Western Flyer and rolling luggage handle

[pretzelb]

Anyone have issues with the WF slipping from a luggage handle? My better half finally agreed to a TB bag and she picked the WF to use as her personal item to go with her rolling bag. But it always seems to slip and slide around when she uses it, sometimes with a crash to the ground of both bags. The zipper seems enormously too big and while it's easy to zip/unzip, that leads to the zipper coming open when you want it snugly closed around the rolling bag handle.

Any tips? I'd like to keep her on the TB buying trend if I can.

[Lani]

Hmm... well I would've recommended going with the WF with the backpack straps, and using that as the primary carry-on rather than as the personal item to go with a rolling upright, but that's just me. Plus, I think using just the WF as the primary carry-on might take a bit of discipline.

Is the handle on her rolling upright particularly narrow? I wonder if there's a way to cinch up the shoulder strap to where you can use it to augment the strapping down onto the handles. Hmm...

If she doesn't mind, she can always carry a bungie cord to tie it down, I'd think.

Maybe she'd be willing to try making it her main carry-on?

[Badger]

Hmm. I have not had that particular problem. One thing you might try is to pack the large compartment of the WF so that the back panel is stretched tightly across the back of the bag. Then, once you slip the panel over the handle of your rolling bag, the fit should be snug.

It may also be that a well-filled WF is too big to ride piggyback on a carry-on roll-aboard. Maybe ditch the roll-aboard and pack into a WF with an absolute strap and a Synapse or Smart Alec.

[pretzelb]

The handles on the roller bag are narrow but I think most bags are the same width. I didn't research this at the airport but if you look a the width of the slot on the WF it's actually quite huge. Any roller with handles that wide would seem odd and probably be unstable. I think they need to be somewhat narrow for strength. So the extra width of the sleeve on the WF is not really needed.

I also thought the backpack straps were more useful but that battle was long lost, along with the one where I suggested no roller bag. Sigh. Since the roller bag was a given the option to have the sleeve and not straps was a must. I don't see winning the battle about no roller bag anytime soon.

I did consider a strap or bungee but it would be cumbersome and I'm not sure it would really solve the issue. The only option I could see would be two bungee cords one from each bar of the handle to the side of the WF to keep equal tension from sliding. That didn't seem practical.

[dorayme]

I don't have experience with this setup, but my understanding of the opening is that it is facilitated by a zipper. What about just zipping to only the needed width. Does the zipper lock when folded back down?

[Lani]

pretzelb -- I just came across this Bag Bungee product at Amazon and thought of you!

Amazon.com: Travelon Bag Bungee Black: Shoes

Maybe something like this might help?

[backpack]

Could you draw or take a picture of your setup?

It might just be a question of weight and balance as rollaboards are notoriously unstable by themselves, any weight added to one with a particularly slim weight and balance margin will top over.

[Just]

It is difficult to design a "fits all" pass-through sleeve for the retractable drag handles on rolling luggage - some are set narrow, some are set wide; some have just the one telescoping column while others have two; some have a rather large or oddly shaped handle. I have seen some rolling luggage equipped with a strapping system that suspends the carry-on to the roller's front, rather than having it attempt to balance on the handle. Perhaps investigate if your companion's luggage is equipped with a similar system.

[maverick]

I have seen some rolling luggage equipped with a strapping system that suspends the carry-on to the roller's front, rather than having it attempt to balance on the handle. Perhaps investigate if your companion's luggage is equipped with a similar system.

this is is a good alternative if placing the western flyer on the telescoping handle of the rolling bag does not work out. some bags have this strapping system, and there are some after-market solutions available as well.

the only thing you have to be careful of with this strapping system is if you're turning a corner too quickly, your western flyer may swing to one side.

[Lani]

Re-reading this thread reminds me why I love the backpack handles on my Western Flyer! ^_^

[dwright17]

I have the WF in the rolling luggage option and haven't had this problem. As dorayme suggested, I zip the zipper so that the opening is just wide enough to slide over the handle. Perhaps that's the key? My WF was fully packed at the time (that's my primary bag and my husband uses a wheelie). I just measured my husband's rolling luggage handle, and it's 6.5" wide. Hope this helps in figuring out the problem.

[OnMyWay]

I used my WF with rolling luggage option with a wheeled bag recently and didn't even bother the unzip the pocket. I just balanced the WF on top of the wheeled bag and wrapped the absolute strap around the handle of the wheeled bag. The WF was full and it balanced well. Of course this was just for short distances in the airport, not dragging the bags around town.

I mostly use the zipped up pocket to store papers such as itinerary, boarding passes, etc. easily.