Gura Gear Chobe 2.0 Shoulder Bag

[Rajan Parrikar]

A Kickstarter project has just launched. The original Chobe was a great product and I'm glad an updated version will now be available.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/guragear/chobe-20

[Robert DeCandido PhD]

are they still going to use five cent zippers (not the nice big YKK zippers) with great pack cloth (parachute) material? All of their packs i've seen/used suffer from this problem - zippers that are hard to open because one cannot grasp the hold...and are too small. In the case of the larger packs the design of the zipper to loop around the pack - that was a pain because to open the zipper was never an easy flow through event...it got stuck at the turn!

Anyway, the gura gear folks have gotten too much free press here through time. I remember Michael first touting this company many years ago...I'd say personal relationship got the better of him on that - NOT quality of product design.

Really great idea to use the pack cloth they do - they get great marks for that idea. It is the design of the bag (and those five cent zippers in $400 packs) that was/were the problems.

[Rajan Parrikar]

After 9 years and hundreds of thousands of miles my Chobe is still going strong. Never had a problem with its zippers. Maybe I lucked out and got the article with $5 zippers.

[Jim Metzger]

I'm with Rajan on this. I have a Gura Gear Kiboko, original design, and it has travelled with me to Nepal (2x)  and India with nary a hiccup. The zippers and fabric look almost new.

I love the split design with the "hinge" in the middle and fully loaded it carries a huge amount of gear such that it becomes hard to pick up.

For a smaller carry I really like my Peak Design 30L. Everyday Backpack.

Jim

[Rajan Parrikar]

Update: I received the Chobe 2.0 bag today minus the wide insert which is the combination I paid for. They included the narrow insert and said the wide insert will be shipped free of charge when it is back in stock.

First impressions of the bag: world-class quality. The original Chobe is still going strong after almost 10 years of putting it through all kinds of tough conditions. If this kind of bag agrees with your working style (it does with mine) then the Chobe has few competitors (if any).

As for Gura Gear's conduct during this entire Kickstarter process, the less said the better. It came close to being called a scam (see here). I used to have a good opinion of the Gura Gear crew. Not any more.