Osprey Talon Velocity 30 Backpack Review

The Osprey Talon Velocity 30 is a frameless backpack with a running vest-style suspension that’s great for day hiking, fastpacking, multi-sport adventures, and travel. It’s loaded with all the features you’d expect on a premium daypack and comes with an adjustable torso length so you can dial in a personalized fit. Numerous pockets built into the vest-style harness and hipbelt let you easily access squeeze bottles, snacks, your smartphone, or sunglasses while you’re on the move without having to stop. But what truly makes this pack great is that its suspension balances your load across the front and back of your body, making it more comfortable and efficient to carry. It’s eye-opening how comfortable a day pack can be.

Specs at a glance

• Gender: Men’s (Women’s model – Osprey Tempest Velocity 30)
• Volume: 30:
• Weight: 2 lbs 6 oz / 1076.2g
• Frame: Frameless
• Adjustable Torso Length: Yes
• Shoulder straps: Vest-Style
• Pockets: 9 + main
• Load lifters: Yes
• Hip Belt Pockets: Yes
• Hydration-ready: External sleeve behind shoulder straps
• Trekking pole/ice axe holders: Yes

Backpack Suspension – Vest Style Straps and Hipbelt

The Talon Velocity 30 backpack has a running-vest-inspired harness instead of conventional shoulder straps that help balance load across the front and back of your body bringing the weight closer to your torso and making it easier to carry. This makes dynamic moves, like scrambling much more fluid because the load moves like an extension of your body, riding higher and closer to your torso rather than on your shoulders and hip girdle where the momentum can throw you off balance. It makes sense why trail runners prefer this kind of vest harness, but it can also be beneficial for hikers.

Vest-style packs are also in vogue because they have lots of pockets making it much easier to access water bottles, snacks, sunglasses, or a smartphone without having to stop to unpack or repack them. With vest-style straps, you can squeeze a water bottle to squirt water into your mouth instead of pulling the bottle from the side pocket on a conventional backpack and then gyrating wildly to get it back in.

The vest-style straps on the Talon Velocity 30 flare widely over your pectoral chest muscles to pull the weight of the pack forward. The two straps are connected by two sternum straps that you can easily reposition up or down, depending on what makes you comfortable. Osprey has put special buckles on the sternum strap that make this an easy process, and that you can even adjust on the fly.

The vest straps are very lightweight perforated foam that wicks sweat, but more importantly, conforms to the shape of your chest. I’ve tried a lot of vest-style packs and different suspensions over the years and have never been very satisfied with the way they fit because I have a fairly broad chest. But the vest straps on the Talon Velocity 30 fit me exceptionally well because they’re narrow over the shoulders and only flare at the sternum. In other words, they’re a hybrid between a conventional backpack shoulder strap and a vest-style strap which can still distribute the load over the pectoral muscles.

Unlike many vest-style packs, the Talon Velocity 30 has a non-removable hipbelt. Since this is a frameless backpack, these provide very little load transfer to the hips. Their main function is to pull the pack closer to your hips and back and to provide extra pocket storage. The Talon Velocity 20 also has a hipbelt instead of the removable webbing belt you find on other fastpacks. Like the shoulder straps, these are made with perforated foam that provides a comfortable and close-fitting wrap around your hips.

The Talon Velocity 30 is also an adjustable frame pack, letting you adjust the length of the torso by up to 3.5″. The pack is available in two torso ranges: S/M: 17-20.5 inches and L/XL: 19.5-23 inches, so you can adjust the torso length to fit your body and enable the load lifter straps to do their job – to pull the load closer to your torso, particularly for heavier loads. You can’t get that benefit on a fixed-length backpack.

Osprey uses the Airscape adjustment system on the Talon Velocity which has a simple rip-and-stick sizing adjustment. The back panel is all mesh interspersed with foam “vertebrae” that conform to the shape of your back so the pack conforms to your body like a second skin. This adjustment system also enables the use of an external hydration bladded that slots between the back panel and the pack body bringing the water weight closer to your core and making it much easier to refill on the fly. An added benefit is that this prevents leaks from soaking your gear since the hydration bladder is not in the main compartment.

Backpack Pockets and Access

The Talon Velocity 30 has 9 pockets in addition to the main compartment. Access to the main compartment is through the top which closes with a drawstring. Covering it is a mesh top flap that drapes over the drawstring hole. It’s stretchy so you can wedge additional clothing or a pad underneath like a floating lid pocket on a conventional backpack. The top flap is not waterproof so rain could conceivably leak into the main compartment if it gets soaked.

Breaking with tradition, the main compartment has a zippered mesh pocket in place of a hydration sleeve. It includes a key fob, making it ideal for storing valuables and personal items.

The vest straps each have two pockets: two long ones, open on top, designed to hold water bottles up to 24 oz – shown here with Smartwater bottles. They are made with a stretchy mesh and have pull tabs at the top making it easy to pull out or replace bottles – although the vest makes it easy to squeeze a flexible bottle and squirt the contents into your mouth without removing it first. One of the vest straps has a shorter open pocket in front of the bottle pocket while the other has a long zippered pocket good for a sunglasses case or a smartphone.

In addition to the hipbelt pockets, there is a long front stretch pocket in the front of the pack that is good for stuffing layers or other large items. It’s made with mesh, so it drains well but can be susceptible to snagging on vegetation if you go off-trail with it…something I wouldn’t recommend with the Talon Velocity.

The pack also has two long side pockets made with stretchable mesh that can be used to hold bottles or other gear. They have more traditional bottom front cut-outs so you can pull a 32 oz Nalgene bottle out if you store one there, although you need to be careful that skinnier items don’t fall out. If you were fast-packing, you could stash a tarp tent fly, or tent poles in these pockets.

Compression and External Attachment

One of the things I like about the Talon Velocity 30 is that it is a complete backpack that’s fully loaded with all of the capabilities you need. For example, the pack has two tiers of compression straps, made with webbing and buckles, not cord and line locs which limit you more than help since they freeze in winter, they are hard to use with gloves, they are awkward to use when strapping bulky gear to the side of a pack, and provide virtually no compression because the cord is too thin.

The pack also has a pair of sleeping pad straps at the base, that are girth-hitched on, so they’re removable if you don’t want to use them. That’s a nice feature. I like to use mine for carrying a foam pad during the colder months.

Finally, you can carry trekking poles two ways on the Talon Velocity: using the side stow-on-the-go elastic loops that Osprey includes on all their packs or using two pairs (top and bottom) of elastic loops located on the front of the pack.

Recommendation

The Osprey Talon Velocity 30 is a frameless backpack with a running-vest-inspired suspension system. I’ve tried a lot of packs with vest suspensions in recent years, but this is the first backpack that has clicked with me in terms of fit. What makes this pack really tick is its body-hugging fit which is optimized for balancing the load between the front and back of your body. Every element of the suspension and adjustable torso, from the vest straps and the hipbelt to the foam in the Airscape back panel, is optimized to pull the load as close to your core as possible and make it easier to carry. When you add all the other premium features that Osprey has included with this pack, you have a real winner perfect for day hiking, fastpacking, and multi-sport adventures. Highly recommended!

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