Get Your Kit Together - A New Kind of Gear Hauler

 Over the last two years we’ve been on a quest to build a mountain bike specific gear hauler that makes getting (and staying) ready as easy as throwing your bag in the back of the truck. We’ve finally come up with a bag that’s better than your mama’s milk crate and helps you get your shit together.

The bag is called the Kitloader 70L and is a the ultimate grab and go gear bag.

Now I know mountain forums generally hate marketing people, marketing speak and reading so we’ve created a few short bullet-points about the bag below as well as some copy and paste comments (for the haters). If you want to know more about the bag and why we spent the past two years building it, keep reading.

Quick Hits of the Kitloader 70:

Semi-rigid, collapsible tub floor design, with fiberglass enforced rim

Features: (Re)movable dividers, exterior pockets, adjustable handles, and organizational details galore

Waterproof ballistics cordura nylon, US-sourced sailcloth and antimicrobial coated mesh

70-liter volume

Dimensions: Base: 10 x 24″, Lid: 11.5 x 27″, Height: 14”

Handmade in Asheville NC (Currently handmade in the greater state of NC due to Hurricane Helene)

Presale Founder’s Bag: $375 

Bag product page: https://thornhill.bike/products/70l-bag 

Press so far: https://theradavist.com/kitloader-70-mountain-bike-gear-bag/ 

Copy and Paste Comments (for the haters)

- A $400 bag, you’ve got to be F**k**g kidding me

- I just use an old duffel bag, this is lame

- That’s a lotta words to justify a $400 bag

- Mountain Bike Brands are the worst – all they want to do is sell you stuff you don’t need

- What a waste of 2 years of your time

Why did we create the bag and company?

We noticed an issue that was impacting ride time with our buddies. It’s a classic story, the story of the missing riding gear. Someone shows up to ride and they’re missing a helmet, shoes, or some other essential piece of kit. Inevitably the missing gear means a delayed ride or worse, no ride at all.

We realized that the problem wasn’t our riding buddies (or even us), it was the way that we were storing gear and the lack of organization. After all, it’s hard to stay ready for a ride if all your gear is strewn throughout your house, in your truck bed or in the laundry.

Building a Bag That Keeps Your Shit Together

This realization led to a lot of puzzling on the part of James Leath, our Founder (and the master sewer behind the bags). Over dozens of rides, James came up with the idea that underpins the bag’s organizational system:

Ride Cycles

During a single bike ride there are a series of actions that are taken in order to have a successful ride. These cycles happen every ride and they consist of:

Pre-ride

You get your kit together, checking to make sure that you have everything. Hopefully, you remembered to wash your kit! Everything gets thrown in the truck/car.

Parking lot

You change into your kit and leave your clothing in the car, probably thrown over the back seat.

Post ride

You’re sweaty and gross from a great ride with the crew. You take off your nasty gear, change into street clothes and have a celebratory beer. The nasty gear gets thrown somewhere in your vehicle.

Wash Cycle

Your gear eventually makes its way to the washing machine. Once clean it’s thrown somewhere in your house until your next ride.

The Ideal Ride Cycle

The Kitloader 70 aims to make the ride cycle easier. It does this by providing a complete organizational system that streamlines the cycles. Below is the ride cycle using a Kitloader 70. 

Pre-ride

All of your gear is packed into the Kitloader 70 including your helmet, shoes, and 3-4 riding kits. The bag is stored somewhere convenient like your trunk.

Parking lot

You roll up to the trailhead, grab your Kitloader and Bam you’re dialed in. The wind starts blowing hard as you’re changing. No worries, you’ve got your jacket!

Post Ride

The crew was stoked and the ride was good. You open up your trunk, grab your bag and change. Your helmet and shoes go in each side of the bag. The ventilation allows both to breathe. Your sweaty kit goes on top of the bag using the included bungies. 

Wash Cycle

After a post ride bevy with the crew you drive home and pull your bag out of the car. You grab the dirty kit from the top and throw it in the washing machine. The bag sits ready, still full of the rest of your kit (which is clean and stink-free) so you can snag a ride tomorrow when you’re supposed to be doing that progress report for the boss.

