[Disclaimer: I am not an ambassador for Loft Gear but because of my relationship with Jeff Provenzano (a skydiver on the Red Bull Air Force team), I have received a pre-production sample to use and test out. As usual, here I will give my honest opinion about the product. I have had the Station 150 for about a month or more now and have used it on several occasions as a digital workstation while photographing portraits and having my camera tethered to a laptop on the Station 150. I also want to make it clear that I have not been paid to write a review or to post about this product on social media. It is an interesting and cool product and I wanted to help out some friends by promoting it.]
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In the last few months my good friend Jeff Provenzano—one of the world’s best skydivers and a member of the Red Bull Air Force skydive team—connected me with Loft Gear to test out their new Station 150 rolling duffel that converts into a standing workstation desktop. I have seen Jeff traveling with prototypes of this product for the last few years while working with the Red Bull Air Force on various assignments. He has tested this product out for a long time now—and has been a major player in helping to perfect it as well. So it was great to connect with the folks at Loft Gear and get a pre-production bag myself to test out a few months ago.
The Loft Gear Station 150 is a rolling duffel that has extendable legs that turn this incredibly well-made duffel into a sturdy table-top workstation as shown in the images throughout this review. The duffel is one of the most durable, rubber-cladded pieces of luggage I have ever seen. This thing could literally be dragged behind a car for a bit and not have any holes in it. Very few duffels I have used are built to this quality standard—and I have gone through quite a few over the years. The way the zippers open up the duffel is also very unique. You can see everything inside the bag easily and you can also choose to open it fully or leave it partially closed to hold everything in the duffel (when the bar is snapped in). As can be seen in the images below, once it is zipped open the sides are rigid enough to stay upright so that gives some sense of the duffels build quality.
My duffel came with the hard plastic folding work space shelf that you see my camera and laptop sitting on in the images here. This work space platform is relatively tough and a little slippery for some items, like a laptop. I would either tape the laptop down with gaffer’s tape or use velcro on the bottom of the laptop to affix it to the workspace surface so it doesn’t slide around. Alternatively, you could add a neoprene pad on top of the plastic workspace surface to make it a little less slippery.
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Underneath the workspace platform, there is also an area with pick’n pluck foam (as shown in the images at the end of this blog post) where you can safely store valuable and fragile items like a drone, cameras and lenses, etc. This area is about four inches deep so it will not accommodate an entire camera kit (unless yours is small) but it is nice to have some of this built into the duffel. I am not sure I would pack camera gear in this chamber and then check the duffel when flying, but when driving to a location and handling my own gear this could definitely accommodate a wide variety of gear.
The duffel as the name suggests has a volume of about 150 Liters, which is a large duffel. Without the foam and the work surface installed in the duffel it weighs 16.5 pounds (7.48 Kg), which is a little heavier than the duffels I normally fly with. With the foam and the work surface inside the duffel you are closing in on 20 pounds (9 kg). As a comparison, my wheeled 100 Liter Patagonia Duffels weigh around 10.5 Pounds (4.78 Kg) but they have much lighter material and tiny wheels in comparison to the Station 150. They are also 100 Liters instead of 150 liters. I will also note that one of my Patatgonia duffels got a hole in it the very first time I flew with it and now one of the wheels is cockeyed as well. I have been less than impressed with the Patagonia Duffels in terms of durability. The 160 liter North Face Rolling Thunder duffel weighs 11.69 pounds (5.3 Kg). Hence, the Station 150 is a four pounds more than the competitors but I would say it is also built a bit tougher—and it has legs.
Depending on how much you need to carry—and whether you fly first class or not the weight of the duffel itself may be an issue. With 50 lbs (22.7 Kg) as the normal weight restriction for economy flights here in the USA, that only leaves 32 to 34 pounds of gear that can be loaded into the Station 150 depending on if you take the work space table-top in the bag. For those flying first class this is a non-issue with the weight restrictions being 70 pounds (31.75 Kg) here in the USA. I normally take the Station 150 as my second duffel so that I can take as much soft gear (clothes, backpacks, etc.) in the lighter, less durable duffel and then add more fragile gear into the Station 150, like lighting gear, small lightstands, etc.
