6 Reasons Your Next Bag Should Shed Rain, Not Soak It Up
Your coat sheds rain. Your shoes shed rain. Your jacket has a hood. And then there is the bag: cotton, open at the top, carrying the one thing in your day that cannot get wet. It is the last thing anyone upgrades and the first thing that fails. Here are six reasons riders stopped carrying cotton through the autumn.
TLDR: the SIV is water-repellent nylon with a zipped main compartment. Rain beads on the outside and runs off, 17 litres stay dry inside, and it weighs the same wet as dry. €59, seven colours.
The SIV, a cotton tote and a backpack, in the rain
The SIV, a cotton tote and a backpack, in the rain
SIV
Cotton tote
Backpack
1. Cotton drinks the rain, and it is not dry by the morning
Cotton takes water into the fibre, so rain does not sit on the bag, it goes into it. Twenty minutes of drizzle and the fabric is holding water against everything inside, and it is still damp the next morning when you pack it again. The SIV is water-repellent nylon: the water beads on the surface and runs off. Wipe it and carry on.
2. An open top is an open top, however good the fabric is
Most everyday bags are open at the top, and rain falls downward. Even a coated canvas tote lets water straight in through the one part nobody treats. The SIV's main compartment closes with a full zip, so the shell and the closure are doing the same job instead of one undoing the other.
3. A wet bag gets heavier for the rest of the ride
Water weighs something, and a cotton bag keeps collecting it: the longer the ride, the more it carries, and all of it is hanging off one shoulder. A water-repellent shell never takes any of it on. The SIV weighs the same at the end of a wet ride as at the start.
4. Your laptop is the reason any of this matters
A damp notebook dries. A damp laptop, charger or power bank is a different kind of afternoon. A laptop fits the SIV, behind a zip, under a shell the rain runs off, and 17 litres holds the rest of the day around it: a bottle, a sweater, a gym kit. The bag measures 60 by 36 by 10 cm, so the capacity is real rather than a claim.
5. You stop checking the forecast to pick a bag
The real cost of a cotton bag is the planning around it: the look out of the window, the backup bag by the door, the morning you got it wrong and carried a laptop through a shower anyway. One bag that handles a wet ride removes the decision, not just the water.
6. Weatherproof, and here is exactly what that means
Every bag brand says weatherproof and most of them mean nothing by it. So, plainly: the SIV's shell is water-repellent. Rain, drizzle, a wet forty-minute ride and a knocked-over glass run off it and stay outside the bag. Hold it under a running tap or drop it in a canal and it will get wet, like everything else you own. Water-repellent is the honest word, and it covers every autumn you are actually going to ride in.
Been caught in the rain twice on the bike and everything inside was bone dry.
Carry it through a wet week, and send it back if anything comes out damp
Order it, carry it through a wet week with your laptop in it, and if anything inside comes out damp, send it back. Free and easy, 30 days from the day it arrives, and 12,400+ customers rate our bags 4.8 out of 5.
Save up to 40% on the SIV
Water-repellent nylon, zipped main compartment, 17 litres, soft adjustable strap. Seven colours.
FREE shipping over €70
What customers say
Been caught in the rain twice on the bike and everything inside was bone dry.
Best sling bag I have ever purchased.
Really well made, easy to sling over my head for the crossbody, hands free. And capacious.
It strikes a great balance between practicality and understated design.
