OK, so hear me out, as this is some next-level first world problem sh*t, but… When you own more than one fancy set of wheels for your super bike, wheel bags make a lot of sense. Whether you are storing your extra wheels at home, or carting them around to races, it’s easier to deal with them in a bag, then separately on their own. Now most of the wheel bags we use hold one wheel each, but I have one double wheel bag and it makes me wonder why the single wheel bag exists. OK, so if you have a fork mount on the roof of your car and are super anal about trunk cleanliness, sure. But more often than not, we are hauling (or storing) a pair of wheels (remember it’s BI-cyclerumor no Unicyclerumor), so have come to love the double wheel bag…
We use wheel bags a lot in cross, where it makes it easier to haul a set of spare tubulars to the pit. They even do double duty of keeping the back of the car clean on the drive home. My personal double bag (not from Zipp, but neither are my wheels) has become a favorite because like the new Zipp bag, it has a shoulder strap that means I can actually ride from the parking lot with wheels slung over my back and keep my hands on the bar. In a pinch(es) we’ve also ridden across town on a few occasions as we swap and share wheels out of our test pool.
Now, personally I find it hard to imagine how many sets of $4000 454 wheels Zipp will be selling, but for those who do, a nice padded wheelbag will be a welcome addition. And for the rest of us who are more likely to spend $1000 or less on our second wheelset, Zipp’s new Double Soft Wheel Bag for $150/170€/£145 still makes a decent buy.
The bag is designed to fit up to 35mm tires on a 700c wheelset. From using similar bags, I’ll say that it will take a little getting used to in order to place your cross wheels in it with knobby tread. But once you get the hang of it, you’ll be happy to have those spare dirty tubulars safely stored away in transit. If you’ve seen the recent trend in Road Plus, you’ll also know that a 650b x 50mm tire will fit in there as well, a normal 27.5 mountain tire will not, though.
The bag has inner pockets for QRs, thru-axles and other spares. Looks like also enough room for a couple of tubes or some sealant, depending on your persuasion (plus maybe a mini pump). The double Zipp wheel bag gets an 840D nylon shell, internal pads between the hubs, and padded carry straps. It even gets a name tag sleeve in case you go to the kind of races where there might be enough people with Zipp wheel bags that it would get confusing.
