (for products that aren’t in the database yet). There’s an option to write a short review or comments for each product, but it’s optional and much shorter than the full review described above. If you fill it out, focus on how the product works as part of this specific setup.

Next you’ll fill out some information about your bike: size, style, make and model, and more. Connecting this info with the products you tagged will help other bikepackers find gear that works well on their particular bike.

Lastly there’s a section for highlighting any components you’re especially excited about, you know, your favorite handlebars or pedals or a sweet dynamo hub. This is mostly just for fun, for now, but eventually could help with more precise gear recommendations.

As with reviews, the last section gives you a chance to enter your attribution info (or stay anonymous). Be sure to enter a valid email if you want a chance at winning the raffle!

Once they’re live, setups can be found on the Setups page or the product pages of the gear tagged in them.

More About Bikepack Baggregator

Still wondering what the point is? Here are some screenshots highlighting how Bikepack Baggregator helps bikepackers choose gear.

Other Ways You Can Help

In addition to sharing your experience in the form of Reviews and Setups, here are other ways you can help get this project off the ground if you like what you see:

• Check it out, click around, and send me your feedback. What do you like, what was confusing, what do you want to see added?

• Share it with your bikepacking friends online or in person.

• Suggest a product that’s not in the database yet (I’m working hard to get more added but it takes time)

• Follow @bikepackbaggregator on Instagram. The account is currently brand new but the vision is to share helpful gear tidbits and bikepacking setup inspiration.

• If you happen to own a website, linking to any page on bikepackbaggregator.com helps search engines understand the website and send searchers to it.

Thanks a bunch! Building websites is the easy part, getting them out there so people can use them is hard. I’d love for this project to be a helpful resource that saves bikepackers time and money, but I can’t do it without your help.