Fixplus Cargo Cage M Kit

The Fixplus Cargo Cage M Kit comprises a 4-bolt alloy cargo cage with numerous openings to thread the included TPU cargo straps through and an optional ‘Load Chip’ that attaches to the bottom of the cage to prevent loads slipping down. The kit is nicely produced, from premium materials – which is reflected in the price.

Cargo cages are a staple of bikepacking, or indeed the world of just carrying stuff on bikes. Round heavy things, long skinny things, bags, containers – all can be strapped to a cargo cage and mostly stay put. I’ve e-bikepacked very rough country for days carrying a 4kg e-bike battery in a protective case on a fork-mounted cargo cage.

The fundamental design of cargo cages hasn’t really changed since Salsa invented them in 2010: three or four-bolt length with lots of holes to thread straps through. The biggest innovation was the advent of footplates to prevent slippery loads slipping down (although some bags solve this by having loops to pass the straps through).

Most cages are made from alloy, with straps mostly made from tough TPU that copy the if-it-ain’t-broke Voile Strap hook design.

And so to the Fixplus Cargo Cage M Kit. The M stands for medium. There’s also a small kit, which is £5 cheaper, which requires three fixing bolts, not four. The M kit comes at two prices: £78 for two 66cm straps, or a cool £80 for two 86cm straps.

The kit contains the cage itself, two straps with bright orange ‘keepers’ to tidy excess strap away, the ‘Load Chip’ to support heavier things, three pre-Loctited M5 cap screws if your fork or bike doesn’t have them, and finally three rubber ‘bumpers’ that slot into any unused holes to protect your fork or frame if/when the cage flexes. You also get a wee bag of eight split pins, to secure the Load Chip in place.

The split pins befuddle me a bit. You only need one to hold the Load Chip in place (there are two holes though) – but what’s wrong with a screw? Tailfin’s Load Chip is secured from beneath by a screw, and this seems a friendlier solution. Once you run out of split pins over the years of reconfiguring your cages, I’m not sure what you do.

You get eight possible heights at which to position your straps, providing a number of possible combinations so large that my review-assisting AI agent crashed in a sulk whilst computing. Let’s just say you have options.

The cage’s feel and quality are right up there with UK brand Tailfin, which is high praise.

The straps are another kettle of TPU. I prefer the original Voile strap or Tailfin’s own take, which uses nylon buckles so as not to scratch your bike. The Fixplus buckles are alloy and do have ever-so-slightly rounded edges – but I prefer nylon thwacking my paintjob if anything has to.

The Fixplus straps feel stiff and unyielding next to Voile or Tailfin – meaning if/when things compress as they settle, there’s less elasticity to suck up the extra space and therefore you’re going to be more vulnerable to slipping or internal/external abrasion due to a vibrating load.

Not that that happened to me during my testing – and I rattled around some pretty chunky trails – but I hazard I’m good at packing for minimal settlage. There are also many reports and reviews from cyclists crossing continents using the Fixplus straps, so inherently they work really well. I just prefer more stretch. You may scoff, but consider users with weaker, injured, less dextrous or just frozen cold fingers. A strap that takes more effort or repeated goes to settle is unhelpful.

Value

The Fixplus parent company is Dutch and they are manufactured in Germany and this is reflected in the premium price for the functionality.

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The logical competitor for me is Tailfin’s 4-bolt Cargo Cage (size large) at £45. If you add in two of Tailfin’s 65cm straps for £17 for a total of £62 for the kit, that’s £16 less than the Fixplus M kit’s £78.

If you need one cage per side (and who doesn’t?) that makes a Fixplus setup the fairly chunky sum of £32 more than the Tailfin equivalent.

The M cage is 93g without bolts or Load Chip, while the similarly sized Tailfin is 73g, so for a pair the difference is 40g. The 68cm Fixplus strap is 38g compared to Tailfin’s 65cm at 42g, so there’s only a mouthful of water in it weight-wise if you stick with the same brand for cages and straps.

The default Fixplus strap lengths do seem pretty long for fork-mounted loads. You aren’t likely to be carrying a sleeping bag on a fork – more likely tentpoles (or a compact tent itself), or a drybag with a cooking kit inside. I therefore found I had to deal with a lot of excess strap with the Fixplus straps, even the shorter ones.

If we’re being really serious about this shootout, the Tailfin Load Chip incorporates a bottle opener. I love me a Mittelstand as much as the next Europhile, but the lower price, stretchier straps and beverage-opening ability of the Tailfin setup make the Fixplus Cargo Cage M Kit a hard sell.

That said, if you do go for the Fixplus kit, you won’t be disappointed. It’s made well, and has all the features you need to enjoy thousands of miles of adventuring.