Kriega R25 Backpack Rucksack Laptop bag

[He Man]

Many people have been asking for a section about reviews and such. And here ya go. The title is easily searchable and all comments from other users are welcomed!

Kriega R25 Quad lock.
I love this pack. Though it may look weird with its quad lock harness, it certainly gets the job done and quite well at that. The number indicates the voulme in liters. R25 dictates 25 liters of space. How much can that hold? Well, if you do it military style, you could probably fit about a whole weeks worth of fresh clothes in there. Or if you rocking it more urban style, I can fit 10oz boxing gloves, my boxing shorts, shin pads, change of clothes, 15.1inch laptop, 2 composition note books and a 1 liter bottle of water. At that point its pretty packed, but you could definitely jam more stuff in there if you organized it correctly.

One of the neat features (and best IMHO) of this pack is the way it distributes the weight on your body. When im carrying 25+lbs of stuff with me on my 40minute ride to school, my old pack (if it could even fit all that without flying out) would KILL my shoulders. You leaned forward, it leaned backwards and pulled on your body.

The Kriega? Well lets just say all that weight gets redistributed to your lower ribcage and much closer to your center of gravity. In turn, you feel much more relaxed. There is literally no weight on your shoulders. You can run your fingers through the shoulder strips with ease too.

Kriega says it isnt waterproof due to the stitching, but every bit of it is made water proof material. It has waterproof zippers too.  There are accessory packs for it such as  US-10, a 10liter pack that goes ontop of your R-25, and front pouches that hold something simple like a camera or your sun glasses. They too are water proof. the US10 can also double as tail pack. Also 100% waterproof materials.

Overall, this is a very high quality pack. the R-25 works great as a everyday pack and excels in long distance trips. the R-20 has a dual lock system and is perfect for inner city jousting (joust not included)

Sideview, you can see the strip over the zipper. This serves as a rain shield to shed water from the zippers. The bag is just filled with 2 10oz gloves laid sideways. When you are carrying a light load, the clips hold the pack tight so it isnt flapping around in the wind.



Front view
Sorry for the darkness! The white strip is a reflective coating The coating is great. I had my back facing a friend and a car made a turn and its headlights hit my backpack. My friend asks me what that flash of light was, and I told him it must of been my pack. REALLY good for night time! The front quad lock also features 2 strips of reflective coating.You can also see how slim the pack is.


Straps:
This is the strange quadlock strap. I cant praise how good it is. I've done 1200 miles in less than 2 days with regular book bags. I was crying in pain for almost 2 full weeks with it. If i had this baby on me. NO PROBLEM!

[DesmoDiva]

You going to model it for us?? 









ie. Picts please, not everyone knows what this pack looks like.

[Heath]

I too have this pack.  Mostly I use it for school books and the laptop.  My college is a small campus but it makes all the difference being able to park at the motorcycle parking near the center of campus.  I usually have a binder, couple books, planner, laptop and more with me.  Riding with a normal pack just wasn't working out.  I was always afriad of losing my books.  Just last week I saw a guy roll up and his back pack was wide open.

I also have been able to pack enough for a weekend get way before.  That was a change of clothes, shoes, cleaning stuff, and a couple things for the bike.

I love my R25.

[DoubleEagle]

Where can you buy one of these ?  How much ?   Dolph

[He Man]

Currently there's only 1 choice since they are imported into the US.

www.aerostitch.com

It was $146 last i remember, the R-20 is $135 and the R15 is $119, or something to that effect. I was initially going to get the 15, but i went to a bag store and saw a northface 35L bookbag. it wasnt that big. Kriega does make a R35, but I dont need that much space and the 25 is the perfect size. Again, if you wanted to you could get the US-10 and make it a 35Liter pack.

[He Man]

Ill post up a pic tommorrow, but as far as laptop security, there is a sleeve inside, but it wont fit my 15.4 inch laptop. 14 inch seems to fit and 13 is perfect. Everything else is mixed with the main pack. There is also a outer pouch but i can only fit things as wide as a composition note book with 6 inches of space above. you could probably stack up to 3 comp books in there if you tried. but 2 would be more realistic.

as far as stability goes, thats where the straps go into play. the pack it self can expand about 12" wide maybe more, but with the straps, it can be as tight as 3 inches, which is perfect a notebook. I put my laptop inside first, then my gloves, then a t shirt and my shorts, then my liter bottle of water, then my notebooks. This usually leaves space at the top so i can just throw a lunch in there so it wont get squished if i put it in that extra pouch.

[scooby]

This is a so-so pic of my Kreiga 25 (Mt. Rainier in the background...) I love my pack; had it for 2 years now and have used it for many multi day trips; so far 5 days days being the max. I wear cool max and wash every it every night and easily can do probably up to a week with the pack and a tank bag. I also have the Kriega US 10 which works as a tail pack and also clips onto the 25 to add additional space.    On the pack!

[ghosthound]

the US10 pacl can be used as a tailpack if you take off the plastic cover.  Ive actually hung the US10 off the right side of the bike under the gas tank (thank goodness for the trellis frame).  Im not sure im always going to mount it there but ive tested it and it doesnt interfere with anything and the oil cooler doesnt cause any issues with heat either. 

the RS25 is nice, even with my speedhump (Dainese Delmar) but im sure it would fit better without it... i just like the jacket so much so i just live with it.

[Jaman]

I have the R25 as well & love it.

I've had it for over a year, with no issues - ridden thru some monsoons with VERY MINOR seepage (regular rain, no issues) I've done camping trips for 3/4+ days - plenty of room for gear. My ONLY complaint is that, when wearing the backpack walking around unbuckled, it tends to wanna slip off my shoulders/down my back...

[scooby]

<SNIP>My ONLY complaint is that, when wearing the backpack walking around unbuckled, it tends to wanna slip off my shoulders/down my back...

+1 - A pain...

[He Man]

+1 - A pain...

+2, i always ave o have atleast 1 buckled

[redxblack]

i ordered one of these today. I was debating between this bag and a chrome metropolis. I teach high school (lots of papers back and forth) and am in grad school (lots of books jammed in). I'll be riding with a pretty packed pack quite often, so I'll be able to post my contents for you all. my regular bookbag usually runs about 15-20 lbs, so this will be a welcome piece of gear!

[ducwrx]

I just got my Kriega R25 pack with cube. Thanks to the OP and all others who helped me decide whether to throw good money on this pack or not. I was afraid it wouldn't be big enough to pack my 16" laptop, but got reassurances from a couple of people here.

It's actually a bit bigger than I expected and not in a bad way. It's still a fairly small bag, but it fits my laptop no problem and has plenty of room left over for lunch, extra clothes, etc... It'll definitely come in handy for my trips to the big city this summer (150mi one way.) Unfortunately, I'll have to wait that long to really use it. Right now it'll just be a laptop bag to/from work.

The quality looks to be very good and I love the large reflector panels. It'll go well with my Dark. I got it from a company in the UK called adventure-spec.com and for less than anywhere else I've seen it for. It took about 2 weeks to arrive.

[He Man]

  glad you decided to get it!

I love my pack! Have faith in it in the water. I took my Laptop home in pouring rain and it was perfectly dry just shook the bag a bit and most of hte water just dribbled off!

[stopintime]

Great review

I'm really thinking about getting the 35 for longer trips. I wouldn't need my tail bag or tank bag if I did. Not sure I'm going to be happy on longer rides though?

Our sponsor Matrix Motorsports - aren't they the US importer now?  http://www.matrixmotosports.com/collections/kriega-packs