I went out last night, and bought the Osprey Tempest 30, and I'm honestly not I'm in love with it. Basically, what I'm looking for in a bag is a lighter material that can old a 17" laptop, a one liter, and half liter Nalgene bottle, two Tupperware containers for lunch and breakfast, a change of clothes, and my wallet. Is there a hydration pack out there big enough to carry all that stuff or is there a way for me to pack better/lighter than that? Talking out loud to myself, I could probably ditch the bit Nalgene bottle since I have access to a clean sink at work, as well as having a bladder with the back pack itself.

Why do you want/need a hydration pack if you are carrying a liter + 1/2 around in a bottle? I don't know... where did you buy this Osprey? Did they have other packs to test out? I have a Hydrapack El Borrachio and I think it could hold what you have itemized. It is a very heavy material, however. Not a light pack at all. Were I you, I think I would simply be looking at lightweight packs, period. If one happened to have a bladder and hose, so much the better. FWIW, I now split my commute load between a fairly minimalist pack with string straps and a rack trunk that is universal and not keyed to any particular brand of rack. Works for me.

H

CamelBak | Hydration Packs, Bottles, Reservoirs, Drinks & Accessories

Probably something here

I bought my bag at a camping place, actually. I'm looking to commute a fair distance on a regular basis, so I'm figuring it would be a smart idea to have easy access to constant hydration.
I work in a professional office environment dealing with customers on a fairly regular basis. I'm not sure how well a bladder would fly with the "looking" professional part of things.

My first question is what do you consider a "fair" distance and in what type of weather? Most days I commute about 12 miles one way. I almost never need to hydrate in the morning and can get by with a 20 or 24 oz bottle in the downtube cage on even the warmest summer days (temperatures in the 90s) for my ride home. That way you have your bottle that you plan on carrying anyway and can skip the bladder in you pack and leave room for you other needs.

"Easy" days would be about a 30km bike ride. Weather wise, hard to say? It could be anywhere from 15*C rainy weather to 30*C+ temps.

So that is 18-19 miles and 59 to 86 F for those of us not fluent in the metric system

First off, you don't need that much fluid for that type of ride. A large water bottle will suffice- you may or may not need any on the morning commute, you can hydrate while at work, and then that one bottle will suffice until you get home. Over hydrating can be just as bad as dehydration.

Secondly, whenever I see someone claim they have to carry their laptop to work, the first thing that pops into my mind is "why?". If it is your work computer, it should stay at the office. Between thumbdrives, cloud services, and remote accessing, there really is no need to lug a laptop around all of the time (generally).

Damn, guess I'm going to break down why I want a bag that carry's what I listed. The bottles of water are not for the journey, they're for drinking at work. I don't exactly work with the cleanest bunch of people, and would prefer not to buy water. As I mentioned earlier, I work in a professional office, so a bladder would be weird to have on the desk, and I don't have a clean sink to wash my dishes in.

As for the laptop, I use it as a courtesy to my customers to bill insurance companies direct. I could always ask them to pay first, and then have them submit a receipt to get reimbursed later, but that is where I start to lose sales. I also use my laptop to order product over out distributors website. We don't have much in the way of technology here except for a phone from the 80's, and a fax machine.

Anyway, it looks like I haven't really gotten much in the way of actual recommendations of bags, so I guess I'll stick with what I have now, and work with it.

You at least have two bottles on your bike frame, yes? So you need those two bottles, one large nalgene AND the hydration pack bladder? No way to fill up those bottles at work so you don't need to lug around enough bottles to last you a few days in the desert?

If your bike has rack mounts, the easy answer is a rear rack, possibly one of the removable and wearable backpack panniers like ortlieb does. It seems like people starting out commuting have a strange aversion to putting anything on your bike, and most (not all) realize eventually that loading things on your bike is much preferable to strapping them on your back.

It sounds like you need to tow a trailer rather than buy a pack.

I actually don't have much in the way of bottle holders on the bike. I also forgot that I could use my bike to hold the stuff as well, though I am trying to keep things cost effective since biking is not the only reason I am buying the hydration pack. Though, if push comes to shove, it is an option I am definitely willing to consider.
Thank you. Do you have suggestions on a particular type of trailer for me?

Burly Travoy would be good .. as once you lock up your bike
you can roll it like a lightweight fridge dolly with your stuff on it. up stairs and Etc.

and Like Extrawheel , thru traffic it offers a place to mount panniers off your bike

on its own 3rd same as your bike's front, wheel.. may be a better fast riding option..
but flexible tow hitch fork, wont be wheelbarrow like off the bike .

Bike trailers - Extrawheel.com ::Bike Trailer - Travoy Commute Bike Trailer - Burley--BURLEY--

Utility forum has a lot of ex child carrying trailer modifications

only if the back of the pack was using the cold water in the bladder
to cool you off is anything on your back welcome when its Hot.

I know of many packs that can easily hold all that. No hydration packs, though. Does your bike have water bottle cage mounts? If so, a pair of cages and bottles should only cost about sixteen bucks and possibly negate your need for the hydration system.

After a broken knee and a year off the bike, getting back into commuting I just grabbed a cheap "outdoorsy" pack from wall Mart someone had gifted me. Not very bulky, but I can get a change of clothes and some lunch in with room to spare. I don't think a laptop would push it over the edge

But I miss my rack and panniers so much.

Ps, if your bike is set up for it you can easily get by with a thirty dollar rack and about fifty bucks in panniers. Cheaper for sure than a hydration pack that can do what you want it to, and way more versatile.

Just saying... the surface area of a Travoy is possibly 4 or 5 square feet. Pick up a piece of cardboard with similar dimensions to the bed of a Travoy and swish it through the air, wide dimension perpendicular to the direction of travel. Feel that drag? That will be there for every mile of that commute and the drag multiplies exponentially with increasing speed. At typical commuting speeds I think significant amounts of rider effort will be going just to pull the Travoy through air resistance. But we commuters are nothing if not martyrs, right? I mean we deliberately ride below 12mph so we won't sweat and offend co-workers. We stop for each and every stop sign and red light we encounter so we won't offend motorist road users. We run our blinking capable tailights on steady beam so we don't annoy anyone around. Staying below 12mph and stopping often to rest are probably good strategies when towing a Travoy a long way. Whatever.

H

Surprised no one has suggested this but you could put a rack on your bike and either carry the backpack on the rack or get a set of panniers.

Never mind. Someone did suggest it.

In my case if it were just a matter of shuffling documents around then I could easily manage without hauling my laptop around. I'm a software developer. I deal with everything from embedded systems to web applications and it would be a pain to maintain a duplicate setup at home. Not impossible, - just not fool proof. The last thing I want to do when having to work at home is to end up troubleshooting a problem with configuration, nor do I want to rely on an Internet connection any more than necessary.