Eagle Creek EC Adventure Upright Suitcase

www.eaglecreek.com, eight pounds, ten ounces
As much as we strive for minimalism in our active lives, outdoor obsessions typically means that every trip we take includes a bike helmet, bike shoes, climbing shoes, trail runners or day hikers, a puffy mid-layer, a rain jacket, soft shell hiking pants, and—ya know—all our other clothes.  Thankfully, the EC Adventure Upright accommodates all our gear-centric activities with aplomb.  We tested the 25 model, which boasts a cavernous 75 liters of storage space (that can expand to 82 liters), for a West Coast jaunt that included all the afore-mentioned gear specs as well as camera gear, extra bags, and space for wine and beer from California’s Russian River Valley and Portland, OR. The pack interior gives you tons of storage space—just one big, open container for your goods, along with compression wings on clipped straps to tie everything down.  The large interior panel in the door also kept our folded laundry (which we love putting in one of Eagle Creek’s Pack-It Folders) from the rest of the guts of the bag, while the large zippered outside pocket let us stash our jacket before checking the bag; the smaller one is great for travel documents. The whole rig rides on a pair of durable wheels that handled copious abuse in both urban and outdoor environs, but when the bag was packed to capacity, the collapsible handle didn’t glide out as easily as it had at the start of our trip (read: before we acquired WAY too many bottles of rare beer). Other details—like the “piggyback” clip that lets you attach your day pack to the roller, a slip-away luggage tag, and exterior compression straps—round out features of this durable suitcase, and the colors schemes (black, green, and a burnt orange) will also let you tailor your pack to your own on-the-road aesthetic. Oh yeah, it also comes with Eagle Creek’s famed lifetime warranty.
Specs and testing were done on the Upright 25 model ; comes in two- and four-wheel versions in sizes ranging from 39 to 123 liters.