EVOC Bike Travel Bag Review

Estimated reading time: 9 minutes, 11 seconds

This EVOC Bike Travel Bag Review is more thorough than most. I’ve used a lot of different bike bags and travelled a lot, so wanted to give you my take on this bag.

Before we start the EVOC Bike Travel Bag Review, I want to quickly mention what I look for in a bike bag. All of these things, except price, contribute to the overall utility of the bag. Click through each item to skip through to that section.

1. Agility/portability
2. Convenience
3. Stability
4. Compactability
5. Weight/Size
6. Robustness/Build Quality
7. Protection for bike
8. Adjustability
9. Storage
10. Securing the bike
11. Overall design considerations
12. Price
13. Summary
14. Where to Buy

The EVOC Bike Travel Bag Review video is below. Read on for photos and a breakdown.

EVOC Bike Bag Review from Tim Marsh on Vimeo.

Agility/Portability

The EVOC Bike Bag is nowhere near as agile as the Scicon Aero Comfort Plus (Scicon AeroComfortPlus Review here) or BikND Helium. There are two handles on the front – one down low, and one about half way up – it is reasonably easy to pick the bag up at the front and wheel it along.

This is really important in check in lines where you need a highly agile bag. The Polaris or OEM bike pods by comparison, are horrible in this regard.

The EVOC would benefit from front castors.

Convenience

You only need to take your handlebars off. Your seat can stay on, and so can your pedals though you can take those off if you want.

You don’t have to take the rear derailleur off, but for the 2 minutes it takes, I would. If you do remove it, simply tape it to your down stays and wrap it up in bubble wrap.

Stability

This bag is very stable and is not prone to tipping over. The Scicon AeroComfort Plus can sometimes tip forward and the Polaris bike pod tips over.

The only problem with stability is cross winds. If you’re in a cross wind (airport car park for instance), because you must lift the front of the bag off the ground to move it, the wind can tip it over. It’s not a huge issue though.

Compactibility

I didn’t take a photo of the bag folded down, but rest assured it scores well in the compactibility stakes, getting a 4/5. It folds down on itself and can be stored standing up in your house or garage, or somewhere in your hotel room, back of your car or campervan if on the road.

I stored mine away in our campervan storage locker for 1 month with no problems.

Weight and Size

First up, we take a look at the unloaded bag. It’s not too big at all. I got the blue as Wiggle were out of black. However, having a big bright bag makes it easier to spot at the airport so do check out the limited edition colours which are pretty cool.

This bag weighs around 9kg unloaded. You can see we have 8 handles, which are attached in a very robust fashion. There are 2 on each end, and 2 on each side; enough to keep the baggage handlers happy!

Unloaded Bag

Robustness/Build Quality

One thing I love about this bag is how good the robustness is. The bag has been designed really well. The zips are YKK and large gauge. They slide easily and have extra little grippers on them.

These plastic rails help keep the bag solid at the base.

Bottom of bag

The wheels are really robust and attached in a manner that ensures you won’t have a wheel come off (like what can happen on the Scicon Aero Comfort).

There is a bunch of plastic that ensures you shouldn’t have cracking across the plastic attachors, which can happen on luggage bags.

You can also see the plastic bash guard on the back. This should provide protection for the rear derailleur (I say should, not will – make sure you add bubble wrap to your rear D/R).

Wheels

There is a whole lot of this tear-proof latex or rubber-like material at the ends on the top and bottom. This is great thinking as these are the areas most likely to get scratched and torn.

Bash material

Protection for Bike

Another outstanding feature is the protection for the bike. The padding on the top is around 4cm thick.

In the wheel compartments, two plastic pipes are inserted into holders on the flap. This provides protection for the wheels. There are two hard plastic plates protecting the hubs.

Wheel compartments

Hub plates

Plastic braces

Probably the only thing I’d be wary of is the rear D/R. In the photo below, you can see I’ve taped mine up to give it some clearance from the rear of the bag. I’d additionally add some bubble wrap in there too.

