Wanna be a Timbuk2 Weartester?

Hi,

If you need a tester who travels via air frequently, I'm your guy. I just purchased a Track Daypack (still waiting on its arrival) and plan on using it as laptop/general geek bag, but if your designers have any ideas that might work better, I'm game to give it a shot.

I spend between %40-%100 of each month traveling for work, occasionally overseas, and almost always by air. I rarely work in one place longer than a week, so I'm definitely racking up the airline miles.

My suitcase (more accurately duffel bag) with clothes usually gets checked so I can carry on all the tech gadgets I use for work in a backback. I'd love to test out any cool, new, intuitively useful designs for either checked luggage or carry on.

Let me know if I can help... well designed travel gear is hard to come by.

Josh
dorkrock@gmail.com

I travel out of state at least 3 times for extended trips. I'm a dedicated photographer and pretty much live out of my bags and on my MUCH loved macbook pro. I depend heavily on my luggage to protect my equipment as well as carry my whole life in efficiently and safely. I'd love the opportunity to test out new products as I'm always on my own personal mission to find the best and most durable for my needs.

Being someone who is pretty much NEVER home, I think I'd be an excellent candidate to offer feedback on what makes or breaks great luggage :D

I typically carry one bag for my laptop, Wacom tablet, and purse-type stuff (wallet, passport, books) that bag is ALWAYS with me whether I'm traveling or not, one larger shoulder bag for my camera equipment, A shoulder sling duffel for my clothing which I store in those space bags because I can't find anything efficient enough to store clothes without carrying the world's hugest bag. I do make some of my trips by flight also and prefer not to check my luggage unless absolutely necessary. My current duffel is a bit impractical for flight since I have to rummage through it to get all of the things out that they have to sort through, such as toiletries.

I do take about 3 trips a month ranging from 3-5 days each. I spend the majority of my time on the road and also trekking through all sorts of terrains for my photography (urban, rural, wooded, or a closed shoot on a set, you name it I'm there).

Greetings!

I've been a beta tester for consumer electronics and software many times but never have I been a weartester and I would be honored to be one. I am a roving IT support guy for a virtual organization of 150 employees that are spread all around the U.S. from a small island in Alaska to Maine to Florida to Hawaii. We are part of a government agency that manages 191 million acres of forested land so as you can imagine some of our work locations are a bit rustic. I travel way too much for work (I've only been home for about 4 days in the last six weeks). I learned long ago (the hard way) that with luggage and other bags when you buy cheap you buy twice (or perhaps three times) plus you stuff ends up all over the place when the zipper, fabric, or seams fail. Warranties are nice but I'd rather have stuff that doesn't fail. I've had good luck with products by other vendors (Andiamo, Tom Bihn, Red Oxx) and I wish I had purchased one of your duffle bags when they were still offered but I didn't. I would love to test the wearability of a bag with the same bombproof (Note to TSA: this is a metaphor....I don’t need to go into the special line to empty our every cavity of my carry-on AGAIN) materials and construction of my many Timbuk2 waxed canvas and ballistic nylon messenger bags.

The irony is that when I get home I really would prefer to just hang around the house but that is not what my kids want to do so almost every weekend at home seems to involve travel to a bike race or to go skiing or something. I can promise lots of use and lots of detailed and constructive feedback. I am also willing to sign a NDA and will honor it fully. Thank you for your consideration! -Alan

P.S. My email address is in my profile.

Still looking for some more participation here, let's see who else we can get in on the game by the end of this week!

I don't do a ton of traveling but I will be heading out to Costa Rica in a few weeks, do you want to see how the new bags handle Central America?

Here's a test: a trip that includes flights from Boston to Rome and Milan to Boston, 18 days of cycling in which my gear bag (cameras, pda, wallet, ipod, laptop, change of clothes) will get tossed into and out of the support van at least 6 times a day, get checked into 18 different hotels, and basically follow me around 24 hours a day. Then we'll do it all again for 16 days in France and Spain in August, then Tuscany in October, then Belgium in January. For starters.

PD

I'm a DC Student and avid outdoorsist. I live just south of the Nations capital, Work just north of it, and play all around it, but especially on my bike and in my kayaks just west of it. I travel 3 hours to 30 hours for kayaking trips, bike races and other things that spark my fancy at least once a month and take bigger, further, longer trips no less than once every three months.

I live like a bedouin between my apartment and vehicle - always prepared, and usually needng to be - and my gear gets used, thrown dragged and generally brought within an inch of its life on a daily basis. I have once even SLEPT in a bag.

