Spurcycle doesn’t make a whole lot of things. Five, to be exact and that’s not counting the trio of brilliant condiment-inspired water bottles.

But as the saying less is more goes, it’s obvious that Spurcycle is very good at crafting minimalistic accessories that are as beautiful as they are functional. The newest addition to the Spurcycle family, the saddle bag, is no different.

Aptly named “Saddle Bag,” the San Francisco firm didn’t slap no novel French name or a cool oh wow marketing copy to go along with it. Instead, what we have here is a no-BS bag for $45 that is simple yet practical and makes me wonder why this didn’t happen sooner.

At first glance, the Saddle Bag resembles a fold up, top-loading lunch bag sewn on with a Velcro strap. Simple, right? What’s not so obvious is that the choice of material used, X-Pac VX42, is anything but simple. It is a rugged multi-ply lamination consisting of a layer of 420 denier Cordura nylon, a tell-tale diamond-pattern monofilm reinforcement, weatherproof film and finally, a 50 denier polyester backing. There’s much more going on than what meets the eye.

Spurcycle employs a removable and noticeably long hook and loop strap with a reinforced section to put over the saddle rail. The low profile hook and loops mean the strap won’t put up a huge fight whenever you take it on and off but remains strong enough to keep its contents secure. For further peace of mind, Spurcycle also placed two security tabs running perpendicularly across the strap to prevent any unintended undoings. And to be honest, there was plenty of interlocking hook and loop to go around that it would take a herculean effort or a severely overfilled bag to lose it. Nevertheless, the extra security tabs don’t add much, if any, bulk so why not. If you are one of those people who insists on reading instructions, the black-on-black instruction card was difficult to read. Thankfully, instructions are also available on the Spurcycle website and the company is planning to remedy that in the next batch.

Compared to many compartmentalized roll-styled bags, the solo compartment design of the Spurcycle bag immediately jumped out, as there was still plenty of space left after I transferred all the contents over from the excellent Silca Roll Premio. Don’t get me wrong, I love the idea of slots for individual items to channel my inner OCD, but I can now have the option to add or remove accessories depending on the ride and not be limited by the size of pre-determined organizer slots. In keeping a small footprint, I also found that I could easily place bulky items such as CO2 canisters in specific spots within the bag so that they would fit between the saddle rails.

Inevitably, the single compartment also means that all the contents will be bunched together so any pointy objects such as multi-tools should be shielded from sensitive objects like spare inner tubes (a paper towel works great, plus it’s handy to have around at times). But to be fair, that’s not the fault of the bag and it’s a small tradeoff for having a flexible, shape-shifting storage system.