Introduction North St. Bags is a bag maker based in Portland, Oregon founded in 2009. It has a strong bicycle bag heritage – known for their convertible backpack panniers. They use US made materials and hand build all of their bags in their Portland warehouse. I’ve been testing out their Weekender backpack and the Weekender
Drop, formerly MassDrop, has catered to the ultralight crowd for a while now, dedicating one of their communities to it. From time to time, Drop also releases collaborations with manufacturers, including everything from a run of the Granite Gear Crown X60, to Kylmit sleeping pads, and custom mechanical keyboards. These runs are usually tweaked versions
Although Jeff Graves might not be the pack-junkie household name the likes of Dana Gleason or Jack Barley, if you happen to stumble upon the Provision Handmade Gear Instagram you’ll be treated to a plethora of duffles, pouches, and even the occasional backpack that’s made to order in his vegas-based home workshop. When I first
First Tactical is a somewhat new brand in the tactical industry, having entered the market in 2015. Led by Dan Costa, (formerly of Royal Robbins, 5.11 Tactical and others), the company specializes in apparel, packs, knives and other accessories. First Tactical develops products for law enforcement and first responders primarily, but many of their items
If you’ve spent any time at all in the bag-sphere you’ve definitely heard of Jack Barley, Keven Dee, and EVERGOODS. Based out of Bozeman, Montana, the young brand had their first 2017 product launched on Kickstarter and raised $161,000 to bring out their first two packs, the Civic Panel Loader 24L (CPL24) and the Mountain
My first correspondence with Chris Elfering, founder of Bond Travel Gear, was an email titled “Order Cancellation”. Bond gave The Perfect Pack members a smoking deal on in stock items and I made an impulse purchase that the next day I thought I would regret. By that time, my Attache 13 had already shipped and
The Metromonger is a 9L sling bag made by Greenroom136, an independently owned bag company based in Malaysia. Patrick Lim, the founder, designs a series of urban carry focused bags including messenger style and backpack style bags, as well as matching accessories. Some of the bags are also offered as a full customizable product. I
Pad & Quill is a Minneapolis based company specializing in leather and canvas goods. If you know them already, it’s likely because of their luxury iPad and iPhone cases or, more recently, their leather Apple Watch bands. While not exclusively vending Apple-tied goods, P&Q positions itself as a companion company to Apple. Basically, all of
Editor’s Note: The original review was of the Pre-2019 Guide’s Pack, but has since been updated for the 2019 version which fixes some of the original issues we had with the pack. Tom Bihn is one of the most iconic backpack brands in the world. For everything from business travel to backcountry treks, Tom Bihn
Khard 30, Assault Pack 30, Big ‘Ol Kitchen Sink. Call it what you want but the 30 liter pack from Arc’teryx is one of those standard bags to which many others are often compared, so when I got the chance to add a lightly used and pre-loved wolf grey version to my closet, I jumped