A few of the old prototypes

Now we didn’t just magically come up with the Kitloader after sorting out the ride cycles. It took a LOT of prototyping. Below are a few of the initial prototypes.

This was the first prototype ever. I believe we called it the KitPack. It was intended to carry one ride's worth of kit and we planned on attaching it th the bike after the ride (to keep stinky gear out of the car). It was a start but didn't do what we wanted it to.

The next proto was a tote. It was essentially a beefed up version of a grocery store tote bag. There was enough room to store a helmet, 1-2 kits and shoes. It kept all the gear together but that was kinda the problem. Once you were done riding all of your gear was in one place and if you live in the southeast or sweat, that can be a smelly problem.

Another view of the tote. It used the same sail fabric that the final bag does. It was honestly a pretty good gear hauler, but it wasn't perfect.

Version one of the Kitloader was a huge leap from the tote. Instead of throwing all the gear in one bag, we now had a bag that could be divided up into multiple compartments. The bag also had vented mesh on either side which allowed us to store stinky gear in compartments that were completely separate from the clean gear (in the middle). The ventilation worked surprisingly well allowing the helmet and shoes to breath (which again is huge in the southeast in the summer). This version did not have a top and didn't have the structure we wanted.

Version two of the Kitloader included fiberglass rods around the top of the bag and included a zippered top. This changed the whole feel of the bag. All of a sudden it was more like a flexible box than a bag. Yet, it maintained a light feel, which is important because it's 70L and you can fit A LOT of gear in 70L.

We'll call this version three, though it all kind of blurred together at this point. By this point we were refining everything that worked on version two. We updated the zippers on the top mesh pockets. We also added bar tacks on the velcro that the dividers connect to in order to make it super easy to adjust the dividers. The picture above shows the bag in action on a week long trip up in Vermont. After testing we found that the bag made a huge difference on trips -- it was just easier to stay organized and more importantly it was easier to get out and ride.

Finally after a few additional prototypes we got the the Founder's Edition bag and were ready to sell it. You'll notice that we ditched the pockets on the top. Instead we added in a velcro laser cut Molle which allows you to add any number of small bags or Molle attachments to the top of the bag. We went with Molle instead of the pockets as the Molle makes it easier to adjust where you are carrying things on the top. This is important as everyone will have a different divider set up and we wanted to be sure that you'd get the most use out of the top storage while making it easier for you to move stuff around.

Here's another (better) image of the Founder's Edition bag. There are a lot of features on this bag that make it a joy to use. If you look at the handle you'll notice that there's what looks to be a black and white ribbon around the top. This is actually mounting points for the handle which allows you to adjust how wide or narrow you want the handle to be. You can also remove the handle entirely if you don't want to use it.

Ventilation is a core feature of the bag and was something we thought a lot about. There are two pockets (like the one pictured) on either side of the bag. These pockets are the perfect place to store knee pads and elbow pads, or anything you need to grab quickly. The material behind the pocket is waterproof so none of your sweat leaks into the bag. 

The bag is completely collapsible making it easy to store when not in use. It's also easy to travel with for those extended bike trips. Note the bungies on top of the bag. These are removeable and provide a place for you to store your wet kit post-ride. In the future we're planning a laundry bag that will attach directly to the bag making it even easier to transport your wet gear from the trailhead to the washer.

The Presale

If you’re still reading, thank you it means a lot that you've taken the time to check out the bag! If you're stoked on the bag and want to buy one you're in luck! We are having a final presale starting now and ending once all 25 bags are sold. Here's some more info on the presale:

There are 25 bags remaining for presale at the time of this post.

Buying a presale bag ensures you get one of the remaining 25 bags.

The 25 bags are being hand sewn and produced by James Leath in NC and should be ready to ship out before Christmas. Once you order you'll be added to our update list and we'll keep you posted on the progress of your bag.

You’ll get updates along the way and we’ll send you a tracking number as soon as the bag ships.

Your bag arrives and you get a piece of Thornhill history – we’ll never make this colorway again and the bags include a special founders patch & access to the Founder’s Club.

Presale link: Order your Founder's Edition Bag

Thanks again for reading, please comment if you have any questions. We're stoked to get more of these bags in the hands of the riding community!