I haven’t accepted a product to review on this blog for quite a long time, mainly because I’ve not been offered anything which I wanted to review – this blog has always been and will always be first and foremost about my fitness journey, not a place for brands to get me to advertise their latest offerings.
But when I was offered a change to try out Sports Bag Karkoa I decided to say yes. One of the first world problems that I’ve never quite found a solution to is carrying the various stuff that I need to carry in a way that doesn’t involve carrying multiple bags or using a different bag for different purposes. I don’t know about you but needing to swap between bags on a regular basis is a recipe for something being forgotten along the way.
Karkoa’s tag line is ‘User friendly luggage’ – they are a French luggage brand who design easy-to-use sports bags to improve your daily life. Their target market is people like me – people who need to go to work and then head to the gym afterwards. People who need to carry a laptop, a water bottle, sometimes a lunch box and gym kit, preferably in one bag.
I selected to try the Plume in the rose and grey colourway. When the bag first arrived I was really impressed with the quality of it, both the fabrics and the construction.
The bag is split up into lots of different compartments. At the back a space for a tablet or small laptop, this is lined with a lovely soft fabric to protect the contents. At the bottom compartments on one side for shoes and on the other for clothes. A large compartment at the top can be used for clothes, a towel or whatever else you need to carry – for me it’s the home for my purse, umbrella and lunchbox. At the front there’s a smaller pocket for the essentials – keys, phone, travelcard – the phone pocket is lined with the same soft material as the laptop pocket.
Lastly on the bottom at the front is an ingenious section for a water bottle. It’s lined with a waterproof foil like material meaning that any leaks are kept separate from all the other compartments and are easy to clean up. As someone who has had to train in wet kit in the past, thanks to a leaky water bottle, I like this compartment a lot.
Now with all those compartments you’d think the bag would be massive. It’s not small of course but it’s actually not as big as I thought it would be, and as a result it’s pretty comfortable to carry. For the last fortnight I’ve used it exclusively for work and for training and I love it.
It’s smart enough to take into the office with enough space to carry everything I need for training after work. It lets me get access to the things I need quickly – like my oyster card, work pass and keys without having to rummage around and gives me confidence that my work laptop is protected in not going to be scratched by anything else that I’m carrying.
So overall I’m impressed and would definitely recommend the Plume for someone who needs to carry around similar things to me. At £60 it’s not cheap but it’s also pretty reasonable when compared to some of the alternatives on the market.
If you buy one of the bags from the Karkoa site before 17 July 2016 then use the code U14QEAI4 to get a free shoe bag along with your purchase.
I was sent the Plume for free to review. All opinions are my own.
From Strength to Strength 