Merlin Cycles Elite Travel Bike Bag

The soft shell Merlin Cycles Elite Travel Bike Bag allows secure, easy packing of your bike, with plenty of remaining space for all the items you would usually need when travelling with your bike. It has plenty of straps and handles to make travelling with the bag easy, though some extra wheels might help when pulling it along.

As someone who has previously used a hard shell bike box, the light weight of the bag was instantly the first positive feature I noticed. You further realise the value of a light bag when you can suddenly fit more into your bag and still meet a budget airline's weight limit.

Packing

When you come to pack the bike for your trip, the Merlin bag makes the process really easy. Basically, follow the pictures online and there will still be loads of space for other important things such as helmets, shoes and nutrition.

The bag comes with separate wheel bags, with straps to hold the wheels in place once the bike is packed.

There are extra Velcro blocks to keep your chainrings and rear derailleur well protected, plus a sleeve to ensure the handlebar doesn't clash with the headset when taken off.

Once the frame is in place, internal straps keep the bike exactly where you positioned it to avoid unwanted movements in transit. Often, you feel that additional bubblewrap or pipe insulation is worth adding to ensure your pride and joy reaches its destination with no damage, but this wasn't necessary with the Merlin bag.

The proof of the bike protection was that there was no damage or bumps on the bike through my trip, which is goal #1!

A half-kilometre walk to the bus station was absolutely no problem with the bag fully loaded, even with cyclist-level arm strength. It's a little unstable on its wheels when being wheeled across pavements, but absolutely fine once at the airport and for quick walks to the car park. Bike bags of this style tend to only have wheels at the rear, but on balance, it's a worthwhile trade-off to keep the overall weight low.

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Being a bike bag, it's obviously something that will be big and bulky, but it was relatively easy to load into a car and manoeuvre onto baggage carousels. It fitted easily into the back of a Ford Fiesta with the rear seats down, if that's a good benchmark.

For someone with limited home storage space, it was also helpful that, when unloaded, the bag folds down to a small size, taking up roughly a quarter of the space needed when fully loaded. This is something not highlighted in Merlin's product information and it's certainly something I would consider when choosing which product to buy.

Value

When you compare the Merlin bag against the other options in the market, it stacks up very well – especially at its current selling price of £199. Discounted, it's still a little more than some basic options from the likes of Chain Reaction and Wiggle; I've not tested those, but I would happily spend the extra £50 or so to get the Merlin's protection and ease of packing.

At rrp it's £20 less than Evoc's equivalent, offering similar features, although you get separate padded wheel bags with the Merlin. We don't score products for value on discounted prices, but comparing the two online the Merlin is around £100 cheaper than the current best deal on the Evoc.

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It also comes in cheaper than nearly all hard shell options, although at discount it's currently matched by PBK's Bike Travel Case, down from £474.99. 

Conclusion

In general, the Elite Travel Bike Bag does a great job at a good – and currently excellent – price. It looks good, too, in my opinion – its mainly black and grey with green detailing makes it very easy to spot among the usual array of black travel bags at baggage reclaim.

Verdict

Good quality bag that combines comprehensive bike protection and light weight – and currently at a great price