Viking Bags Update
Travel, My Way
The first thing you're probably going to notice, if you read my first review on this bag, is that I'm using the same photos of this bag from my Milwaukee trip. I actually have a very good reason for this... I felt a little lazy and there isn't any need to take some new photos, not yet anyway. The bag still looks EXACTLY the same now, as it did in April. It's showing no wear, despite being put through several trips.
Here's the deal, I try to pack as light as possible for any and every trip I take, but, depending on the destination, I want to be able to dress appropriately. The resulting outcome of these two ideologies tends to be a single, overstuffed, bag that is nearly busting at the seams.
Enter the Viking Bags 45L Tactical XL Motorcycle Backpack.
Retirement Is Awesome...
...But it can be a bit boring, so I decided to get a part-time job. Now, you may be wondering how this is relevant to this Viking Bags review, well stay with me, baby birds... daddy's gonna feed ya.
This new job is what you would consider, semi-professional. I get to work from home, which has zero dress code (get your minds out of the gutter- I just mean that I can dress however I want). In my initial training, however, I did have to meet my boss and the rest of the team, so not dressing professionally wasn't even an option. Since my training was away from home, and expected to last a few days, I wanted to make sure that I had enough professional attire, business casual attire, and straight casual attire to last several days. I could have easily packed a large suitcase, but I'm not really a "suitcase kind of guy", so I packed my Viking Bag and my smaller H-D bag with everything I'd need and I hit the road. When I tell you that the Viking Bag was overstuffed, I mean... it was like Milwaukee all over again. I was laying across the top just to get it zipped shut. I lived out of the bag for two days, and was able to head back early because I'm super smart and picked up the training really quickly (or, maybe I just learned enough that I could fake my way through it so I could get back home early...either way, training didn't take as long as expected).
The same month, Mrs. MotoWriter and I took a trip, where I used this bag as my only piece of luggage again, this time to visit our good friends in Florida. As usual, I wanted to have enough clothes to cover me for several days, so the Viking Bag Tactical Backpack got overstuffed, once again. While I wasn't laying across the bag to zip it shut this time, it was pretty close. I was able to pack several days worth of clothes- jeans, t-shirts, a couple of button-down garage shirts, socks and underwear, you get the gist. Once again, the bag performed exceptionally well.
Final Verdict
Look, I'm not what you might call "easy" on my gear. I use it and use it hard. I tend to overstuff my bag so I don't have to carry more than one and I throw it around like I'm trying out for "angry baggage handler of the month" at the airport. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to tear it up, but I don't have room in my life to be delicate with things that shouldn't require delicate handling.
In my previous review, I disclosed that this bag was comped to me. As you can imagine, in the absence of a financial investment, I have been *slightly* less cautious with it... just so I could give you guys a worst-case scenario if it did fail. Simply put, we tend to take better care of the things we buy, so it's sometimes difficult to actually torture test a product when you have dropped over a hundred bucks on it.
I've beat this bag up, thrown it around like a petulant toddler throws around a second-hand rag doll, I've overstuffed it and I've tested the strength of the zippers and the seams on several occasions and this thing still looks like it did the day I got it. It has been, and will continue to be, my primary luggage when I'm traveling around doing MotoWriter stuff, or when I'm acting like a grown-up and doing work-related stuff. So, if you haven't clicked the links yet, go ahead and click this one to get one of your own. I'm not an official affiliate for Viking Bags, so you won't get any discounts by clicking out of my blog, but Viking Bags pretty much runs sales all year, so getting a good deal on a great bag is pretty easy to do with them.
Until next time, MotoReaders...
Ride safe and travel often!
