Another Bag Review: Ricardo Beverly Hills Essentials 30" Rolling Duffle

According to my statistics, probably the most popular post ever on my blog is the review I did of my BBP bag (which I decided I kind of hate, and never use, incidentally). It seems people are always searching for reviews of it, and I hope my rather lengthy post on it has helped them make a decision. So since I'm an admitted Bag Whore, and recently purchased a new bag that I'm very excited about, I will give another review.

For this tour I'm now on, I decided I needed a snazzy new piece of luggage that I could lug around for six months, that would be bigger than the small suitcase I use for summer stock, but small enough that I can still get around with it easily. I haven't selected a piece of luggage for myself since I was about 12, so I really didn't know what my options were. After looking for ideas in some luggage stores in New York, I decided to try the rolling duffle format, as it seemed the most expandable while still being lightweight and compact when the contents allowed. I think they actually may not make this model anymore, but you can still find it for sale online (at about half of the original MSRP). Here's the Amazon link.

This is the Ricardo Beverly Hills Essentials 30" Rolling Duffle. It's MSRP is $180, but most places I've seen it online have been around $100. It comes in blue, shown above (which is the one I have), and brown. The wheels (which are Razer-scooter-style) match the color of the bag, which is a completely useless but cool feature. It has some little accents that are yellow (such as the zipper pulls, and the button you push to make the handle pop out).

As this handy image shows, it has two main compartments: there is a lower compartment that's kind of box-shaped and somewhat rigid, but not completely. The zipper that you see partially opened on top leads to the main compartment which takes up pretty much all the rest of the space. There is also a nice mesh section on the bottom of the top compartment, so you can see into the bottom compartment and air can get in there. It even zips open so you can get in the bottom compartment without opening it from the outside (my bag is always packed too tightly to make that very useful, but I'm sure it could be).

The upper compartment has two pouches on the back edge, like many suitcases have, to stick whatever it is you stick in those (toiletries mostly, I guess, though I travel with a separate toiletries bag since we don't stay in a hotel every night). These don't close, and when the bag is flipped open, due to its flexible nature, I find the pouches sometimes bend over and the contents spill out into the rest of the bag. I keep things like my little swiss army knife, apartment keys, coins for laundry, stamps, and a roll of scotch tape in there. I don't mind it too much, but they're not the most useful for keeping things separate that you really need to keep separate. Unfortunately, I'd say the one fault of the bag is there really aren't any small compartments, but I think that's true of most traditional suitcases as well.

Attached at either end of the upper part of the bag are rather large side pockets. The one on the left is kind of normal, the one on the right has a little trick. It's mostly designed to be a place to keep dirty laundry, wet clothes, shoes, or other things you might not want getting shoved in with all your nice clean clothes. The pocket actually goes much deeper than it appears -- it has a sort of sock-like shape to it that extends into the main compartment. This has advantages and disadvantages: if you don't need to fill that pocket with much, then it just compresses and doesn't take away valuable space in the main compartment. If you do try to cram it with stuff, it will expand into the main compartment, giving you less room in there. I think this is the best possible solution, but when I've got close to a week of dirty laundry, it can be tricky to shove it all in the side pouch, and then rearrange the rest of my bag to compensate for the fact that the center compartment is now reduced in capacity for clean clothes. In theory it should all work out because it's the same total volume, but I find I always have to start rearranging things as the proportion of dirty vs. clean clothes changes throughout the week. If you stay somewhere more than a day or two and actually fully unpack your bag in the hotel, it might not matter at all. Anyway, the idea of having a separate place for dirty laundry was a huge selling point for this bag. The fact that it doesn't waste space when empty is also highly awesome. UPDATE: After a recent string of nights spent sleeping on the bus, I had gotten to the point where most of my clothes were dirty. I'm happy to report the dirty laundry pocket was able to expand to about 2/3 the size of the total upper part of the bag, successfully keeping all my yucky clothes away from the nice ones until we were able to spend the night in a hotel.

These are really the only four compartments. There is a zipper at the bottom of the bottom compartment which leads into the lining of the bag. I really don't know what it's for, but you could shove stuff in there if you really want, maybe for extra security. I keep my mail in there so 3 months of bills and bank statements aren't rolling around in my way every day. On the exterior there are a few loops, and some elastic straps, which if I'm careful, I can get my toiletries bag to fit in -- by complete accident, the bags even match!

The final zippered area is on the bottom of the bag. A panel pulls down revealing some (rather thin and cheap-feeling) backpack straps. I like this feature because if I have to carry the bag up a flight of stairs, it's much easier as a backpack than as a suitcase. However, when there's 30-40lbs in the bag, the straps are not particularly comfortable, so I don't personally see this as an alternative to rolling the bag, except for a quick 30-second jaunt up stairs or the like. I also suspect with any serious use they would start to break.

The bag has a standard pull-out locking luggage handle for wheeling it. It's very sturdy, the only complaint I have about it is that it's short. This works fine given the height of the bag, but if you have any carry-on bags that have a slot intended to be passed over the luggage handle of another bag, you will probably find this handle too short to come out the other end of your carry-on.

On the back side of the bag is a little window for your name and address, with a cover that velcros down over it.

The handles are nicely designed. There are duffel-style handles with a velcro strap to keep them together. The top of the bag has a soft handle, and the bottom has a hard rubberish one, which I think is also intended to help the bag stand on end. This doesn't always work, but it's a start. No matter how you want to carry the bag, or if you want to carry it with another person, you'll find a handle for it. I find that especially useful when yanking the bag around in the luggage bays under our bus.

The wheels, as I said, match the color of the bag and are similar to the narrow variety used in Razer Scooters and inline skates. I'm sure you could find a suitcase with more rugged wheels, but I found these satisfactory even through the snow and ice in Minneapolis.

Finally, here's an action shot of my bag in the Minneapolis airport. This gives some indication that the colors are a little darker and more subtle than the Smurftacular blue that the manufacturer's photos make it seem to be.

One final observation: when I was shopping for this bag I read some reviews saying that it started to fall apart quickly. I was a little concerned, but I must say so far I don't see any signs of wear at all. If that changes over the tour I will update this, but we are traveling every day or two now, so it should be going through a lot of use.

Pros:
Separate pocket for dirty laundry, collapses when not needed.
Hidden backpack straps
Handles every place you could think to carry it from.
Wheels roll nicely

Cons:
No small closable pockets or compartments.
Doesn't stand up on end all that well, depending on how it's packed.
Handle is too short to attach a carry-on around it.

TEASER: Just this morning, while acting a fool underneath our truck trailer, I got copious amounts of grease on my main backpack, which I fear will be coming off on my hands and anything else it touches from now until the end of time. So I am now in the market to replace my beloved Victorinox bag ASAP. This is one of the most essential objects in my life, so I will be sure to do a thorough review of whatever I get.