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Osprey Transporter duffle bag

Written by Fiona

September 28 2017

Is it sad of me to say that I have fallen in love with a piece of luggage? Well, if it is, I don’t really care because I am an outdoors journalist and, in my opinion, it’s ok to love your kit.

The item is the new Osprey Transporter duffle bag. At first, it looks rather like many other sports bags that I own. Except it has a lot of features that I really like. I have been testing the smallest 40l version. There are also 65, 95 and 130l sizes.

The Osprey Transporter bag is labelled as “AdventureProof”. This means it is durable enough to cope with all kinds of adventures. I have used it to take kit to an open water swimming session, for weeks away in the campervan and for several overseas trips, including a cycling holiday and a triathlon race.

The bag has been duly knocked about, stuffed into small spaces and generally given a bit of tough love. It has survived and still looks as good as new. The fabric used to make the Transporter is very hard wearing and water-resistant.

Very useful luggage.

Features include:

  • 4 grab handles
  • Backpack harness carry straps
  • Backpack harness stows in lid pocket
  • Conforms to EU maximum Carry-On luggage size
  • Detachable padded shoulder strap
  • Durable and highly water resistant fabric
  • External end pocket
  • ID Card holder
  • Internal key attachment clip
  • Internal mesh pockets
  • Lockable zippers
  • Sternum strap with emergency whistle
  • Small separate inner bag
  • Priced from £100 from Osprey Transporter series.

Osprey Transporter bag.

What I like about the Osprey Transporter bag

As well as what I have written above, I love that this bag is it’s the right size for carrying on to a flight as hand luggage. I travelled to the Dolomites with BA for a cycling holiday with only my bike bag and hand luggage. I needed to maximise my hand luggage for carrying clothes, cycling kit and my MacBook etc. I measured the bag and it was perfect for hand luggage allowance.

Water resistant outer fabric.

The bag can be carried by a shoulder strap or, more usefully for me, with integrated rucksack-style shoulder straps. There is also a sternum strap to make it more comfortable to carry the pack as a rucksack. This includes an emergency whistle. When not in use these straps can be zipped away. I like that Osprey think of all the small details and the straps.

The side grab handles are also very handy for moving the bag about.

The inner compartment is accessed by a zipped lid that forms a u-shape around the top of the bag. This makes access easy. The zip is easy to operate, too, even when it’s in the corners of the pack.

Extra zipped ouch included in the Osprey Transporter bag.

An internal zipped security pocket is useful for bits and bobs and the external zipped pocket at one end of the bag proved useful for stowing items I needed to quickly reach.

Inside I also found a small zipped pouch bag. This is separate to the larger bag. I used it for small items, such as European plugs, buffs, socks, sunglasses etc, that would usually end up at loose at the bottom of my bag. It could equally be used to stow small clothing items or dirty washing. At first I thought what is the point of that but it turned out to be pretty useful.

In addition, the design and colour range of this bag is great.Many people have commented on how good the bag looks.

There are a couple of things that I’m not so sure about including the sternum strap whistle. I doubt I would ever have the need to use the emergency whistle because this is more of a travelling bag than a mountain bag.

The other thing is the slightly fiddly clips that connect the lid to the outer part of the bag. I have found myself fumbling a bit with these.

See Osprey

Written by Fiona September 28 2017 Please support this website Buy me a glass of wine

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