The Treadwell Collection embodies the spirit of the city dweller who knows the best way to navigate the streets and beyond - whether by plane, train, bus, car or bike.' So says the label, so I thought I'd put it through its paces on the mean streets of a few genteel provincial towns.
According to the spec, the Macheto Travel Pack is built to last. It's constructed using 1680d ballistic nylon, one of the toughest fabrics Chrome have in their arsenal, along with a 1000d TPE tarpaulin-liner. It's well-made and it feels like a quality item. It would most likely take a lot of battering on planes, trains and automobiles so if you're a heavy handed business traveller, this is the bag for you. This strength makes the Macheto a pretty bulky, stiff bag, which I suppose is a good thing when humping laptops and other tech around; my belongings are as safe as houses inside.
What makes this a travel pack rather than just a briefcase is the stowable shoulder straps. When zipped away you can use one of two grab handles to carry the Macheto, once deployed you can carry the pack on your back but be warned, this does make you look a bit like a turtle carrying a shell around! When the bag is on and you're moving around it's pretty comfortable to wear, customer feedback on the website does indicate that if you are carrying a lot of weight then the shoulder straps can be uncomfortable, but I didn't find this in my test.
The external pockets are perfect for tickets, passports, boarding cards and so on, but anything larger will have to go inside. In my case, this is a fairly bulky purse (bulky because of the number of old receipts and coffee loyalty cards, not wodges of cash!) Trying to extricate it from inside the bag with a queue of people behind me is slightly traumatic. Inside there are a good selection of padded pockets and sections in which to separate your things, and I like the fact that it opens into two halves, which go totally flat- easy for packing and unpacking.
Overall this is a bombproof beast of a pack/briefcase built to withstand the rigours of international travel. If you want the ultimate protection for your tech inside then the Macheto is a great option, the payoff for all this robustness though is it feels a little cumbersome for less demanding users.
