Reise Moto Luggage Set | Modular, Simple, Rugged!

What Reise is trying to do with this luggage system is move away from making one large bag that tries to do everything. Instead, it’s a modular system, made up of three different pieces that each have a specific job. A 40-litre Drypak Tailbag for your main luggage, a 25-litre Dry Backpack for things you want to carry with you, and a compact 6-litre Crash Bar Bag for the things you want within easy reach. We’ve put this system through some rigorous tests, used it in the way that it was intended, and, after hundreds of kilometres out in the real world, here’s what we found.

The Luggage Set

The heavy lifter of this setup is the Drypak 40L Tailbag. This is where you want to place the bulk of all your items. Clothes, shoes, camera equipment, electronics, it really can swallow up a lot. It’s a simple, undivided space, so using packing cubes to sort out your items is helpful way to keep things organised when you reach your destination. You can also use this as the only piece of luggage you take on your trip in case you're doing a simple overnight trip.

The roll-top design gives you great flexibility as well with how much you carry. So you can roll it down when you’re travelling light or let it expand to swallow up a whole week's worth of travelling gear. Just remember that the roll top needs at least three twists to give you full waterproof protection.

Next up is the 25-litre Dry Backpack. This is a more everyday piece of luggage, and it can carry a laptop, camera, chargers and the daily bits and bobs you might need while offering you complete waterproof peace of mind. The padded shoulder straps, sternum strap and breathable back panel also make it more suited to being carried around once you've got off the motorcycle. For longer trips, it can help expand your luggage load. However, you will need to save space to store a bottle inside, as there’s no way to add a water bladder to the bag for hydration on the move.

The final part of this puzzle is the water-resistant 6-litre Crash Bar Bag. The small size is perfectly suited to things you want quick access to on the go. Energy bars, travel documents and a place to store essentials that you don't necessarily need to get off the motorcycle to access. You could easily store your gloves here when you head into a roadside eatery for a break.

Built For The Job

The first thing that stands out about the luggage is how straightforward the construction is.

The Drypak Tailbag and backpack use welded seams and roll-top closures for their waterproof construction. The materials are resistant to wear and exposure to the elements and are easy to clean too. And the hardware and straps are designed in a way to keep them secure the whole day without having to re-tighten them often.

The tailbag even has an anti-slip base to help keep it in place on the motorcycle, while reflective detailing helps with night-time visibility and safety. The simplicity of the system is its biggest draw, with the Drypak Tailbag and Dry Backpack offering waterproof construction, while the Crash Bar Bag is designed to be water-resistant.

But How Well Does It Actually Hold Up?

So now, straight to the testing of all the claims made by Reise for these luggage items. The first test was mounting stability. 

Mounting Stability

The first test was the mounting of the luggage. Before we get to the stability, we have to talk about how the luggage straps up. With the Drypack and the Crash Bar Bag, this is done in seconds. Simple Velcro straps for the tailbag mean it is secured in seconds, and you can shift your attention to the tailbag.

Not that it needs too much attention. It’s secured by four mounting points that can be strapped onto the passenger footpegs of your motorcycle, and two more points attach the bag to your rear rack/grab handles/mudguard. The bag’s underside has a non-slip surface too that ensures that it stays in place. And then there are the elastic straps that can fit between your bag and the mounting points on the bike. These allow the bag to move around a little and absorb the shocks from really big impacts, like sudden speed bumps that you didn’t see, potholes, or when you are riding off-road. Both keeping the bag secure and also lessening the load on the mounting points. Both protecting the bag and keeping it secure, a neat feature.

And now to the testing of the bags. We covered over a thousand kilometres with the bags during our tests, and in that time, we are happy to report that once you strap them down, they don’t move. Part of this test was a good percentage of off-road riding with big bumps and even some small jumps along the way. Nothing seemed to faze either the tailbag or the Crash Bar Bag. After riding for 10–15 minutes, we tightened up the bags once all the luggage inside had settled, and they didn't move at all after that.

Waterproofing

Now that’s a big claim. One that you definitely want to test before you can trust it, right? The Reise Drypak and backpack claim waterproofing, and that means you need to be sure that this works properly before packing away electronics and camera gear, let alone other luggage. And there’s no better way to simulate this than with a good, solid pressure wash.

A pressure washer gives us a deliberately aggressive way to test the bags' resistance to water ingress. In fact, it gives us a useful way to put the roll-top closures, seams and materials through an aggressive water-ingress test.

And we did this by placing clean, dry paper towels along with some clothes and bits and bobs to simulate a full load. Then they were all given a thorough soaking with the pressure washer.

Then we proceeded to give all three bags a thorough soaking. This went on for about five minutes with all three bags. And the result was a solid pass mark for all three bags. For the Drypak Tailbag and the backpack, this was expected. The roll-top closures held firm, and the materials and seams were all solid. Not a drop of water had entered despite our attempts to soak and batter the seams with the washer.

The Crash Bar Bag was us just pushing our luck with, as it’s only rated as ‘water resistant’, but it too showed no water ingress. Though the material was soaked, so while this survived our pressure wash, we wouldn't want you to trust it with important documents when riding for hours through a monsoon thunderstorm. But some light rain or showers on your way home from work should be okay to keep non-essential belongings dry.

Durability

Finally, we really wanted to see how tough the materials that the Drypak and backpack are made of actually are. And what better way to do this than with a solid drag test?

So we strapped the Drypak to the back of a motorcycle, fully loaded, mind you, and proceeded to drag it across a stony, gravelly stretch of track. We did multiple runs like this, with the bag being tossed around at the back of the speeding motorcycle. From the video footage, it’s clear that the bag had to take multiple impacts over the rough, abrasive surface. The test was intended to give us an indication of how the material might cope with the kind of abrasion and impacts luggage can encounter during a tip-over or rough off-road use. It’s also more than enough to simulate the usual wear and tear luggage goes through when you’re just carrying it around, bumping into furniture, catching the edge of a hotel wall while on a trip, and so on.

And the result was that the Drypak Tailbag passed with flying colours. There were no visible scratches on the material, nor was there any damage to the mounting points. All the seams also held up completely fine.

The Verdict

After more than a thousand kilometres with the Reise luggage system, what stands out is just how simple the whole setup is. Each bag has a clear purpose, they are easy to mount, they give you plenty of flexibility in how much you want to carry, and most importantly, they have proven that they can take a fair amount of abuse without complaining.

The Drypak Tailbag and backpack kept their contents dry, stayed secure over rough terrain and came through our durability testing with barely a mark, while the Crash Bar Bag adds a useful bit of quick-access storage without getting in the way. It isn't a complicated luggage system, and that's probably its biggest strength. Strap it on, pack what you need, and go ride.

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