Osprey Talon 22 Back Pack
Several of the ultra lite bike packing pioneers posted at bikepacking.net that they were using Osprey Talon packs. Some of those folks I trust a lot. So much so that I bought this Osprey pack sight unseen using my REI dividend and 20% off coupon.
Osprey Talon 22 - It's orange!
It’s a really nice, relatively light weight pack. It’s got gobs of room, might be too much actually. I like the fit and I’m impressed thus far with the quality. It’s also got pretty good airflow on the back, not as much as my old Ergon pack, but it’s pretty good.
Why did I get a bigger pack when I have a Wingnut pack? Well besides the fact that it is orange, I needed a pack with more room for water and food. My Wingnut pack is awesome, but I suspect at times this year, I’ll be needing more than one bladder of water. Another reason is that since I’ll be riding the Big Mama as opposed to my Fargo, I only have 1 bottle mount on the bike itself and I lost my frame pack for storage of some goods.
My intent with this pack is to use it for food, outer wear, water and camera. This way, it gets lighter throughout the day. I don’t want to use it for other stuff because there is A LOT of room here and frankly speaking, my body & back can’t handle that much weight. I’ll need to hold a firm and strict weight requirement.
Sorry for the rough pic, it’s all I had. I’ll try to get a good pic of it loaded up to show some of the very cool features of this pack. Maybe later today or later in the week. I’ll also post this up in “My Equipment”.
Late morning edit: After my snowy, wet and cold commute this morning, I thought I’d share another photo of the pack. Here is a pretty good sideview. I’ve got my lunch, my clothes, and I threw in my 2lb bivy to give it some shape and represent a water bladder. I see I also left the nice sidepocket open that stores gel packs and food nicely.
Talon 22 side view - I told you I like orange!
And no, I’m not that heavy in the arms and upper shoulder. We had some serious wind this morning and my jacket was puffing out a bit!
Have you checked into getting a seatpost mounted water bottle? The Minora sp? is pretty nice. There might be other good ones too.
I have noticed that this pack is favored by many I respect. It’ll be good to get your take on it, Gnat.
Captain, yes I’ve considered a seat post water bottle mount, but then I couldn’t use my custom Epic Design seat bag that will hold my other gear.
Bike will hold dry clothing, bivy, sleeping matt and sleeping bag.
Back pack will hold food, water, camera and outer wear.
That pack is pretty darn sweet… Thanks for the pictures. That brought it home for me. It’s pretty orange too. I’ve got a jacket it’ll match well.
Hooboy… Fun stuff. What ‘cha drinkin’ tonight?
BTW… I took that 3/4 inch drill bit to the end of the WTB drop bars to install those Bontrager vibration dampers on the Fargo a little bit ago… it worked — SWEET!! I told you I’d get those things to work on those darn thick-walled WTB bars… They aren’t so thick walled at the ends anymore (heh heh heh).
Cheers,
MG