Revelate Hammerhead Harness Review: Natural Evolution

Despite our deep 14-year history, accurately codifying the ever-evolving catalog of ultra-niche bikepacking gear can be challenging. Sometimes the tracks grow cold when trying to pin down who originated what and which products inspired others. Revelate Designs undoubtedly has its name etched beside a lot of firsts, and they’ve also introduced many products that were complete game-changers in the category. The stem “feedbag” and top tube “gas tank” come to mind.

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The Terrapin seat bag and Handlebar Harness also shouldn’t be ignored. These two “bags” were at the pointy end of the holster-bag movement, offering the ability to strap a dry bag into a separate carrier system that remains on the bike. This was a radical shift in bag design, providing waterproof storage and the ability to pack and unpack the bag from the comfort of your tent. Dozens of luggage systems have been inspired by these two designs, and I’d venture to say that most handlebar cradles were influenced by the O.G. Harness, first introduced in 2008. That includes what you see here, the new Revelate Hammerhead Harness, which was officially released today.

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We teased the Hammerhead in our Sea Otter Classic Expo coverage in April. It didn’t even have a name yet, but it led a couple of people to question who should be credited for innovating this style of handlebar system. Frankly, it’s hard to say. Aluminum clamps and carbon tubes were first used by BarYak over 10 years ago, and before that, there were a variety of obscure handlebar clamps and accessory bars on Amazon and other online retailers, which were ultimately used for the same purpose. After that came the Rockgeist BarJam and Miss Grape Ilcoso, which predated the more polished Rogue Panda Blue Ridge and Kaibab Cradle by many years.

Other styles of cradle also surfaced, including the Tailfin Bar Cage and Old Man Mountain Manzanita. There are so many options at this point that we published a Gear Index on the subject last year. However, as evidenced by the Revelate Hammerhead Harness, there was still room for improvement. I had a chance to try this unique cradle for a few overnighters and put together a first ride review.

Revelate Hammerhead Harness Construction

The Revelate Hammerhead Harness is the brand’s first attempt at a rigid hardware-based handlebar cradle. They’re fashionably late to the party, but that doesn’t really come as a surprise. Over the years, they’ve remained focused on soft bags, making minor departures with things like the Spinelock Series seat pack and the Fasttrack hardware used on the new Mag Tank. We were first shown a cradle prototype last summer, and it’s since been refined over several iterations. Final upgrades include hinged clamps, shims to fit both 31.8mm and 35mm handlebars, a slightly modified shape, and a few additional tweaks to polish the production version.

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Similar but Different

To address the elephant in the room, yes, the Revelate Hammerhead Harness shares a couple of commonalities with the Rogue Panda Blue Ridge. Namely, they’re each built around two carbon tubes and a pair of machined aluminum brackets. But the resemblances stop there. The Hammerhead is a different animal. For one, it relies on an interesting Hypalon hammock that suspends the dry bag between the two bars. The sling also features mounting points for Revelate’s pocket clips, maintaining backward compatibility with every handlebar pocket they’ve produced, including the new Scrambler Pocket shown under Details and Accessories further down the page.

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Another major departure is its fixed, custom-made webbing straps. The straps are slightly thicker and grippier than traditional webbing, with sewn loops at the ends that slide directly onto the carbon bars to hold them in place. It’s a nice touch since they remain on the cradle when not in use and don’t slide on the bars. Similar to the original Revelate Harness, they also come equipped with locking cam buckles to batten down the dry bag and whatever other contents you add to the mix. The grippy straps and sling also keep the load from shifting side to side or rotating.

The CNC-machined 6061 aluminum clamps are also unique to the Hammerhead. They have a bottom-heavy asymmetric orientation designed to position the payload just under the bars and tight toward the head tube of the bike. While some options, such as the Tailfin Bar Cage, have multiple axes to adjust the load placement, I think Revelate did a great job of optimizing a single-axis position. I was able to keep it tucked in about a centimeter away from the head tube when running a 29 x 2.6” tire on a 130mm travel fork. There was plenty of room, and I think it would be fine in that position even with a 140 or 150mm fork, depending on the amount of steerer spacers and handlebar rise.

Hardware and Load Limit

Revelate also made a few smart hardware decisions when engineering the Hammerhead. First and foremost, kudos to them for building the attachment brackets around two pairs of M6 bolts. I can tell you from experience that most bike accessories are under-engineered with bolts that are too small. One reason for this is to minimize weight—a smaller bolt means a smaller bolt hole and thus smaller machined parts. The Hammerhead’s oversized bolts and the resulting wider clamp area on the brackets seem to do an outstanding job of locking it onto the bars.

The physics of thread engagement is beyond my knowledge, but I did some armchair research after realizing how well the Hammerhead clamps work. Simply put, when a bolt is tightened, the threads act as a series of inclined planes that translate rotational torque into massive tensile force. Larger bolts have a deeper thread profile, meaning more metal is present at the root to bear the load. The M6 bolts simply feel more secure than typical M4, M5, or T25 bolts used on similar cradles, and even after bounding down some very chunky trails with my whole 5-pound sleep system strapped to the Harness, there was zero rotational movement. Note that I ran the harness on a 31.8mm bar with the nylon shims in place (the clamps fit 35mm bars natively without shims).

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On my last trip, I carried a Nemo Tensor Wide sleeping pad, a Zpacks Freeduo tent, my 32° quilt, an inflatable pillow, and my Montbell down jacket in the size medium Revelate Pronghorn dry bag. Then I strapped the FreeDuo poles to the outside. The total package strapped in the Hammerhead weighed about 2.2 kilograms (4.8 pounds). That’s a little over half of the max 8-pound load limit that was tested and approved by Revelate.

Details and Accessories

The hinged clamps are another useful detail, and even better, Revelate added rubber grommets to prevent the main mounting bolts from falling out when the harness is removed. There’s nothing that bugs me more than bolts flying across my disaster of a shop, so I was pleased to see this careful attention to detail. Another interesting technical feature is the O-ring used on each bracket where the lower carbon tube slides through. Unlike other cradles, there are no bolts securing the bottom bar. The precise fittings with the O-rings provide just enough resistance to keep them in place. This makes adjusting the Hammerhead to accommodate different stem widths simple. You simply loosen the top two bolts and slide the brackets from side to side.

The Revelate Hammerhead ships with a 70-gram accessory and two longer M6 bolts that attach to the top mounts, providing an oversized 31.8mm carbon crossbar to attach GPS units, lights, or whatever other accessory you might need. This attachment is a bit lost on me as a GPS mount as I generally prefer the tidier K-lite top-cap attachment for my Coros Dura. However, it’s great for a handlebar-mounted light as it sits about 3″ from top of the sling, positioning the beam over the load to avoid creating the dreaded bag shadow. That said, most mounts are made to fit the 31.8mm diameter part of the handlebars around the stem, so it’s nice to have that option built into the harness, as opposed to the 22.2mm bar commonly used on other systems.

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Revelate Hammerhead Harness vs. Others

For the sake of comparison, here’s how the Revelate Hammerhead Harness stacks up to other cradles on the market. The weight shown for the Hammerhead is without the accessory bar:

• Model Tested: Revelate Hammerhead Harness
• Actual Weight (without accessory bar): 335 grams (11.8 oz)
• Actual Weight (with accessory bar): 405 grams (14.3 oz)
• Place of Manufacture: China
• Price: $225
• Manufacturer’s Details: Revelate Designs

Further Reading

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