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The Station 150 is 36 inches (91 cm) long and because of this long length it does not have an extendable handle to roll the duffel. Instead the Station 150 has incredibly robust padded webbing handles pretty much any and everywhere you would want them on the outside of the bag. I am just a hair under 6’ 3” inches (1.9 meters) tall and I don’t have any issues rolling this duffel along using the webbing handles. The webbing handles (as shown in the images) are very secure and allow for grabbing the bag in pretty much any scenario you might need to pick it up. The wheels on this duffel are the largest wheels I have ever had on a duffel. They are 5 inches (12.7 cm) in diameter and they roll effortlessly even when packed. The wheels on this duffel seem like the full off-road variety and they can be pulled through gravel or sand without any issues.
Moving on to the main feature of this duffel, the legs extend from the bottom side of the duffel and create a workspace surface that is 34 inches (86 cm) tall. They extend fairly easily and lock into place. To close the legs you simply press on the silver leg locks and they fold shut. Once standing the duffel can hold up to 50 pounds (22.7 Kg) of gear on the work surface. You can also keep the top zippers zipped up so that one panel (as shown above and below) is still up and snap in the protective mesh side wall so that nothing on the work surface falls out of the open duffel. This is a great feature that keeps everything in the “crib” if you have a lot of gear you need to get access to. The work surface itself also has two sides that can be folded up to get gear that is stored underneath the workspace. Batteries and other small tidbits can be stored in the side zipper pouches at the top of the bag (just above the Station 150 logo as shown below on the right).
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The legs also provide a very sturdy and rigid bottom platform for the duffel when they are closed, which is great for checking items that you want to protect inside the bag. I have always been a little worried about putting lighting gear (softboxes, umbrellas and such) in the bottom of roller bags because I did not want them to get bent up. But with this bag you don’t have to worry about that at all. Often when I am packing for an assignment it is a decision of whether I take the custom made case for my lightstands and lighting gear or a well-made duffel. If the gear fits into it, then the Station 150 makes that a much easier decision.
One other feature of the Station 150 that I was not aware of until I saw the Loft gear marketing materials is that the duffel itself can be pulled down over the corners of the workspace table top (as shown below) to create a table top without any duffel side walls to contend with. All you have left is a clean table top and you can even hang stuff off the table top and sides with a carabiner. For those like myself that sometimes need to shoot tethered to a computer in the outdoors this makes for a really cool digital tech workstation. Typically in the outdoors the computer I am tethered to is on a massive cart that is not going too far from the van. Hence, having a duffel that can be carried or rolled into a location (not that far from the car) is a huge bonus. As can be seen above (at left) I set the Station 150 up in a riverbed where it would have been very difficult to get a digital tech cart.
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Loft gear also sells interior pouches that can be used to organize gear inside the Loft Station. Mine came with a large interior pouch that sits on top of the table top and three smaller organizing pouches that can be packed inside as well. As can be seen above, the foam below the table top can be set up to carry just about anything you want that needs a little extra protection. With all of the extra features built-in this is much more than just a duffel. The Station 150 also makes for a great organizer and workstation in a hotel room. You can pop the legs open and have all of your clothes and gear at waist level without having to unpack anything.
As for the price, right now on Kickstarter the Station 150 with all of the extras sells for $600 USD. I am not sure what the normal price will be after the Kickstarter campaign has ended. I realize $600 USD sounds like a lot but it isn’t much more than some of the fancy duffels (without legs and a work surface) go for from companies like Osprey, The North Face and Eagle Creek. The Station 150 is available in three colors (red, black and gray).
The only downside for me is that the duffel weighs a bit more than a normal duffel, but with that weight come a lot of features that can’t be found anywhere else. In terms of durability, this duffel will most likely outlive me. I am pretty hard on duffels. But this thing looks rock solid. The legs on my duffel are already a bit scratched up but seem no worse for the wear. If this seems like a tool that you can use check it out on the Loftgear.com website. At the moment, the Station 150 is available for order via Kickstarter. My thanks to Loft Gear for providing me with a sample to test out and for creating a new product that is so out of the ordinary and unique.
