“My new favourite pack.” Single Track reviews OMM Classic 25

Price: £60

From: www.headtothehills.co.uk £53.99 >

Test period: Four rides, two runs.

First off, let’s decode the acronyms. 0MM stands for Original Mountain Marathon — the people who first brought you Karrimor and Kimmlite products, so they’ve got form... the OMM Classic fits between Rugged Light and Super Seriously Light in OMM’s weight/durability/strength scale. Capacity is 25 Litres and lean weight is 540g.

With their Leanweight designs, 0MM claim to be re-inventing lightweight. Starting with the premise that making lightweight gear making easy, making it useful and durable at the same time is the clever bit. And they clearly think they’ve been a bit clever.

Single Track OMM Classic 25 Review

They seem to have sussed the easy part anyway — this is almost half the weight of a comparable sized Camelbak. So, is it useful? Let’s have a look at the features: the removable back padding doubles as a sitmat, or can be removed altogether to shed 60g off the weight. The hip belt comes with two zip pockets handy for keys and cash; two mesh side pockets will take tent poles or water bottle each (does anyone still use water bottles?) or a camera and a packet of Jelly Babies and have elasticated drawcords to keep everything secure. There’s a mesh pocket on the front of the pack, and a zippered pocket on the hood and a further Velcro-closed mesh pocket on top of that. It takes a 3L bladder; there’s an elastic compression cord and it’s black and yellow.

What else? There’s a dash of reflective, an attachment point for an LED and the ‘Cradle Chassis Suspension System (patent pending)’. The compression system is simple and very effect, keeping the load close to your back and to the bottom of the pack. In use this is a very stable, comfortable pack, which I like.

It seems to tick the useful box then, how about durability? I’ll let you know next year, but right now it’s giving me no cause for concern. Downsides to the OMM 25L? Didn’t really find any. It’s not bike-specific — so if that bothers you, you’ll probably want to find something with 37 separate zippered compartments and its own bladder. But if ‘lighter, stronger. faster, further’ is what you aspire to then you need to check this out. Nice price too. The OMM Classic 25... My new favourite pack.

ALI CHANT

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