Gear Review Osprey Porter 46 – The backpack to duffle carry-on

On a cold Colorado winter morning late in 2013 I found myself on the phone to Kimberly Coats and Jock Boyer all the way over the big pond at their home base at the Africa Rising Cycling Centre in Musanze, Rwanda. Luckily I was faced with an awesome opportunity to travel there and serve as the Head Coach for the Rwandan National Road Cycling Team along with aiding in developing and testing new talent across not only Rwanda but also Eritrea and Ethiopia. This meant I had to get some better travel gear and why would I look elsewhere than Osprey with their headquarters in Cortez, CO. Supporting local company along with a sponsor that had stood behind my professional mountain bike team, Bontrager – Honey Stinger Professional Off-road for the past several years. So I disclose, Osprey is my sponsor, but I aim to be neutral in my review on the product in my report that follows.

First, I had no idea what to expect traveling to Africa so I wanted to be versatile and Osprey had me covered for the trip with options from small day packs to large roller bags with accessories to boot. I started with calling up the local guys and they walked me thru their options which worked with their future fall release of the updated Porter 46. The pack falls into mid-capacity version in the Porter line.  It is a carry-on type functioning as a hybrid of a duffle bag mixed with a backpack that you can stuff full and has options to keep it sleek for fitting in overhead compartments on airlines. I first tested it prior to my Africa trip as my only luggage for my 2 yr anniversary trip to Taos, NM where I had hiking gear, dress clothes for nice night outings, swimming gear for the hot springs, along with the electronics for hanging at cafe's. It sufficed for those 5 days so it was getting the green light for my Africa carry-on.

Now to the nitty gritty details; I'll start with an overview of the bags functionality and usability.

Photo credit Osprey website (as they do better job than I with limited camera here in Africa at the moment)

Backpack straps convert to handheld

A nice feature that helped sell me on the Porter 46 was the versatility from handheld duffel to backpack. I say this because my other piece of luggage was an Osprey Sojourn (with roller wheels as well as convertible to large day pack with backpack straps) so if I indeed need to carry the larger Sojourn on my back then I wanted to be able to carry my 2^nd piece of luggage by hand.

My African fleet of Osprey; Sojourn roller, Raptor hydration and Porter carry-on.

The backpack straps tuck into a zipper on the upper part of the back panel along with the hip straps tuck into small slits at the bottom of the back panel. 

Shoulder & hip straps shown half removed.

Shoulder and hip straps stowed but not zipped.

This cleans up the dangling mess of a traditional hiking pack or backpack carry-on when trying to maximize space on the packed domestic flights and international flights as well. It proved to work perfect in the airline situations because the attendants didn't  even question a carry-on size really if its on your back (but luckily Osprey did their homework and it's the maximum carry-on size) and it fit nice once on the plane and I needed to stow it into an overhead compartment. 

Packs in overhead nicely

 But a thing to note in this case, often with other backpacks, I'm hesitant to jam them into the spaces provided because lack of padding and protection, but in the Porter's case, it has protective “flaps” of sort that are part of the compression straps.  The body of the Porter is thick enough to feel confident that you valuables will be safe inside and I'd go to the point even if you dropped it or it got tossed around a bit. But that wouldn't happen by airlines....now would it! :)

Small versus Large capacity

The flaps with compression straps give the user a nice option for two options for size. (You can see difference in picture of red pack from website versus my stowed picture with the fleet of multiple bags above)  If you don't desire to use the pack fully stuffed to the gills then the compression straps attach at a different point making it a relatively small pack size. This has served useful if just using it on a day to day basis and not for the purpose of maxing out all the personal belongings for a 6 month trip in Africa.

Updated storage and protection

The times are changing with more and more tablets, phablets (the mix of phone and tablet), electronic cables, mini-convertible laptops, readers (i.e. Nook, Kindle, etc.) so the guys at Osprey took this into account in the front panel.

Plethora of pockets

 There is a padded laptop sleeve with a top buckle for safety when opening; which I suggest using when accessing the main compartment, as I dumped my laptop out on my 1^st use by accident.  So there are little pockets galore in the front panel for you to slip gadgets, travel docs, valuables, etc into. The downfall (which also is a positive in another arena, ease of packing/accessing, that I'll touch on next) here is that the technical material of the bag has a very slick finish so if you completely unzip the main compartment and flop it open many of the gadgets will slip right out if you also have that pock unzipped. So I recommend being careful if you access both while the zippers are open and upon opening the front zipper after much moving around as things may have slid out into the front compartment open space thus becoming disorganized.

