Product review: Wrangler True Wanderer Bikepack

It's pretty fashionable to use the word biker right now. Stick a picture of a motorcycle on a tee-shirt and you have a biker tee. You get the picture. Wrangler have been in on this game for a bit and some of their ideas have been good. That's how we got the extra-tough Cordura-denim blend jeans and the water resistant jeans and so forth. And now we have this, a 'biker rucksack.'

What is it?

Ostensibly it is a backpack for a motorcyclist. But to be honest, it's just a rucksack with no specific features for a motorcyclist. It's made of rather thick material and has the requisite W logos stitched in at various places. Ochre yellow and black, to me, is not a good looking colour palette, however, so a good looking bag this one is not. Neither in the colourways nor in design. It gets worse. There aren't any reflective materials at all. A biker rucksack that has no reflectives? Wow. That's a first.

Inside the outer flap is a stab at organisation - a few pen loops, a zippered pocket and a plastic clip where you'd hang a set of keys. The main flap has a laptop sleeve-like thing at the bag. Still further behind is a zippered pocket into which go the padded rucksack shoulder straps if you're not using them. And if you don't use them, you get an oddly shaped rectangular bag that has two nylon handles.

The USP is a mesh bib that hides inside a small zipper at the bottom of the front. This comes out and clips to D rings at the top and is stretchy so you could anchor a helmet to the bag to walk around with.

Does it work?

Not really. A dark bag with no reflectives is bad news for motorcyclists because visibility is the biggest challenge for us. Worn on the motorcycle, any rucksack with a sternum strap will outperform this bag. So no matter how much you adjust it, the width of the bag will make the shoulder straps feel less secure and since it doesn't give you the option of a waist strap, this is a biker rucksack only in name. And as basic rucksacks go, clearly the branding and marketing led the project and utility and functionality were in the canteen the whole time looking forlorn and not really given a role to play. Does it work? It's a bag and you can put stuff in it. And that's about it.

Then there is the helmet bib. As an idea it works but the thin mesh material will not protect your helmet from scratches at all. Given how critical the helmet is to your safety, would I allow a badly designed bag to compromise my helmet? No.

Verdict

There's far, far, far, far better bags than this that you can buy. I cannot find a single reason why anyone should spend any money on this bag. It's not pretty, it's not useful, it's quite heavy, it offers very little storage for its size and there's no useful motorcyclist-friendly feature in here at all either.

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