Last October I bought a Louis Garneau HB-09 handlebar bag to carry the surprisingly large inventory of small odds and ends that I need when riding my Surly LHT around North Country roads. And while it’s certainly not perfect—it’s heavy, for one thing, and it has a plastic clamp that doesn’t exactly inspire confidence—the Garneau bag has served me well. Until yesterday, that is, when it let me down. More accurately, the snap-link on the shoulder strap let the bag down. Hard. Onto a concrete walk. I hadn’t overloaded it, by the way. In fact, it was only half full. But my little Canon PowerShot camera was part of the load. So I certainly wasn’t happy when the bag plummeted from my shoulder to the pavement below.

The culprit was one of the plastic swivel hooks which join the shoulder strap to the bag’s D-rings. It turns out that the swivel is held in place by a simple press-fit coupling. You can see the whole swivel hook cum snap link here:

And what was the peccant part? The split stud that anchors the snap link to the swivel base, no less. Except that, in this instance, the anchor failed, and the snap link parted company from the base, suddenly and without warning. I don’t know why. The split stud is undamaged and intact, as is the base. In fact, I repaired the swivel assembly by the simple expedient of pressing the stud back into the base. Here’s a close-up of the completed “repair”:

Simple. But not good. A shoulder strap that lets your bag down isn’t something to boast about. Still, it could have been worse. My camera survived the hard landing. No thanks to Louis Garneau.

OK. Here’s the moral of my story: If you own a Louis Garneau HB-09 bag, and if you ever use it as a shoulder bag when it’s off the bike, I strongly recommend that you ditch the feckless strap and replace it with one you know can rely on. That’s what I’m going to do. ‘Nuff said?

 
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