Tailfin Bar Cage and 11L Bag

The Tailfin Bar Cage represents the state of the art in drop and flat bar handlebar luggage. It’s light, rock solid, adaptable and adjustable. The matching bags – while not compulsory – are pretty good too. And the price is comparable with other designs offering fewer features. For what you get, the Bar Cage challenges the premium ‘Tailfin tax’ mindset of old.

> Buy now: Tailfin Bar Cage & 11L Bag for £160 from Tailfin

Handlebars – the final frontier of bikepacking. For as long as people have travelled by bike, levers, cables, accessories and geometry have conspired to confound the just-so placement of luggage out front. Radical bar designs like the Jones Bar and the Redshift Top Shelf introduced new sections of pipe dedicated to hanging bags or accessories from, but were still basically reliant on straps around the bar, or around cages bolted directly to the bar. This limits options as cables need to still work, levers need to move their full throw, lights need to shine forward, and computers need to be visible. Most importantly, hands need to wrap around drop bar tops.

UK firm Tailfin came at the challenge with its engineering-led trial-and-error process, refined over many thousands of miles of test rider input, to arrive at the Bar Cage System. And as home runs go, this is a biggie.

Systems go

Firstly, an overview: the ‘System’ is made up of the Bar Cage (£110, 315g including straps), Light Mount (£12, 24g), GPS Mount (£20, 31g), and three sizes of bags – 8L (£50), 11L (£60, 248g) and 15L (£70). Straps are included with a bag but are £10 extra otherwise. If you buy the cage and a bag you get £10 off. So the 11L bag and a cage with straps on review here will cost you £160 and 563g in weight.

As with most genius products, the concept is brilliantly simple. If you introduce two pivot points, your options for position increase exponentially. Or infinitely, or something. Make the first pivot point the bar clamp itself, stand the second pivot point off just enough, then introduce an anti-rotation lock mechanism. Sorted.

Fundamentally it’s a cargo cage plate with a fancy bracket. The handlebar side has two separate clamps that open wide, allowing quick fitting or removal. Nice. The clamps are secured to 5Nm with a T25 Torx bit. They are native 31.8mm diameter, and if you unscrew the shim they will fit a 35mm bar – perfect for most modern mountain bikes. Tailfin doesn’t provide shims for smaller diameters, which may disappoint some with older bars or who are looking to add to sections of bars like the Redshift Sports Top Shelf, which is 25.4mm.

The cage side of the Bar Cage is where the engineering magic starts. The interface between the alloy clamp head and the cage is serrated, meaning when you torque up the cage side to 6Nm using the 4mm hex bolts, the cage is locked solid to the mount. I can’t imagine what would make this interface slip, but if it does move you’ve applied enough force to shear off the alloy ridges on the mount, and are probably already en route to hospital.

This process of fitting represents my only gripe with the solution – during fitting and removal you need to swap between T25 and 4mm hex. A minor faff in the big scheme of things.

Clamping considerations

Once the bolts are in place you can slide the cage left or right to get it perfectly centred. This consideration recognises that your clamps may need to be off-centre or particularly wide to clear other stuff nailed to your bike. You get 35mm of play on each side, which should accommodate every eventuality of clamp and cage position.

So you can pivot the clamp on the bar, pivot the plate on the clamps, slide the mounts and then slide the plate left-right by a fair bit. What this adds up to is a massive range of positioning on both drop and flat bar bikes, meaning pretty much every rider will be able to find a position that works. Even people running super-narrow bars, where even a small rollbag or tent won’t fit between the hoods, should be able to find a fit above or below.

A critical drawback of many designs that strap directly to the bar is clearance for your fingers when curled around the tops. The Tailfin Bar Cage stands out enough that the largest of hands wearing the thickest of gloves should have no problems.

Another major drawback of bar-mounted luggage is the obscuring of a path forward for your lights, and limiting options for mounting computers or phones because of straps taking up real estate. Tailfin has that covered as well. On the top edge of the cage are three slots, into which can be fixed mounts that use the GoPro three-prong standard. You can buy a Garmin-ready quarter-turn mount or a 22.2mm cylinder mount ready for lights, a bell or anything else that fits around a 22.2mm bar. If you have your own GoPro-based accessory (for example an Exposure light), you can add that yourself.

The mounts can fit in many configurations. The 22mm arm sits proud of the cage by about 40mm to clear whatever you have strapped to it, meaning your light will have an unobstructed view. As with the cage itself, you can slide the mounts left or right and swap them round, to find the perfect setup.

So far, so solid. And it’s no overstatement to say you can pick your bike up using the Bar Cage. Which translates into holding whatever you’ve decided to strap to it without rattling or shifting, even over very rough terrain. Tailfin rates the Bar Cage for 6kg load on the road, and 3kg off-road. I pushed this in my testing over as rough a surface as my dental plan would comfortably accommodate, with not a millimetre of movement. I’d say for most folks you’ll run out of drybag space before you run out of weight limit.

Unexpected features in the bagging area

While you can use pretty much any drybag you like, or strap items like tents or sleep rolls directly to the cage, it’s worth considering what Tailfin has done with the matching drybags for the Bar Cage, to create the ‘System’.

The super-tough Hypalon Cage Bags have been designed to interface perfectly with the Bar Cage through the addition of two tough, rubbery Speed Hooks welded to the bag that hook over the top of the cage. These support the weight of the bag while you faff about with straps, which sounds like a small thing but solves a hassle inherent to all other designs. You’re holding a bag, holding your bike, and have to thread and cinch both ends of a strap. Anything that makes this easier is a win in my book.

