Occam Designs Apex Strap - On Bike

OCCAM DESIGNS APEX STRAP REVIEW

Words by Sourpatch | Photos by Dusten Ryen

A common theme in recent products and reviews has been moving tools and parts off the rider’s body or pack and onto the frame itself. Occam Designs is another company seeking to lighten the mountain biker’s load with their Apex Strap. We received our Occam Designs Apex Strap just before hitting the road for season two of our Bike Park Review Tour. Our first leg had us riding some of the roughest and rockiest parks in Idaho. It was the perfect way to take this awesome looking from brand new to beat down and see how it held up. Read on to see how the Occam Apex Strap survived being strapped to Sourpatch’s Canyon Torque.

THE LAB
The Apex Strap by Occam Designs is a thoughtfully engineered tube holder that instantly had us intrigued. The X-Pac construction with VX Diamond Ripstop exterior provides unmatched abrasion and tear resistance while the sticky Rhinotek interior material helps keep the contents of the Apex strap in place.

The elastic Occy Pre-Load Straps secure tubes, tools and inflation devices, you could even load the strap up with anything else that can fit in their place, although we’d caution against cinching down a burrito too tight as you may get hot sauce in your bottom bracket. One of our favorite parts of the Occam Apex however, is the BOA L6 Fit System. The L6 is loaded with BOA’s TX4 Lace, which is a textile lace that is as light and flexible as it strong. The TX4 Lace hooks around a releasable lace guide that allows the Apex to be moved from bike frame to bike frame quickly and without much effort. The Apex strap comes in at a measly 28 grams and is offered in black or checkered color options.

Occam Designs Apex Strap - Riding

THE DIRT
Before we hit the road for season 2 of our Bike Park Review Tour, we loaded a spare tube and tire levers into the Occam Designs Apex strap and cinched it up on my Canyon Torque. I made it through the first stop at Tamarack unscathed, unfortunately the rocky trails at Schweitzer Mountain had me reloading the strap daily, even twice one day.

The Apex strap has been easy to deal with from the get-go, loading a tube and two tire levers is effortless thanks to the Occy Pre-load straps. The flexibility of the Apex’s construction paired with the BOA system provides an unwavering fit on the downtube of my Torque. No matter how rough the trails get, the Apex strap holds its contents in place and never moves. We even pushed the envelope a bit and tightened the thing a bit more than we felt comfortable with just to see if the BOA system would slip or break. It’s still holding strong!

Popping the BOA dial de-tensions the strap quickly allowing quick access to your replacement tube and levers. By undoing the BOA lace from the guide loop you can easily open the system before having to fold everything back up to put it back in the strap. The hardest part about doing a trail-side tube swap, is folding the spent tube up tight enough to fit everything back where I had it.

The Wolf’s Last Word

The Apex Strap by Occam Designs is a solid product that works great and looks good doing it. The Apex strap is easy to use and holds a spare tube and levers better than some of its elastic and velcro clad counterparts thanks in part to the BOA Fit System’s ability to keep things tight against the frame. That security does come at a premium though, as the Apex strap comes at a slightly higher price of $35, compared to other Velcro options that come in right around $20-30. In my opinion, the extra cost is well spent on this well-constructed and thought-out strap and if we wanted to spend some coin on a system to carry our essentials, this would be the way to go. We like the strap so much we’re even hoping to team up with Occam to make some collab Loam Wolf Edition straps. 

If you’d like to see a collab Occam/Loam Wolf strap let us know below with a color or theme! We’ll pick 3 winners to send a strap to if we get enough interest. 

Price: $34.99
Website:
Occamdesigns.com

We Dig

Construction and Design
Easy to Use
Keeps contents in place
Stylish
BOA!

We Don’t

Nothing

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