I buy only fresh local produce, and forgo the plastic produce bags. Once, I straped a roller duffel to the back of my bike trailer style and used it to transport a weeks worth of food to my beach lean-to on the Tayrona coast right along Colombia's most dangerous highway.

All of my gear is used for its stated purpose as well as anything else I can think of.

I will be travelling to 7 of the NE Rivers over the next two months, The Pacific Northwest in June and the Pacific Southwest in July, and Bogota somewhere inbetween.

I've been a Timbuk2 Fan for years and years (just ordered my fifth bag, but the others are still in operation, and have gifted another 4 to friends) I know what I want in a travel bag, but have as of yet not been able to find it.

KCH
karja (dot) hansen (at) gmail (dot ) com

Would love to test out some travel bags. I do air travel about once a month, but during the summer, I am in constant commute between my home in the suburbs, the city, the shore and the pool. Between being thrown on and off airplanes, in and out of cars and down and the concrete pool decking and the sand of the shore, I'm pretty sure I can give your bags a decent test.

Greetings johnnymac,

Travel weartester... hmmm sounds like I may be able to be of some assistance, so here's my 10 cents worth... I am an airline employee (long-haul cabin crew) living in London. I spend four days a week in South East Asia before heading back to London where I have three days to rest and fit in travel to see family & friends in Europe, before heading back to Asia ie. four days away then three at home(ish) - whew! Not sure what will wear out first - the bags or me :) My husband is a big Timbuk2 fan (owning several more bags than he needs methinks). I would be very interested in testing your travel bags, and can offer you a weekly agenda of many flights, bus travel, bags being checked-in (hopefully ending up where I am & on the same flight), cabin baggage, travel on the London Underground (being kicked across the carriage by my considerate fellow commuters) and ultimately slung into the bedroom corner on my arrival home. I've yet to find a bag that survives this treatment without imploding within a year or so! Hope this would be useful... look forward to hearing from you!

Cheers, KE

I'm not quite a road warrior so I may not fit the bill as well as others but I travel (by air) at least once a month with a few sporadic road-trips in between and would welcome the opportunity to provide feedback that could make the best bags on the planet even better.

Durable fabric and well engineered construction are important but so is the condition of the clothes when they come out of the bag. It would be cool to see some travel bags with the T2 focus on organization and accessibility.

Hi,

I travel back and forth to France (where I am from) every time I have the chance.
Most of the time when we (me and my mother, sometimes my younger brother) get our bags back at baggage claim, we always have something wrong with them, whether a rip or a broken piece or roll and we always have to fight with the company afterwards.

I would be glad to try (with my mother) your new travel bag as we always bring a lot of stuffs and we need to get new sets of bags every 6 to 12 months...which ends up being a lot of money.

I am also a student and always need to carry tons of books, clothes, shoes,meals, sometimes a soccer ball, my laptop and other devices. And to be able to do that I carry everything in my travel bag.

In addition, I just got engaged with my girlfriend, we like to travel (and I'd love to visit every state in the U.S), we just gone back from a week-end in Florida, and we will need to fly to Tulsa,OK to visit her parents. We usually share a same baggage in order to get out of baggage claim faster so they are usually really well filled up!

We are also planning on moving to berkeley, CA in order for me to transfer to an other school, I will need to fly there several times to check with the school, housing, job etc.

Hoping that my profil will correspond to your criteria, I need to fix dinner ;-)

Thanks!
Ed

PS: you can contact me at: betterthan6 AT gmail DOT com

Ok....lets see. I may not make the cut for being traveler in some eyes...but here it goes. I do weekend trips to overnight trips hauling along twin 2 yr olds. I sometimes have to travel for work too...which can include flying or driving somewhere. The problem is mostly the traveling with the kids. I hate taking a lot of things, but with them you never know and sometimes entertainment is needed so a laptop or (2) DVD players need to come along. I am also planning on going to the philipines for a month long trip to visit family. All that being said...this summer is going to be a busy one traveling...by car...with the kids. Need a good piece of luggage that can handle my abuse & the abuse of the kids. Something that can take a pretty good beating and also be easy enough for me to manuver while trying to keep them with me & moving.

I already own at least 8 bags from timbuk2....and a bunch of accessories too....and use at least 2 of the bags and 4 of the accessories on a daily basis. My daughter also loves to use mommies macy to pack her little stuffed animals in it....so I gues that bag is no longer mine...oh well.

I would love to be a Mommy travel bag tester....cause even though I may not be traveling by plane.....every day seems like an adventure and a haul with the kids......but I love it and would not change a thing.

Thanks for listening.