The Speed Hooks are spaced to give you 15mm left and right movement once mounted for a total of 30mm play, meaning an inevitably lopsided drybag can be centred between your hoods, maximising clearance and minimising the need to repack the bag. Scrunch down as tight as needed, hang on the cage, and centre. Sorted. During the scrunching down you’ll want to be sure the air valve is open, allowing for the most condensed internals and thereby minimising any movement inside that would then require re-cinching of the straps.

The straps are basically Voile copies, with Tailfin’s upgrade of two protruding bumps just after the start of the strap that retain the strap sliders. It’s tiny features like these, that prevent losing an equally tiny strap retainer in the grass or mud, that make the whole Tailfin experience even better. Straps are included with each bag, or can be purchased separately.

Welded to the front of the bag are three stacked 15mm-wide loop sections, for mounting smaller clip-style lights to if you haven’t gone the 22.2mm light mount route.

The Speed Hooks are part of a larger TPU patch that is welded to the bag preventing abrasion from the cage eating through it over time. On the opposite side of the bag – facing downwards once fitted – is another large TPU patch, placed to protect the underneath from anything that might fly off the tyre. Welded between this patch and the bag is a carbon rod to give the bag shape.

The bags come in three sizes. The small 8L is 135mm diameter, and between 360 and 540mm closed. The medium 11L is 165mm diameter and 370-540mm – I think most folks will be after this one. Finally the large 15L is 180mm diameter and 380-560mm wide. At £50-£60-£70 respectively these aren’t cheap as drybags go, but the Speed Hooks, air valve and abrasion protection add up to more than justify the premium outlay.

The fact that the ends of the bag protrude past the edge of the cage means that if you’ve packed smaller, heavier items – think a cookset, a mug, gas cooker – the ends will droop down as you ride rough surfaces. If you’re pushing the available space and have the bag central between your hoods, those ends may then interfere with the arc of your levers when changing gear or articulating your dropper post – ask me how I know.

What I’d love to see is a Bar Cage-compatible bag that uses Tailfin’s WaveLock closure system, which cinches the bag ends towards the centre of the bag instead of clipping back around on themselves. Matt covered this detail in his Bar Bag System review for off.road.cc. Of course you could always really wail down on the folds of your drybag to get it as compact as possible. I’ll throw this out there, that the option of using a simple male-female strap on either side to cinch the ends inwards would solve this need. You could use Tailfin’s own AP Packing Straps for this purpose (two for £10).

If you are really challenged for space, can’t angle the Bar Cage downward due to a short head tube, which would foul on the tyre, and want to stay 100 per cent inside the Tailfin ecosystem with proprietary bags instead of any drybag (or similar-shaped load), the Bar Bag System might be a better shout for you. You get an extra 1kg of load and mesh front pockets to boot.

> Easy and effective ways to carry stuff on your bike

Tailfin describes the difference between the Bar Cage and Bar Bag systems thus: “If you want the simplest and lightest way of attaching kit to your handlebars then the Bar Cage is the one for you. The bare aluminium cradle allows you to strap almost anything to it, not just a dry bag, making it more useful for carrying anything from firewood to pack rafts to a school bag. Simply use cargo straps of an appropriate length to secure your chosen load. This setup is great if you already own a number of dry bags that could be used for carrying kit or to add stability, adjustment and hand/cable clearance to an existing, different brand bar bag.

“If you want a dedicated bikepacking handlebar based storage setup then the Bar System is the one to go for. Designed to carry light and bulky kit in 100% security and weatherproofing it’s perfect for your sleep system and shelter. Rapid attachment and release makes packing far easier than any other system and the lack of straps means that there’s no second guessing if it’s attached properly.”

Best of the rest

Excellent as the Tailfin Bar Cage is, there are some highly acclaimed alternatives to consider.

Probably the closest fit is the circa £100 Miss Grape Ilcoso, which is both a cage and 200mm-long 25mm-diameter faux-handlebar in one. But the Ilcoso is a smidge heavier at 320g, and only supports 3kg – plus you are restricted to a 52mm gap for your stem, where the Tailfin spacing can go much wider. You’re also limited to 31.8mm bars here.

Or there’s Salsa’s EXP Anything Cradle; the major difference here is that there’s no second pivot point, nor mounts for accessories. At £147 without bags but including straps, the EXP is £37 more than the Tailfin, £27 when you include two Tailfin straps to level up the functionality. The EXP is also about 100g heavier.

The £153 Rogue Panda Blue Ridge Handlebar Harness takes a different tack, with two rods supporting your load, with included straps attached to reduce faff. Again the position can only pivot around your handlebar, but you do get 22.2mm compatibility if you need it. Weight is on a par with the Tailfin without straps – which is pretty good for Tailfin considering the extra functionality offered.

Conclusion

Overall, the Bar Cage works brilliantly. The setup process is pretty easy, and once done, removing or installing is two bolts and a minute or so. The bags go on quickly and without faff, the straps cinch down tight and stay put, and any accessories are secure and clear of your bag. Everything is quiet and solid, over the roughest of terrain.

The gripe about the different bolts at setup and not having a sub-31.8mm spacer are, in the big picture, so trivial I’m only including them here for completeness.

As evidenced by the comparisons above and the overall vibe of the Bar Cage, Tailfin really has set the bar very, very high for the rest of the industry to follow. In addition to being relatively light, rock solid in use, having more features than you can shake a titanium tent peg at, being adjustable to pretty much any bike and competitively priced, you get a five-year warranty, 30 per cent crash replacement discount and pretty much every spare part imaginable available.

It’s rare that the Five-Star Stamp comes out here at road.cc Towers, but with the Bar Cage, Tailfin has definitely earned it. Chapeau.

> Buy now: Tailfin Bar Cage & 11L Bag for £160 from Tailfin

Verdict

This is the new standard by which other handlebar luggage systems will be measured – it’s that good

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