Your leather bag goes cycling with you every working day, twenty minutes there and twenty back, and in Britain that means rain a fair few times a month. Light drizzle does little to vegetable-tanned leather. A ten-minute downpour does, especially if you then leave the bag wet in the hallway.
The short answer: leather bag cycling is fine, even through winter, if you do three things. Keep a rain cover worth a few pounds in the front pocket, apply a wax protector twice a year, and after a wet ride, dry the bag off and let it dry at room temperature. Leave the suede bag at home.
How much rain can a leather bag take?
Vegetable-tanned full-grain leather absorbs water, but slowly. Fifteen minutes of drizzle leaves droplets sitting on the surface that you wipe off at home, and nothing more comes of it. The trouble starts when a bag gets properly soaked: the fats wash out of the leather, the fibres dry out stiff, and dark tide marks are left behind where the water stopped. Half an hour in a downpour with no protection is enough. What to do next is covered in what to do when your leather bag gets wet.
Black and dark brown bags are more forgiving than cognac and beige. White marks on leather in a pale colour are still visible weeks later; on black they barely show once dry and fed with a little cream. If you cycle every day and want a pale colour anyway, accept that the bag will look used sooner. That's patina, and on cognac it looks good, but it turns patchy when mostly the top catches the rain.
Which leather bag suits cycling best: backpack or shoulder bag?
A shoulder bag swings about on a bike. With every push on the pedals it slides forward, on every corner it bangs against your thigh, and the strap digs into your neck when you lean forward. Wearing it crossbody helps, but the bag still moves against you and that rubs on the leather. After a winter of cycling, a shoulder bag has a shiny patch where it rubbed against your coat.
A backpack sits still. The downside is well known: after twenty minutes of hard pedalling your back is damp with sweat, and that sweat soaks into the back panel. Sweat contains salt, and dried salt leaves white marks on leather. Wiping the back panel with a slightly damp cloth once a month and feeding it lightly afterwards keeps that from building up. A backpack in thick leather, such as the Mavis, sits firm against your back rather than folding around you the way a softer bag does, which is more comfortable on a bike.
The third option is the best if you want to keep things properly dry: put the leather bag inside a pannier. A standard 20-litre pannier won't take a 20-litre backpack, but it will take a shoulder bag or laptop bag. Put an old towel underneath to stop it rubbing, and your bag arrives dry no matter how hard it rains. It's less elegant, and it works.
Rain cover, wax protector, or both?
A rain cover for a backpack costs between 8 and 15 pounds, weighs 50 grams and folds away in the front pocket. Choose one with elastic all round and a size that matches your bag's litres, 20 to 30 litres for most day backpacks. Pull it on as soon as it's more than drizzle. This is the one measure that genuinely keeps a downpour out, and it's the cheapest. For a shoulder bag there's barely such a thing, so a pannier is the alternative.
Wax protector comes on top of that, not instead of it. A wax protector based on beeswax (not a silicone spray, which seals the leather and feeds nothing) makes the surface water-resistant, so drizzle and road spray bead off. Twice a year is enough for daily cyclists: once in October before the wet months and again in March. Apply it thinly with a soft cloth, leave it to soak in overnight and buff off the rest. Bear in mind that wax darkens leather slightly and changes the sheen, so test it on the underside first. There's more on leather care and wax in seven practical tips for leather care and on our leather care page.
A wax-treated bag isn't waterproof. It buys you ten more minutes, no more. Anyone who mistakes that for waterproof will still end up with a soaked bag after a downpour.
What to do after a wet ride
- Empty the bag completely, including the laptop. Moisture trapped in a closed bag soaks into the lining.
- Pat the outside dry with a towel. Don't rub, that pushes water further into the leather.
- Stuff the bag loosely with newspaper or a towel so it keeps its shape.
- Leave it open at room temperature, away from a radiator and out of the sun. Allow 12 to 24 hours.
- Once it's dry and feels stiff, work in a thin layer of leather balm.
The radiator is the biggest mistake. Leather that dries too fast shrinks, goes hard and cracks along the creases. A bag that comes in wet at six in the evening and sits next to the radiator will be dry the next morning and worth a lot less. Left by the coat hooks with the zip open, it dries just as well, only a day later. If tide marks are still visible once it's dry, read how to remove water marks from leather.
Suede on a bike: don't
Suede is the sanded underside of the hide, without the tight grain layer that protects smooth leather. It soaks up water like a sponge, every droplet becomes a mark, and road spray is full of grit and oil. After one wet winter, a suede backpack can't be brushed back to how it was. Cleo and Mira both come in a smooth and a suede bag version; for cycling, choose smooth without hesitation. The suede bag is for dry days, the car, and the evening.
One more practical point, on wind. A backpack on your back catches little of it, but a bag strapped only with a bungee cord to a pannier rack flies off in a gust of crosswind, and leather sliding across tarmac at twenty kilometres an hour is damage no amount of leather care will fix. On your back, in a pannier, or properly secured, otherwise leave it at home.
