Show Off Your Handbag is a meme (in the internet sense) inspired by this thread on Metafilter where someone asks about the ‘Go Bag’ Val Kilmer uses in the film Spartan. I’ve not seen Spartan but Kilmer’s character is obviously a very macho guy and the fact that he carries a bag provides a convenient parallel for weedy internet guys who also carry bags (like me) but don’t want to admit that they’re essentially handbags. Obviously this is an excellent opportunity for geek oneupmanship, with plenty of people apparently shoving half of Maplin into their bags on a daily basis (that’s got to be bad for your posture), one guy (the direct link to whose handbag I’m too lazy to relocate) goes as far as to claim that he goes around with live assault riffle ammunition in his backpack, I don’t know maybe people do that in the states*.

So with out further ado, here’s my cycling day handbag. No pack lunch today but otherwise this is pretty standard:

The bag itself is probably my most valued thing here, it’s totally amazing and can carry massive amounts of stuff including water as it’s totally watertight. As you can see the reflective stuff really works too which is good. I’ve got two of them (though typically I only use one) and it was totally worth paying that bit extra as I expect them to last me pretty much forever.

Other than that it’s : gloves, spare t-shirt to change into, ratchet and socket (my pedals keep coming loose for some reason), Muji cycle repair kit some one gave me for xmas (good puncture repair stuff and some alum keys), swiss army knife (mainly I use the scissors for cutting my finger nails as they work well both right and left handed), mobile phone,
notebook (I bought a Moleskine one as they were on sale but for all the hype around this brand I’m not impressed), London AtoZ (Millennium Edition!), 512Mb USB drive.

I encourage readers to show off their own handbags and post links in the comments section.

*Actually, I just found the guy apparently he was working in Kabul in a capacity not specified but presumably he’s a soldier so that explains the ammunition.