Givi RBP03 motorcycle backpack

Benefit: an office backpack has a laptop pocket, but that pocket was designed for someone walking. Walking, the risk is dropping the bag: once, hard. Riding a motorcycle, the risk is different: small vibration continuously for the whole journey, plus sharp hits over potholes and speed bumps.

Evidence: the RBP03 uses a padded sleeve for a 15-inch machine, meaning cushioning around it rather than just a fabric divider. That padding absorbs the vibration travelling from the seat through your back into the pack.

A habit worth having: slide the machine in upright and push it down to the base of the sleeve rather than leaving it floating. On rough roads, cinch the shoulder straps tighter than usual, because the closer the pack sits to your back the less it bounces independently of you.

Said plainly first: the pack has a water-resistant lining inside the body. That layer stops damp and drizzle working through the outer fabric. It does not turn the pack into a dry bag.

Why it cannot be sealed: this pack has zips and several pockets. Every zip is a gap and every pocket is another seam. A truly sealed pack has to drop the pockets and weld the body, which is exactly the direction the tarpaulin packs take, and in exchange they have no laptop sleeve.

What to do in practice: through long rain, wrap the laptop in a plastic bag or a separate dry pouch before it goes into the sleeve, a habit worth keeping with any zipped pack. If you ride wet routes with a machine regularly, budget for a slip-on pack cover bought separately.

The downside first: camouflage is a pattern designed to be hard to see. On a hip bag that hardly matters. On a backpack it does, because a rider back is the largest and highest surface following traffic looks straight at, higher than the tail light.

How the maker offsets it: the reflective detail on this model is placed on the back panel, the face that points rearward. At night, headlights behind sweep across it at shoulder height.

Said in full: the reflective area on a fifteen-litre pack is small, and in daylight dark camouflage still does not stand out. If your route has poorly lit stretches, wear a jacket with reflective banding rather than relying on the pack.

Pick the RBP03 if you ride to work with a laptop and want the same pack for a weekend trip, at the lowest price in the group.

If your first priority is dry contents after hours of rain, only the sealed tarpaulin GIVI PBP02 at twenty-five litres will do, and it has no laptop sleeve and no small pockets at all. If you want more capacity while keeping a laptop sleeve, look at the other packs in the same category. And if you would rather carry nothing on your shoulders, move the load onto the bike with a seat bag such as the GIVI EA115BK.