look what the brown santa brought

Last night, after work, I hit up the evening spin class at the local Y for an hour of suffering and copious sweating. I easily went through two water bottles (despite having two glasses of water an hour before class) while everyone else in the class had less than one. I don't know how people get through a class like that with only one bottle, I guess their bodies are used to being dehydrated. Anyway, after the class I hopped on the El Mariachi with its freshly mounted fat slicks and set out for home and quickly realized that the class had taxed me more than I thought because every hill HURT! I savored the pain though since its been a few months since I've tried to ride hard and with the start of the new year comes the start of my training so I sucked it up and soldiered on.

When I rolled into the garage a little over an hour later I was greeted by this:

No, I don't have a fridge and dining table in the garage. I took the pic once inside.

Inside of the box. Sorry for the bad pic.

Another angle of the pack.

It took me about 10 minutes last night to get the pack adjusted to my back and I was immediately in love. The pack sits low on (off actually) the back putting the weight over the hips with little weight on the shoulders and once on, it basically disappears. My biggest problem with packs and messenger bags while riding has always been that they've always felt awkward on my back. In the past I've tried several day-hiking type packs that worked OK but I always felt like I was carrying much more weight than I actually was. I've also got a sweet messenger bag that I use on a daily basis but once on the bike all but the smallest loads start to weight you down. Its comfortable but you feel the weight. At first glance, it seemed like the BD1 was going to take care of that.

Thankfully, it wouldn't be long before I got to put it to use since I was riding in again this morning.

This morning I decided to put the bag to the test and carry more than I typically would. Nothing too heavy yet since it would be the first run with it but I stuffed in most of my food for the day, an extra jersey, pump, batteries for my light and other odds and ends and the bag took them all easily (I could probably have put in 2-3 times that much) and once on my back the load essentially disappeared! The weight was obviously still there but somehow it felt less than I expected it to. Same for the ride in, the pack was so comfy that I forgot on several occasions that I even had one on. This same load in my other bags would have been a pain.

This was just one 1-hour ride so time will really tell but for now I'm super psyched to have this bag.