I'm not brave enough to be a bike messenger in this city, but I do like to throw some snacks, a six pack, and a few picnic sundries into my over-the-shoulder messenger bag and bike down to the beach on the occasional sunny Sunday afternoon. On those days, I really feel the ways my current messenger bag is failing me as a painful twinge spreads in my right shoulder while the clumsy single-strap bag slips and slides across my back.
For the sake of my spine I needed something better, a bag with greater carrying capacity that's built to distribute weight comfortably across my entire back. Something like, say, Chrome's pricey Bravo Night backpack.
The Bravo Night is visible from up to 100 meters at night
The $180 Bravo is constructed from weatherproof 1000 CORDURA brand denier and measures about 20.25 inches tall by 13.75 inches wide by 5.5 inches deep. The simply designed roll-top has a 20-liter main compartment and a smaller compartment designed to hold laptops up to 15"; the laptop compartment is criss-crossed by a pair of heavy-duty black compression straps. Chrome's website claims the Bravo weighs 0 pounds—however our scales clocked it in at a little over three pounds.
The main compartment is lined with Welded-Waterproof 1000 denier military grade truck tarpaulin, and the roll-top does an excellent job of keeping moisture out when you cinch it tight. The top flap seals with a pair of Velcro strips, which makes it easy to quickly open and adjust, though I wish that Chrome had built the Bravo with a spare set of buckles or some other, more trustworthy fastener—I've had trust issues with Velcro straps since grade school.
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