Pogies for the Comfort Oriented

There's a lot of talk about pogies and their relative merits, but there's unfortunately not much discussion about pogies and compatibility. Pogie manufacturers assume you'll be running standard mountain bike gear - flat bars and regular ol' grips. Unfortunately, my girlfriend and I are running slightly off-kilter gear. She's got Jones Loop bars on her fat bike, and I've got Ergon GP-3 grips with bar ends (and, uh, aerobars).

Are they compatible? Who knows! So I decided to try stuff out and see. I'm going to try out the 45NRTH Cobrafist and Revelate Williwaw pogies on both bikes and report how things work out.

Jones Bars

Jones bars are going to be tricky for pogies because the cross bar attachment interferes with the closure of a standard pogie. I got both on the bike OK, but there's some usability concerns.

Jones bars with Cobrafist on the left, Revelate on the right


Cobrajones

The Cobrafist and the Jones bars don't really play well together. They almost do, but unfortunately the requirement for the foam donut wrecks their utility here.

That big hole... So drafty... No way to cinch it down further...
So the lucky thing is that the Cobrafist's zipper closure can be left open, and this allows the cross bar to be contained nicely. The unlucky thing is that it's not possible to cinch the opening down enough to remove draft. A crafty person could fabricate their own 'foam donut' to plug the hole, and possibly tape up the zipper entrance point. But you've got one more problem.

Look up at the photo from a cyclist perspective - the first one in the article. It's a bit awkward actually getting into the pogie, because the sweep of the bar angles it directly in, and the bolt-on mechanism enforces that kinda hard. This makes it a little awkward getting in and out, and you feel the pogie constantly against your arm, pushing you inward. Not ideal.

Looks great, just a bit too angled...
The sleeve of the Cobrafist is just a tiny bit short here - another inch or two and you'd be able to cover the brake lever entirely. A slimmer lever than the Level T might also work out. The shortness of the sleeve isn't all bad, though.

Jones + Williwaw

Unfortunately, this one doesn't work out great either. The Williwaw has a slightly better story for cinching around the cross bar, and manages to get a comparable seal to the 45NRTH pogie. 

Peeky brakes
It's a little bit tighter on the brake lever here, which is pretty far from ideal. However, the pogie adapts quite nicely to the sweep of the Jones bar, and it is comfortable to get in and out of.

It's not possible to use the draft seal here either, but that shouldn't be terribly surprising. If the pogie's sleeve were longer, it should be possible to craft a double-donut that would seal this most excellently.

So, which to use? Well, I guess pick your poison. It's going to be somewhat awkward and have compromised performance either way. If you make a pogie and you want to be featured in this review, let's get in touch and I'd be happy to evaluate the gear for you.

Aero Fattie

I can't help it, I love aero. Aerobars are an awesome position that removes all weight from your hands, which is great for putting more hours in the saddle. You get like a free mile per hour by tucking in. And finally they're a fantastic way to hang a dry bag. What a deal! So my fat bike has them, along with my bikepacking/gravel/adventure/etc bike.

I'm not even a little sorry if this offends you. Just be glad it has flat bars now and not drop bars.

Anyway, I also have the Ergon GP-3 grips which have decent sized bar ends. Ergon grips are supposedly not compatible, and who knows if the bar-end will even fit in the pogie? Let's find out.

Cobrafist Aero

A common wonder is whether or not the Cobrafist's bolt on attachment system will work with Ergon grips. Fortunately, it does. The Ergon GP-3 have a rubber end cap that can be removed, and the Cobrafist mounting bolt does exactly what it needs to do.

sorry it isn't level
The bar ends fit just fine, but you might have to change their angle.

Comfy fit with the aerobars
The shorter cuff on the Cobrafists works nicely, and fits great with the aerobars in position. Installing the foam donut is straightforward.

The 45NRTH bolt-on attachment uses a 5mm allen key. Why? Everything else on the cockpit uses a 4mm key. Why do that? It's not like you need crazy torque on this thing. It holds a pogie in place. Oh well. A pretty minor annoyance, all told.

Nice and insulated
Due to the way the bar plug attaches, the bar-end is not usable with the Cobrafist. Indeed, the bar-end kinda interferes with the fit of the pogie. You'd probably prefer to run the Ergon GP-1, without a bar end, if you chose this pogie.

Aero Revelate

Let's look at the Williwaw on this bike now. Revelate also has a special end-plug, which works just fine in an Ergon grip.

fits great
Remove the Ergon plug, shove this in, you're good to go. I actually find the Revelate's vent very nice for installing the cord, too.

easy to see what you're doin here
The Revelate sleeve is a bit longer than the Cobrafist, so it bunches up against the aerobar. This makes it a little tricky to cinch the foam donut down, but it's not terrible. 

nice and tight
People trash the 45NRTH Cobrafists for the foam donut, but not Revelate, and I wasn't sure why, since they both have the feature. I think the difference here is that the Revelate Williwaw doesn't seem to need the donut to cinch down enough to get reasonably good draft prevention, while the Cobrafist has a big gaping hole without the donut. Additionally, the Revelate has a velcro strap that goes over the donut in addition to the velcro strap that surrounds the donut. The Revelate's donut is more securely kept in place and potentially optional.

The bar-end is accessible when riding with the pogie, which is neat. However, like the Cobrafist, it does interfere with the fit of the pogie a little bit. If you're dead set on bar-ends, this is the better choice.

Summary

Sorry, folks with Jones bars - neither of these are a great fit.

Good news, folks with Ergon bar-ends and aerobars (maybe just me?) - both of these work fine!


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