Deuter Speed Lite 20

Yesterday I got for myself a Deuter Speed Lite 20 - a soft 20 litre back pack - for Rs 4000 from Nikita. I got it for myself for the upcoming ride to the mountains. The idea is to carry my basic stuff in it and carry it on the shoulders. I don't know if that's a good idea. But nothing stops me from doing an initial review of the bag. Whether I carry it on my shoulders or tie it on a rack can be decided later. 

The top notch Deuter quality is written all over. It has a separate chamber for a hydration pack. It also has another chamber for small this and that. There are two side mesh pockets for water bottles. There is a front mesh pocket for keeping a rain jacket or something similar. 

Yesterday I put all my stuff inside and they fitted pretty fine with room to spare. The problem with soft bags is that, if you fill it up completely the back of the bag bulges out like a ball and that can hurt your back. That's happening with my bag too. It's not a problem of the bag per se but the problem of stuffing it. If you put less items then it will not happen. So possibly I will take the rain jacket out from the main bag and keep it in the front mesh pocket.

But the back has a soft mesh kind of finish, which will possibly help when I sweat. 

The sack is not water proof. There is no rain cover either. So what I will do is stuff my items in the Sea To Summit dry sack and put it inside. 

The sack is incredibly light, 530 grams to be precise. But it has all the straps, particularly the four compression straps on either side. Only problem with the straps is that the loose ends dangle around and there is no mechanism to roll them up and lock them in. The straps in my North Face all have velcro tapes attached in a T kind of shape so that you can roll the loose end up and lock it. I think I will use rubber bands. Dangling loose ends of straps are not good for cycling. 

I love the finger pull loops attached to the zippers making it very easy to pull them. These are high quality loops. There also are four fixed loops on the four corners of the front part of the sack. I think they are meant for hanging solar charger panels. 

There is a loop to grab the bag or to hang it from a hook for storage at home. 

The colour red, when I saw it online, looked obnoxious. But it's not that offensive in real life. I am okay with it. It has 3M reflector in the front. 

Deuter talks a lot about its tapered shape. It indeed is a little tapered but not as exaggerated as they make it look in the pictures. But one good thing about the bag is it stands on its own when placed on the ground. Apparently the base is rectangular. 

   

Deuter 2.5 lit Waist Pack

Looking rather smug in front of the Van Gogh Museum :-) 

After the Roopkund trek of 2017 I realised my good old leather waist pack (I call it a belt pouch) is not adequate enough for the demands of a modern travel anymore. These days our tickets - train or plane - are all A4 sized paper. My old pack, robust and strong though it is, is not large enough to accommodate them. It is not wide enough either and if I put my wallet then there is no place for anything else. 

This prompted me to go for a larger waist pack and after my first experience with the Deuter 26 lit backpack, I did not think twice about the brand. I bought it ahead of the Amsterdam trip. It arrived on 24th July and turned out to be a good purchase. 

(Of course some digitally inclined folks might suggest why not carry your ticket in your phone? Well I don't trust the phone to function all the time under all circumstances, even if I don't lose it while travelling. So I carry my A4 sized paper tickets with me. Smart Alecs can keep their opinions to themselves and trust their digital gadgets. I want to stay old fashioned in these things.)

I chose to go for the largest available size. The price difference between the smallest (I think 1 lit) and this wasn't much, though that wasn't the reason really to go for the 2.5 lit. The pack, despite being quite large (it is way larger than my leather belt pouch) doesn't seem bulky around the waist. In Amsterdam I carried it around with loads of stuff like my passport, red note book, tickets, mobile phone, charger and even the power bank. It never protested. I think if I took the thick red diary out it could even carry my wallet also. 

I don't know how they manage it but Deuter has this remarkable ability to create a lot of space inside their bags without them looking too big. My 26 lit back pack is also similar. Lots of space for a backpack of that size. 

The only downside to this bag is that it is not easy to adjust the size of the belt on the go, which is often a requirement especially when you are out walking with the pack on day-long trips.

I foresee using this pack in virtually all my trips from now on.