Crumpler Yee Ross Review

I have been using an inex­pens­ive no name back­pack to carry the neces­sary bag­gage (work clothes but not shoes, cyc­ling clothes for trip home, tools and spare tube) for the ride to work for the last couple of years, and it has done the job.

How­ever, I start rid­ing the recycled single speed to work and that did not have mounts for drinks bottle. One of the reason I bought that spe­cific noname back­pack was it could also be used as a hydra­tion pack. So I tried to use it as a hydra­tion pack, and it did not work for me. The tubing was in the wrong spot, the provided blad­der pack was dif­fi­cult to use, the mouth­piece leaked and my Camel­Bak 1.5l blad­ders did not fit the pack.

Then purely by acci­dent I saw the Crumpler Yee Ross on the Crumpler web site, a Crumpler back­pack that can be used as a hydra­tion pack. So I went to my local Crumpler store, check it out and walked away after pur­chas­ing last year’s model (more on that later).

A few days later it was pressed into ser­vice as a hydra­tion pack with a Camel­Bak 1.5l blad­der and it per­formed excep­tional well, the rout­ing put the mouth piece in the right spot and the Camel­Bak 1.5l blad­der did it’s job provid­ing me hydra­tion. It was also far more com­fort­able to ride in than the noname back­pack. The weight was well dis­trib­uted, the shoulder straps where in the right spot for me and did not dig in.

I star­ted using the Yee Ross as a reg­u­lar back­pack for all my other com­mutes and I am com­pletely sold on it. The com­fort factor has it.

Pros

• Com­fort­able, even with a mod­er­ate load.
• Works as a hydra­tion pack with a vari­ety of bladders.
• It is a Crumpler it will be durable.

Cons

• Smal­ler than most back­packs, need to pack carefully.
• Tight squeeze slid­ing a Mac­Book Pro in, not a prob­lem with the Acer Aspire One though.
• It is a Crumpler ;-)

There is a dif­fer­ence between last year’s model which is made from thicker more dur­able mater­ial, has a water­proof pocket and wider belt straps than this year’s model which comes in more funky col­ours. So if you want one and I recom­mend last year’s model for dur­ab­il­ity and prac­tic­ally I would head into your local crumpler store now. I have owned mine for 8 weeks and I would highly recom­mend it.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 20th, 2009 at 8:30 pm and is filed under Just geek, cycling . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.