If you cycle to work and you need to carry stuff like a change of clothes and a laptop, then Rapha has you covered with its excellent Roll Top Backpack.
The backpack is modelled on the design favoured by bike couriers, and has lots of little nice additional Rapha touches.
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The hard-wearing fabric features a roll-top section which clips closed and a webbing strip down the back which is the perfect way to carry a wet or greasy bike lock, keeping it away from the stuff you're carrying inside the bag. You can also clip a light to the webbing to increase visibility.
Talking of visibility, there's a large reflective panel on the bottom of the rucksack to further increase your chances of being seen at night. The padded shoulder straps also feature a reflective tab.
On the outside, there's a separate small zipped pocket which is ideal for keys or a phone, and an articulated panel that sits against your back.
Inside the bag you'll find a cavernous 25L pocket, a suspended partition for a 15" laptop and a smaller zipped pocket, too. Having the laptop in a suspended pocket means that you're much less likely to damage it if you drop the rucksack down on the floor a bit enthusiastically.
The base of the main inside compartment of the rucksack as well as the lining of the smaller internal zipped pocket are both bright pink, which makes it much easier to find and retrieve smaller items when you're rummaging around in dim light.
The top of the bag features a grab handle while the base is flat so the rucksack will stand up by itself – which is vastly preferable to having to rest it on your leg at the office if you've just ridden to work in the rain.
Rapha says that the bag's outer is water-resistant rather than water-proof but I've ridden with it in pretty heavy rain and the contents remained completely dry. I just wouldn't go deep sea diving with it.
If there's one downside to this rucksack it's that it doesn't feature a waist or chest strap, so if you're out of the saddle climbing, it can tend to jump around a little, but then again, this backpack is very much pitched as an urban commuting bag and not one for hardcore road rides.
