Want to get fit, quick? Try testing the best cabin bags over a muddy assault course in Leeds. Seldom have I showered so gratefully or slept as soundly as I did after this product test.
The first and thorniest challenge was logistical. How would I get a selection of suitcases – the seven top performers in routine testing – from my house to the West Leeds Activity Centre, on the other side of the city?
My wife helped out by giving me and the cases a lift to my rented music space, closer to the test site. However, I’d have to walk the cases the remaining half-mile, in two batches, along suburban footpaths of varying orography. It would’ve been rude to cram them into a taxi, I told myself while wheeling four suitcases at once over gravel, tree roots, twigs and muddy puddles.
It was an experience, but I felt grateful to arrive at the activity centre, where team members Lucy, Sophie, Wendy and Liam welcomed me kindly – albeit with a waiver form in hand. Photographer Christian Hopewell arrived while I was in the changing rooms, putting on my stereotypical tourist attire.
Cabin fever
Sophie chaperoned us to the assault course, where we took stock of the trials awaiting our cabin bags: cargo net, balance beams, climbing bars, walls, narrow pipes, high hurdles and, above all, mud. If a cabin bag could be carried easily through these obstacles, it would surely be fit for the worst travel chaos. If a bag proved cumbersome or unbalanced in hand, it might be less than ideal for bundling through a train station or airport in a hurry – a gauntlet all travellers face at one time or another.
I had great fun loping around the obstacle course with each cabin bag in turn, while Christian snapped away and chivvied me along with his best impression of an airport PA announcer. Listening back to the voice notes I recorded about each case – their weight and balance, the comfort of the handles, how well they bore up to bumps and scrapes – I can hear myself getting more out of breath with every lap.
The challenge burnished my appreciation for a few top-performing cases. Our best budget pick, the Tripp Holiday 8, felt impressively light and well balanced as I loped with it through the mire. It was the July Carry On case that proved itself the best cabin bag of them all – lightweight, highly durable and comfy to carry in a hurry. To celebrate its victory, I crawled with it through a partially flooded pipe, inch by inch, and out again into the muted late-winter light.
Along with the other cabin bags, this case was about to find a higher purpose at the West Leeds Activity Centre. The team here provides activities for all sorts of people, from kids on their school holidays to corporate team building groups. Some of the centre’s work is with young people in insecure accommodation, and the cases could be helpful to these young people when moving from place to place. It’s brilliant to know that the bags will do some good, now that they’ve graduated from our merry little boot camp.
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Editor’s pick
After a “winter of soggy malaise”, our gardens are opening up to us again – and “if you want to spend the summer luxuriating in yours, now is the time to get your sticks together,” writes gardening expert Alice Vincent. Our guide to getting your garden ready for spring and summer is full of ideas, from boosting wildlife to sowing beautiful flowers and investing in new garden furniture – or just standing and staring at it, while not mowing the lawn.
Monica Horridge
Deputy editor, the Filter
In case you missed it …
“There are ludicrously fast-growing sports – and then there’s padel,” wrote Tim Danton in his guide to the best padel rackets. Only 15,000 British players picked up a racket in 2019, but by the end of 2024, there were more than 400,000 smashing away. Alongside an official padel coach and four other players of varying skill, Tim tested 19 rackets to find the best picks for every type of player (and his top pick for beginners is less than £50).
Get involved
Calling all campers! Whether you do festivals, family-friendly campsites with the kids, or head off the beaten track with your one-person tent, what piece of kit has been a gamechanger? What tips, tricks or products made your trip? And what could you live without lugging along next time? Let us know by emailing us at thefilter@theguardian.com.