Rear D/R

Update from TDF Tips reader Ben.

Adjustability

This bag happily takes anything from a roadbike to downhill bike. Probably your only issue will be roadbikes with integrated seatposts. To fit my bike in I had to lower the seat down as shown in the photo below. So, if you have an integrated seat post over 100mm, you might be in trouble.

Seat down

You’ll need the the road bike adaptor kit (Wiggle, CRC) to “pad” the front out a bit. This goes around the forks.

The block that the rear chain stays and BB sit on moves forward and backward as required and is secured on velcro.

Bottom Bracket block

There are plenty of internal straps and the seatpost strap is able to moved to accomodate small, medium and large bikes.

Seatpost strap

Storage

In the image below you can see how much room is left for shoes, some tools, extra padding and so on, once the bike is in.

Bike in Bag

One wheel goes into a special wheel compartment on each side of the bag. Skewers come off.

Wheel storage

Securing the Bike

Plenty of straps mean you can secure your bike, handlebars and forks with confidence.

Thanks to reader Wayne for pointing out the new EVOC bike stand (get it from Wiggle). The stand is made from aluminium so is light.

One of the problems I had with this bag was that the bottom bracket just sat on the block, with the straps securing the bag. The stand secures the bike using the two skewer points on the frame which is a much better solution. (However, there is a downside – the stand costs around A$110 which makes the bag/stand combo A$550 which is the same price ProBikeKit is charging for the excellent BikND Helium).

New EVOC bike stand

Utility

The wheelbase is wide enough that the bag doesn’t even look like tipping over, which is a design flaw of the Polaris Bike Pod, which has a very narrow wheel base which is uneven, so the bag leans to one side when unloaded, then tries to tip over when the bike is in it.

The internal material is surfboard bag material, so when it gets greasy, some eucalyptus oil or citrus cleanser will have it clean in a jiffy.

All the other considerations contribute to provide a bag with a high degree of utility, or usefulness.

To keep the rear of the bag from collapsing on itself, the bag comes with 2 fibreglass stringers which slot into these holders in the back. Great design thinking!

Stringers

They simply come out when you need to collapse the bag down to store it.

Stringers

Overall

This is a great bike bag.

It is good value for money, is reasonably light, has great protection for the bike and bag itself (rubber-like bash material), great agility, a useful number of handles and packs down pretty well.

It’s obvious the designers (German, I reckon) have really considered user utility as well as longevity of the bag.

It has lots of internal storage, and with the new bike stand, packing the bag is much easier.

About the only problem I had was with packing – the bag tips over and is a bit unwieldy. However, the new bike stand should help in that regard.

The other issue is weight and agility. This is a big bag and you can fit a lot into it, so that makes it heavy (unless you pack it light), plus it’s a bit hard to get around (at least compared to the BikND and Scicon).

However, the bag has some stiff competition from the BikND Helium and the Scicon AeroComfort Plus (v2) which are about the same price but are better in some regards.

If you are in the market for a bike bag, you won’t go wrong with this one.

Postscript. I have had a few people ask if you can fit your TT bike in. Answer is, it depends on size. Reader Chr3zzl3 sent in the below image (size M).

I’ve also had a few people ask about whether an integrated seat post bike fits. Again, it depends on your frame size. I’d be very cautious in that regard. Anything bigger than a size M might be a tight fit. And that to me sounds like a fair enough reason to get a new bike, just for travel!

Argon TT in the EVOC

Price

Expect to pay around AUD$400 for this bag. I paid AUD$270 during a Wiggle sale (with Platinum pricing). I think given the quality of this bag, it’s a very reasonable price.

With the bike stand, the total price will be $530 or so.

Summary

Where to buy the EVOC Bike Bag

You can get the EVOC using the below links.

• Wiggle + Road bike adaptor kit.
• Chain Reaction Cycles + road bike adaptor kit (RBAK)
• Evans Cycles
• ProBikeKit + Road bike adaptor kit

(disclosure: these links are affiliate links).

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