PFAS-Free and Pocket Sized: Apidura tweaks a classic.
Apidura has refreshed their ultralight Packable Backpack and Musette with PFAS-free fabrics and a smarter strap design, optimizing the gear you carry for the gear you carry.
I have always had a distinct appreciation for equipment that disappears until you need it. There is a specific anxiety in bikepacking—or even just long day rides—regarding volume. You spend hours Tetris-ing your frame bags to perfection, minimizing drag and weight, but then you ride past a roadside farm stand with fresh peaches, or you hit that late-night resupply where you need to carry dinner back to camp.
Suddenly, your aerodynamic efficiency is irrelevant; you just need a bucket.
Apidura launched their "Packable" series back in 2020 to solve exactly this problem, and I’ve watched them become something of a staple for ultra-distance riders. The concept is simple: a musette (7L) and a backpack (13L) that shrink down to the size of a fist and Velcro onto your frame, sitting dormant until that overflow moment arrives.
Apidura recently announced a refresh of the line, and while "new versions of bags" rarely warrants a deep dive, the specific design choices here are interesting from a utility perspective. They haven't reinvented the wheel; they’ve just polished it.
The headline change is the material. They’ve moved to a tougher Cordura ripstop with a tighter weave. But the part that actually caught my eye is the supply chain shift—the whole line is now fully PFAS-free. It’s becoming increasingly standard in the outdoor industry to ditch "forever chemicals" in waterproofing, and seeing it trickle down to niche cycling accessories is a welcome shift.
From a design standpoint, the most clever update is subtractive. One of the inherent contradictions of "packable" gear is that the straps usually get in the way of the packing. Webbing is stiff. It takes up volume. Apidura swapped the old sternum straps for a lighter, lower-profile daisy-chain cord system. It’s a small detail, but it means the bags stuff into their own pockets more easily because you aren't fighting the rigidity of the strap.
They’ve also woven reflective thread directly into the straps and added reflective side panels to the backpack. Given that these bags are often deployed during the "final push" of a ride—usually in dwindling light on the way to a campsite—visbility feels like a functional necessity rather than an afterthought.
The backpack weighs in at 110 grams; the musette at 58 grams. They are the kind of objects you strap to your seat tube and forget about for 90% of the year. But on that one afternoon when you need to haul a six-pack, a wet rain jacket, or a massive bag of chips the last ten miles, they feel like the most important piece of gear you own.
