Honest Review: Ghostrider Equipment’s Kermode Bear Spray Holder

Gear reviewer Vince Hempsall took Ghostrider Equipment’s Kermode bear spray holder on a mountain bike ride through a forest filled with cougars, badgers and bears. He lived to write this honest review.

Pat Simpson is an engineer in Fernie, British Columbia who likes to mountain bike, tinker with new gear, and not get mauled by bears. He started Ghostrider in 2023 when he saw an opportunity in the outdoor gear realm: hikers, trail runners, and professionals who work in the bush had easy, proven ways to carry bear spray canisters but mountain bikers were forced to stuff them into packs or jerry rig them onto their frames. So Pat set to work and created the Kermode bear spray holder. It’s a simple device that can either attach to your bike frame via two screws or anywhere on your bike using two straps. Another strap holds the canister in place.

Snapshot: Kermode Bear Spray Holder

1. Pros: So simple. So smart.
2. Cons: None. Would you rather get eaten?
3. Price: Cdn$45 for the direct mount version; $60 for the universal mount with straps
4. Who Should Buy: Every biker who rides in the woods.
5. Who Shouldn’t Buy: Trigger-happy urbanites.
6. Helpful Hack: The straps are similar to rubber tension ski straps and can be used to cinch other stuff in a pinch.
7. Author’s overall rating: 9.5/10

The Test

For this review, I took the Kermode bear spray holder on some seriously bumpy mountain bike rides in the bear-filled woods near my house in Nelson, British Columbia. I wanted to see how solid the attachments were and whether a canister would stay seated through jarring rides on janky trails. I also took it on fast and flowy machine-built tracks and on logging road ascents. I never did encounter a bear during any of my rides but saw plenty signs of them, including a still-steaming pile of dung at the start of Dole Dosser, a particularly old-school trail with ruts, roots and loose rocks that was sure to buck me and the Kermode around.

The Verdict

Bear spray has a fascinating history that began in the 1970s when a poor problem grizzly nicknamed Growly was relocated from Glacier National Park in Montana to northern Manitoba. There, researchers subjected him to various tests to see what would be an effective bear deterrent. A boat horn was mildly useful at keeping Growly at bay but only temporarily. Interestingly, bells had no impact on him whatsoever, thus proving every hiker cantering through the forest with bear bells strapped to their pack is a ding-a-ling. What did work was a type of pepper spray called Halt that was marketed as a dog deterrent at the time. Dozens of different brands of bear spray have been released since then but they all have a similar chemical composition of red pepper oil, carrier agent, and propellent.

It’s amazing to think people have been riding bikes for over a century, and carting around bear spray for four decades, but no one ever thought to design a bike-specific bear spray holder. Until now. With his Kermode bear spray holder, Pat Simpson has created an elegantly simple device that is easy to attach and use. I truly believe this thing is going to save lives. The version I received is the universal model that has custom rubber straps, similar to tension ski straps, that attach the holder to the bike frame and the canister to the holder. If you own more than one bicycle, I highly recommend this model because it’s super easy to move from bike to bike.

The other thing that impressed me was the holder’s stability. I road some gnarly, old-school lines on the Mountain Station trail network near my house and everything, including me, got bucked around a lot but the Kermode didn’t budge an inch. Nor did it scratch the paint because it’s made of super-smooth, carbon-filled nylon. Of course, it’s stability depends on how tight you pull the straps but given you have a can of pepper spray irritant between your legs, no doubt you’ll be extra cautious with tightening. And the fact it’s so easy to attach means it’ll never get left behind.

The best part about this piece of gear is Pat leaned on the expertise of a variety of local outdoors people to create it, including gear engineer Cam Shute of Dark Horse Innovations and Carla Uy of the Digital Fabrication and Design program at Selkirk College. He also sources material from BC companies, such as Matter3D Inc. in Victoria where he gets his 3D printing filaments from. Ghostrider truly is a local success story and I beleive everyone who rides in the outdoors around our region and around the world needs to buy the Kermode Bear Spray Holder.

The Deets – Kermode Bear Spray Holder

• Made of carbon-filled nylon
• Colours: Black and orange
• One size
• Price: Cdn$45-60