We love our Everyday Tote, but we kept thinking: what if you could just click it onto your bike and pop it off when you get where you're going? No fiddling, just seamless transitions. So we set out to make that happen, with a short wish list: super quick on and off, rock solid once it's on, and it has to work with any rack or basket.

Here's the story behind our new QR Tote.

For the quick-release part, we turned to Fidlock. They make some of our favorite hardware, and are the clear leaders when it comes to magnetic fasteners . Then we tried and tested a lot of options. We pretty much ran through their entire catalog of fabric-mountable hardware.

Initially we followed the idea that more mounting points = more stable, and experimented accordingly. We tried tying the points together with an equalizing system, kind of like a climbing anchor. Too complicated, too inconsistent. We also tried a drop-it-in, twist-to-remove version. Still inconsistent, and kind of annoying to use tbh. The fact that every extra point is one more you have to line up, both when we're making the bag and every time you use it, eventually pushed us away from the multi-point interface concepts.

Eventually we went with a single attachment point. One spot to aim for, done. The lock works a lot like a Time or Crank Brothers pedal: two horizontal pins snap onto a little "cleat" on the corresponding mounting plate.

The catch? With just one point of engagement, the bag wants to rock back and forth. So we started packing the space around the mechanism with high-density closed-cell foam. We adjusted the foam in 1/8” thick increments to dial in the clearances. Too thin and the bag would still wobbled a bunch. Too thick and the locking halves wouldn't be able to reach each other at all.

What we ended up with is our composite mounting plate: a firm layer with the Fidlock bolted on, sandwiched between foam layers, one below to keep things stable and one above to protect your stuff. We played with the plate thickness too, to keep it light without getting too weak.

The part that lives on your bike is a base plate that attaches with zip ties. Cheap, strong, and you can find them anywhere. The shape and bracing give you tons of spots to strap it down, so it works on everything from big porteur racks to skinny rando racks. Late in the game we added a little notch up front that lines up with the bag's pull tab, so you can easily line it up visually and by feel.

Once we had a pretty-much-final version, Kyle started testing it long term on his Independent Fabrication flat-bar road bike (you might've spotted it on The Radavist). After all that testing and development, we're super stoked over all. It's super quick on and off, rock solid, it fits just the right amount of stuff for your daily needs, and honestly, it looks pretty darn good too.

The QR Tote is available now in a limited run.