Outdoors

Gear Review: RIBZ Front Pack

June 7, 2013COMtnMom

With a fresh take on storing and hauling your gear, the RIBZ Front Pack is a well design option for balancing your carrying load and making items more accessible while on the go during your outdoor adventures.

We recently tested one of these unique packs out on the hiking trail. Here’s what we thought of the RIBZ Front pack product and performance.

RIBZ packs small and large — RIBZ front packs, in small and regular sizes

Ribz Front Pack Review

The first thing I appreciated about this clever little guy, is the versatility of the Ribz Front Pack. It can be worn either by itself or in addition to your backpack. The name is derived from the fact that the pack sits cleanly and snugly along your ribcage, and it’s surprising unobtrusive.

How often during an outdoor adventure do you find that you’d like access to something in your heavy, strapped-on backpack… only to decide that it’s not worth the hassle of completely unloading yourself, placing the backpack on the ground, and digging around for what you need? Right??

Herein lies the beauty of having a pack worn on your front. The Ribz Front Pack can serve several purposes:

A comfortable way to balance the load
A means to bring additional gear on your adventure
Just to enjoy having easy, on-the-go access to things

I was also impressed with the organization options. On both the left and the right you will find 1 smaller outer zipper pocket, and 2 mesh organizer pockets attached to the interior walls of the main compartments – giving you plenty of options to store your stuff, and quickly and easily retrieve it.

ribz front pack with contents — Ribz Front Pack loaded with contents, including water bottle

It may look somewhat confusing to put on, when you first unroll it (how do I crawl into this thing, anyway?) but it’s actually quite slick. There is a large toothed plastic zipper that holds the left and right packs together… which lays flat against your stomach. This keeps the pack from swaying, bouncing, or getting in the way of your arms.

To put the pack on, you unzip this zipper, put each shoulder strap on like you’re putting on a jacket, then zip it back up.

I only had one mild disappointment in this pack. And it’s because my very first thought when I first ran across RIBZ, was “Awesome! You can carry your water bottles up front, and easily grab and drink from them!”

I’ve written on this blog about the hydration challenges I’ve faced with wearing a child in a carrier pack and hiking alone. The only way I could take my child off my back was on a table or tailgate. So during our hike, I didn’t have an easy place to store/grab any water.

Well, unfortunately the RIBZ pack isn’t quite tall enough for the average water bottle we use to stand up in. But you still have 2 options: use a smaller bottle (in my photo above, you can see a standard 16 oz. REI water bottle, which did fit) or I suppose just lay your water bottles horizontally. In fairness, this is not a flaw in the RIBZ design. If it were taller, it wouldn’t fit as well and as comfortably against your ribcage… which is the whole point!

For any who experience pain when wearing a backpack, just the weight balancing aspect alone make this pack worth a try to help alleviate back pain. It’s surprisingly comfortable to wear, and I found that I greatly prefer 1/3 of my pack weight in the RIBZ and 2/3 in my backpack over all the weight in my backpack alone.

ribz front pack on a hike — Ribz Front Pack worn solo, on a hike of Mt. Garfield in Western Colorado

The materials used are of excellent quality. The shoulder pads are somewhat small and thin, but were still plenty adequate for the amount of weight we carried. But having them slight assures they add no cumbersome bulk, and helps cut down on any would be “strap-and-pad-congestion” you may otherwise encounter, when wearing it in addition to large padded backpack straps.

I think overall the RIBZ Front Pack is an exciting, innovative, fresh thinking design that makes a heckuva lot of sense. Just think of all the outdoor recreation possibilities, beyond simply hiking: fly fishing, horseback riding, kayaking, or long distance biking. We were very pleased with our experience using it.

The RIBZ Front Pack comes in 4 colors, 2 sizes (small or regular), and sells for $59.99.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received the RIBZ Front Pack for free from RIBZ as coordinated by Deep Creek Public Relations. All opinions are my own.