Product review : Royal Enfield Octopuss Weapon backpack Introduction

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Royal Enfield is truly and firmly on its way towards becoming more than just a motorcycle brand. It now wants to explore the lifestyle end of the market in the truest sense. So, it has riding gear, tees, pants, denims, and of course, luggage. You can read about RE’s venture into this space in greater details here. 

The Back Pack

This article though, is all its backpack. But, honestly, to call the Octopuss Weapon just a backpack would be doing grave injustice to this multifaceted piece of luggage. It does start out as a backpack for sure – it has adjustable shoulder straps, a vertical orientation, and traditional top loading zipper opening for its non-compartmentalised main chamber. It looks like a regular backpack too standing on the shelf. 

But, it also doubles up as a tail and tank bag. For the tank bit, it has two thin flaps with three magnets apiece. The flaps aren’t very large which might make mounting this bag on oddly shaped fuel tanks a challenge. But, we will pass an opinion on that in our forthcoming pieces after we have truly tested it. 

The Royal Enfield Weapon backpack also comes with four straps to tie it down as a tail bag. With the bag measuring 480mm in length it might stick out when mounted transversely, but six hoops (three a side) evenly spaced out, longitudinal installation should come easy too. What’s more, the Weapon comes with a stretchable bungee net as well which can be attached to hold a half face helmet instead of carrying the helmet around as a separate item. 

The Handiness

The Weapon is a fully waterproof bag, courtesy the material (PVC) and the sealed frame seams. It additionally gets a waterproof roll-top pouch as well. As we mentioned earlier, the main chamber isn’t compartmentalised. So, your laptop, chargers, tees, pants and underwear would have to jostle for the exact same space. And, you’d have to be a master at packing to keep things neat inside. 

But, the Royal Enfield backpack does get two additional zipper compartments – one at the front and another at the top of the bag, both pint sized, though. These should be handy to throw in your cell phone, wallet, papers and some chocolate.

As far as capacity goes, the bag promises to hold 22 litres of luggage, which is good by any standard. The Weapon comes with a chest belt too, to take some weight off the shoulder when used as a backpack; the effectiveness of which will be tested in due course. And lest we forget, it has an air exhaust system too, for tighter packing. 

The Competition

The Royal Enfield Octopuss Weapon backpack is priced at Rs 8,000. One can buy it at the Royal Enfield gear store or even online at sites like Myntra. Our suggestion though would be to walk into the RE gear store to get a better look and feel of the bag. 

Now, at this price, the Weapon isn’t exactly a steal. A similar capacity backpack – the R25 – from motorcycle luggage experts Kriega and marketed in India by Triumph Motorcycles (along with their branding) costs almost the same. The Kriega – apart from coming with a 10-year guarantee – offers more space, smarter engineering, and a lot more info on the world wide net on how to best use it. Weapon related info on the other hand seems to be hidden deep inside the web and proved quite difficult to gather. 

But, like we said at the start, to call the Royal Enfield Octopuss Weapon just a backpack wouldn’t be fair. And, that might just prove to be its biggest USP. 

Time will tell…

Photography by Kapil Angane