The good thing is I traveled with a compact 13” ultrabook, a Kindle, my US mobile, my Intl mobile along with several training devices like Garmins and all the chargers and gear and it was nice to have all the space there.

Ease of Packing

The Porter was designed well in this area as both the front and main compartments have full “U-shaped” zippers allowing you to open the whole thing up like fileting a fish. Unzip the main compartment with sturdy oversized zippers (with locking eyelets on them) and you can stuff it full with your carry-on needs. Inside this main compartment are two side panel zippered dividers; one being mesh and the other full fabric matching the bag. 

Main compartment ease of access

This is good for putting your socks and undies in for example or dividing up some cords or necessities you don't want in the front panel. I easily had my cycling shoes, a spare change of clothes and shoes, along with some travel snack for my 48hrs of travel time to Africa. The same full-flap accessibility goes with the smaller front gadget compartment as well so when packing or accessing your items when fully packed, you can really see everything without unpacking it all if it's not necessary which is good especially for long international flights or when you find yourself “living out of a bag” on the the road from hotel to hotel in a stage race setting like I often am where you never really get the luxury of unpacking.

Little extra & attention to detail

Besides the two main compartments (of which both have their own unique dividers, zippers, sleeves, etc.) the Porter also has an easy access smaller zipper compartment on the top of the bag and a small front vertical zipper.  The former reminds me of the “sunglass” storage compartments on some other cycling specific team carry-ons, but this one is just simple soft material that matches the bag consistently and isn't a crush resistant compartment. It offers nice access to things you'd want to use more frequently without unclipping the compression straps to dig deeper into your packing job. It is a great place to stash your shades (if you stick them in their own protective case) after arriving at the airport or between trips) but it also has a nice little red key clip so you can easily find your keys and them not be buried in the mix of your other packing job.

Another thoughtful feature are there are two handles for the handheld option when the backpack straps are stowed away; one on the top similar to a normal backpack and one on the sid of the pack so it can be held lengthwise more like a briefcase. And these handles were well-designed with adequate padding and not just the typical reused strap from the shoulder strap adjustment. This is important with it being the largest carry-on approved, I assume the engineers knew it would probably be maxed out near (14kg or 30 lbs for international carry-on) so the user would want the handles to be ergonomic and comfortable for carrying between gates in the large airports.

The compartments are fitted with dual accessing zippers that are fitted with small eyelets so you can keep your items secure with small TSA approved locks. Just check the diameter of the lock with the zipper eyelet as they are pretty small. But this is good even if you need to secure it with something as simple as a colored zip tie so you know if your pack has been accessed.

Also there are sturdy shoulder strap clip points on the duffle handle side that offer an additional option to attach a more supportive shoulder straps.  I didn't use these as I didn't install a strap but after traveling with it fully loaded, I'd recommend utilizing this feature if you don't have the backpack straps out.

A few things to improve

I'd say the bag is well designed but as full-time endurance coach I'm always seeking constructive criticism as that's the path to mastery. As I alluded to earlier the gadgets sliding out of the front compartment being an issue, a simple fix would be to add a simple velcro tab to the top of several of the larger stashes so the contents remain intact. There is one stretchy mesh pocket in that front compartment which I wish there were a couple more because this design conforms to the odd shape of many items and keeps them intact with the stretchy banded top. So maybe the outermost stash pockets are made of stretchy mesh and the ones behind having velcro tabs would resolve the potential to slip out. Another thing, all these pockets have basically flat material seams so if you are limited to only putting slim/streamlined items in each. Maybe have one or a couple pockets with extra material (like an accordion) so it will expand to say a novel-sized book or something a bit thicker.

Also it would be nice to have included the shoulder strap but maybe the backpack straps can serve double duty.  As my model was pre-production, it didn't come with any tags or "instructions" as if most anyone really reads them for a pack anyways.

I'll try that on my next trip in a couple days because pulling the backpack straps in and out when deplaning is kinda time consuming and people rushing off planes aren't too patient, so a quick sling over the should and then support with the side-mounted duffle handle is a nice feature.

Otherwise the bag is great and functional. I have to say it's a bit big for a desirable day-to-day bag but it would work with some extra space. I'd suggest stuffing a laptop or shoulder bag into your luggage if you need that for grabbing and going needing repeated access to computer, gadgets and maybe files. 

Now I'm off to Ethiopia in a couple days so I'll get to give it a go-round hauling new computers and Velotron testing equipment over for a quick talent identification testing week with their national team riders. Over and out for now!