Luggage Bags and Packs
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@mclaincausey the asking price was enough to cure any FOMO that I might have had about not getting one!
I'm not a fan of the pass-through strap on the collaboration. All the Carryology followers on Facebook are obsessed by them, but here it looks like an afterthought. That's probably because I hate rolling luggage, so it's a feature I would never use.
I didn't realise that rofmia is two people in an old house in Japan. I could see myself going very deep down that particular rabbit hole.
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@Graeme their products are absolutely works of art. Something about them just feels really special.
As for luggage pass through, the best one I’ve seen is on my ULA Dragonfly, where it’s just back padding decoupled from the back of the bag and hard to notice unless you’re looking for it, and it comes with a nice hidden, quite spacious pocket for passports and such. You can customize Rofmia bags and ask them to add the pass through and I didn’t do so on either of mine.
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@mclaincausey unfortunately (or fortunately for my bank balance) I don't have a need for another bag right now. I got a lovely backpack from Loyal Stricklin last year, and I've probably only used it a dozen times.
The ULA packs look great. I've been tempted by an Ultra Node as a lightweight travel pack.
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@Graeme those look fantastic and are gorgeous!
I’m glad I got my Rofmia bags, accessories, and wallet when I could. The Carryology hype will make that really hard and I don’t see them scaling the operation to the increased demand. I find myself reaching for the ULA more than the Backpack V2 for > Daypack use cases. The clamshell and slightly larger volume win out in terms of functionality. But darn the Backback is a sexy bag. Kind of a “safe queen” now with the Dragonfly
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@mclaincausey my Rofmia is one of my favorites but I almost dont want to use it bc how hard it would be to replace. I ALMOST want the carryology bag so I feel better about using my dyneema version but I have no shortage of carry options.
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@Anesthetist Yeah I am in the same boat--they are very well-built and I suspect they would stand behind them if anything happened but what a huge pain in the ass it would be to ship it back for an indeterminate timeframe, and Dyneema is not fundamentally a lifelong material. I am not sure whether and how backing leather with Dyneema changes that, but abrasion damage and degradation/delamination are real threats to it if you aren't careful with how you use it. You can patch it pretty easily but the lovely aesthetic is then marred. So if you win the lottery for this one, you're spending buy it for life price on a beautiful piece of kit that may or may not stand the test of time, and as stated above takes a couple of steps back in some of the little subtleties that make the bags so great. That said, as stratospheric as the price is, I don't think it's misaligned to the craftsmanship and materials. I've seen plenty of much more expensive bags in this thread.
My way of managing making mine last as long as possible is then only in travel scenarios where I don't expect to be roughing it. My Daypack will come with me on the plane and to meetings. My ULA can come with me on light backpacking as well as travel, so I love it for that. But it will never give me the feels that carrying a Rofmia does or look as good doing it.
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@Graeme said in Luggage Bags and Packs:
The ULA packs look great. I've been tempted by an Ultra Node as a lightweight travel pack.
That is basically a miniaturized and roll-topped version of what I have. Get it!
The Ultra is rigid and that structure I think is helpful especially in this rollmop format. The Ultra Mesh makes for excellent, adaptable storage. I am just starting to see a bit of wear on my Mesh because the bottle I travel with has a hard bottom edge though.
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@mclaincausey the Node is a similar size to my underutilised Loyal Stricklin roll-top. That's probably the main reason why I haven't got one yet.
A number of airlines in Australia and Asia have a 7 kg or 15 lbs weight restriction on cabin baggage. An Ultra Node with a couple of ULA's packing cubes would be less than 700 g or 1.5 lbs, and probably less than half of what my Loyal Stricklin pack and pair of Evergoods TPC8s weigh.
You and @Anesthetist also commented on durability. I've found that most bags will give about two or three years of daily use before they start to wear out. One of the things that put me off a Racing Atelier pack was that the fabric part would probably fail before the leather harness, and I wasn't sure how easily it could be repaired. I think that the same argument would apply to Rofima.
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@Anesthetist that Alpine Luddites pack is lovely and very colour coordinated.
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@Graeme thank you, it is a joy to carry. Ultra simple but very high quality.
