Review: Rapha Trail Hip Pack

The Rapha Trail hip pack is reviewed as part of our Kit Essentials grouptest from Issue 143 of Singletrack World

• Price: £60.00
• Capacity: 3L
• Bladder: No
• From: Rapha, rapha.cc
• Colours: Old Gold, Black, Green, Navy

Unlike a lot of mountain bike journos, I really have no problem with Rapha. It has a style. It makes things really well. I can kind of understand people’s eye-rolling frustration with its whole retro monochrome all-cycling-must-hurt schtick, but its products are usually good. Its recent foray into mountain biking has some excellent items (the knee pads, for example). Sometimes, however, Rapha does drop the ball. And while this hip pack is not exactly a dud, I really don’t think it’s quite up to the job of proper mountain biking. I mean, I love the Old Gold colour. It is lovely.

But the Rapha Trail pack feels much more like a gravel or, dare I say, commuting bag. No mountain biker really wants an external elastic drawcord for stashing clothing; we want flappy/dangly clothing out of harm’s way. When it’s not in use, the drawcord just gets in the way of getting inside the bag or closing it back up. The other, more significant, problem is that the bag just doesn’t stay put very well. I was forever tugging at it and correcting its slippings. It was only when I really tightened up the waistband (to the point where I found it restrictive) that it stayed put. It possibly doesn’t really work with the looser cut jackets and tops of mountain biking.

Overall

Loved the colour, didn’t love the on-trail performance. Fine for not-MTBing.