Deep Winter in the NW, a Playground for the Syncro Pack
Our friends over at Pinkbike.com are serious about not letting adverse weather get in the way of a good time. As writer Colin Meagher puts it in this post, “My true love is epic XC and AM rides, and my riding starts in late fall for the simple reason that, during the World Cup race season, I don’t have much time to go mountain biking. My riding season really starts in November and I live in Seattle, which means cold, dark, and wet.”
Conditions like these may not be terrible by nature, but they can make for a challenge if you’re not prepared for the elements you’re sure to face. Naturally, then, Meagher is pretty attuned to picking out what will perform best — quite simply so he can do the same. Part of his round-up of 10 Suggestions to Beat the Chill includes our very own Osprey Syncro 20 pack. And here’s what he had to say about it:
Osprey would seem to be the new kid on the block for bike packs, having started making hydration packs only in 2009. Owner/lead designer Mike Pfotenauer designed his first pack at age 16 and founded Osprey Packs in 1974 in Santa Cruz, CA. Now their headquarters are in Cortez, Colorado, where they have ready access to a plethora of trails for testing. The Syncro Pack from Osprey is lightweight, streamlined, and has a ventilated harness – just the thing for all-day trail epics. The pack comes in three variations based upon storage volume: 10 liter, 15 liter, and 20 liter. All three feature a 100-denier triple-Ripstop ‘High Tenacity’ nylon body, a Lidlock helmet clip, a three-liter hydration bladder, a variety of pockets for storage, and mesh side pockets for quick-stash items. Notable details are Osprey’s magnetic sternum buckle for holding the bite-valve, and an integrated rain cover that was a key selling point for me. I opted to test the Syncro 20, reckoning that while it has a LOT of cargo space, it also comes with compression straps, allowing me to streamline the fit of the pack in the event I wasn’t maxing its capacity. It has a main gear compartment, a smaller pouch for important gear like phones and wallets, as well as medium and a small-ish zippered stash pockets for tools, etc. The rain fly unfurls from its own zippered pouch on the underside of the pack.
