Free Parable's Gorilla Clip, Cage and Bag system allows anyone without mounts on their fork legs to attach gear there. It comprises a plastic cage, velcro straps, zip ties, a plastic mount and drybag. It’s easy to fit, secure and perhaps the most well thought out way to get stuff on your fork if you don't have the right mounts.
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The Gorilla Clip is a sculpted plastic mount with three plastic cleats. It mounts directly to the fork via four zip ties housed in four rubber sleeves and along with those there are three 3M fork protection pads to prevent the ties damaging your fork.
In order to make sure there was no clash between the Gorilla Bag and the down tube when turning the bars, I used a stuffed Bag attached to the Cage to work out the best position on the forks for clearance. In the end, the exact final location was decided by the little gap behind the caliper mount on fork where the lowest zip tie could fit. Of course, this would be different for everyone but it worked well for my Fairlight.
The curved mount is designed to work with everything from suspension forks to skinnier rigid steel forks and despite having a flat sided carbon fork, it was secure even though it wasn’t a perfect fit. It didn't move at all even on 100 miles of Dorset Gravel Dash with its mixture of chalky climbs, rutted descents, farm tracks, and gravel roads. It would be nice to see a version specifically designed for flatter carbon fork legs as opposed to rounder steel and suspension lowers, just for added peace of mind.
The Cage clips to this mount and it consists of extremely grippy velcro straps attached to a polyamide plastic backbone and foot. Fitting is simple, you first slide the Cage onto the upper cleat in a sideways action until its slots home, then turning the cage vertically you slide it down over the lower two cleats until it feels solid and secure and locks with an audible click. It sounds complicated but in reality, it is easy.
One issue I did have was that after a long day in the saddle was that the cage was a little hard to unlock when your hands are tired. The solution I found was a quick kick with my shoe to the bottom of the cage to unlock it. A good indication of how secure it is.
You don’t have to use the supplied bag, you could clamp a lightweight sleeping setup directly to the cage with the Velcro straps and save £19 and around 100g per side but the bags fit perfectly and kept everything dry and protected from the odd detour into the undergrowth. The Gorilla drybag also has multiple guides for the Velcro straps to slide through helping to secure the bag both horizontally and vertically on the cage.
You also get a rubber backed stretchy fluorescent strap to go around everything including your fork for added visual safety. These extra features all add to the security on the fork of the Cage and Bag preventing any movement towards the wheel which could spell disaster.
I stuffed my sleeping mat, drink flask stove, first aid kit, food and spare clothes in the pair of them and had room to spare. The bags themselves are made of a heavy but durable tarp type material I’d normally associate with water sports and provided plenty of protection when you inevitably have to lay your bike on the floor.
The Clip works really well with the Cage and I have reviewed them together as I had no choice with my forks, but it is possible to mount the Cage on forks with twin or triple mounts and not use the Clip if you have that option; excellent as that will save you £38.
The total system costs £136 for two of everything, enough to fully load a fork. For that, you get 11 litres of storage in two bags on two secure cages attached clips on your forks. There are obviously cheaper ways of doing this, you can use your own bags, or you could just strap stuff to your fork with stretchy Voler style straps but Free Parable's Gorilla system is very good, simple to install, operate and super secure. Highly recommended.