Double Bagging: Why 2 Traffic Cone Bags are better than one

Trebling up the Traffic Cone Bag - one small, one large, one found! 

A common-enough question about the reversibility of the Traffic Cone Bag comes from Becka Roolf in Salt Lake City via the TCB Facebook page:

Hey Lynette, I love my TCB, but I never reverse it because I'd have to take everything out of it... I wonder if you could make a version that just has a flap of fabric on the outside (that rolls up, tucks away, velcros on to stay secure while bicycling?).

Yes, Becka, this was indeed one of the prototype designs, which would be far easier and cheaper to do: sew a bright orange flap inside the big black pocket and somehow have it flop out and clip flat to provide a panel of visibility.

The problem is that it tends to look ugly - like those safety triangles. Ugh. I'm all for safety, but not at the expense of style - at least for this product. One could simply pin a neon triangle inside the black pocket a safety pin and flop it out when the rubber hits the road (with another couple of safety pins).

My Double TCB: A Large TCB with the Small one inside. Who'd know? And I think there's even a chunky DELL laptop in there from my last gig.

I like the bag to be all orange and visibly so from all sides. So what I do is double bag - I carry TWO Traffic Cone Bags most of the time, one inside the other. I have all my bits in the Small TCB (in black mode), and slip it inside the Large TCB (in orange mode) for riding the bike, or black mode for extra capacity when "boulevardeering."  Either way, having everything contained in the inner bag makes it easy pull it out and reverse the outer bag from orange to black to orange to black ... or when you want to be minimal, just leave the outer bag at home.  

Now, I'm not just saying this to sell you two bags. 

The double TCB is very handy. 

1. It creates an extra layer of storage (doubles the pocket space) while still being light and squishable. Here's a blog post, Minimalism to Go, about my recent 8 country 12 day art scavenger hunt, the Damien Hirst Spot Challenge, in which I doubled my challenge by doing the entire journey with my double TCB. 

8 countries, 12 days, a double TCB. OK and a small nylon tote to carry my lunch of the day.  

What went into the TCB: Read all about it!

2. When you have impromptu purchases you can separate the bags and carry both, as you can see in the picture at the top of this page - where I am taking delivery of 30 brand new Traffic Cone Bags from the studio of Caroline Fu. There's ten in each bag - the uppermost bag is a spare cheapie I found at home. 

3. Of course you can simple get ANY kind of drawstring or zippered inner bag and use it as the "liner" bag. Like a library book bag or something from a camping store.  I'm just saying 2 TCB's come in really handy. 

4. At a pinch you can make one a handlebar bag to get your stuff home as shown in this picture:

Now how am I going to get this stuff home? Ah, use the handy unclippability of the TCB straps to make a handlebar bag! 

Bag one (or two) here.

Happy TCBing, and feel free to post something about how you use it every day on the TCB Facebook page.