Zefal Z Dry Pack L-DS

A saddle pack is a useful means of carrying the things you need with you on a ride – you can just leave it in place, knowing that you've got a puncture kit, spare tube and multi-tool with you. If you're going to leave it there, it's a good idea to have one that'll keep the water out, or you might find that some things start to go rusty. The Dry Pack from Zefal does a good job of keeping its contents dry and is both lightweight and fairly inexpensive.

The material used for the body of the Dry Pack is a thermoplastic polyurethane, here in the form of a relatively lightweight plastic fabric which is waterproof. It isn't stitched – the seams are joined using ultrasonic welding, meaning they too are waterproof, and the zip is a water-resistant one too.

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It fixes to your bike via the simple means of Velcro straps – one around the seatpost and a couple that thread through the saddle rails.

Some saddle packs have more sophisticated mounting systems, with brackets that clamp to the saddle and a quick clip to fit and remove the pack. In my experience this can work well, as long as your saddle position lets it fit. That's not going to be an issue here – the straps worked on all my bikes and those I've tested this year, including a Ritchey saddle with the Vector Evo rail system. The strap that goes around the seatpost is long enough for a 31mm diameter post, but won't fit anything larger, such as an aero post.

If your bike has a posh carbon-railed saddle then don't worry – the straps and the bag itself don't have any hard bits to damage either the saddle or the seatpost. If the bag isn't full, then by tightening the Velcro straps on the side you can cinch the bag up so it isn't too rattly. Unfortunately, if you do that then the ends of the Velcro straps finish up right inside the saddle, making it quite fiddly to get to them for removal.

In terms of sizing, Zefal calls this an L, and it's a decent size, if not the largest on the market. I had no difficulty getting a couple of tubes, puncture kit, CO2 inflator and multi-tool in there, with room for some emergency sweets too. The bag also tapers in width towards the front, and even when full to capacity it never interfered with my thighs while I was pedalling.

A welcome touch is the consideration given to night-time visibility. On the sides and up the rear of the bag are decent-sized reflective patches, and there's a loop on the rear to which you can attach a light. The fabric isn't that stiff, though, so the pack needs to be well-filled to prevent the light hanging downwards and directing its beam at your rear tyre. To be honest, I didn't really use the loop because it's pretty easy to fit a light to the seatpost below the saddle pack, but it could be useful if you had a clip-mounted light.

At 117g, the Dry Pack is impressively light for its size. This may not be your prime consideration – weight weenies are probably less likely to want to fit anything but a tiny saddle pack to their best bikes – but it's lighter than some similarly-sized packs by the equivalent of an inner tube.

Unfortunately, the first Dry Pack I was testing suffered a problem with one of the welded seams, which started to peel apart after I'd only used it a dozen times or so, making it suddenly very water-permeable. Panel shaping is fairly simple, with the edges of the rear panel looking a little bit vulnerable. A replacement was sent out, which I loaded up to the max, with my heaviest multi-tool and as many inner tubes as I could fit in there. That's been going strong for a few thousand km, suggesting it was an isolated problem rather than a more serious design flaw.

> Not sure what pack you need? Check out our guide to carrying luggage on your bike here

There are various other water-resistant saddle packs on the market, from the likes of Ortlieb, Topeak, Giant and Altura. All use welded seams and most of them have a roll-top closure rather than a zip. I didn't really have any problem with the zipped closure here, in terms of water ingress, and there's not a lot between the two styles in terms of ease of access. The price of this pack from Zefal is competitive with similar packs, and less than an Ortlieb, whose bike bags are pretty much bombproof but priced accordingly.

Verdict

Light and pretty water-resistant saddle pack at a decent price