Brain Bag on 5'3" person

[autumnmist]

timarelay, I know you've seen my pictures in the "Brain Bag for a small woman" thread. I am using the chest strap to keep the regular shoulder/backpack straps closer together. I see in your picture that your chest strap is positioned fairly low on your chest. I have it a few inches below my collarbone (e.g. just above my um, breasts). It helps a lot with making the backpack straps stay closer together.

I'm guessing some of the difference between the two of us fitting/not fitting the BB is that you're a lot slimmer than I am. :)

[cpau]

Thanks for the pics, autumnmist, very helpful. Or not - now I think I'm lusting after the Brain Bag too!

[bluedawg]

That would be awesome! Thanks for offering.

How do you find the Aeronaut? I've wanted one for a while but I keep hesitating. It'd be nice to own a duffel bag of some sort (I don't have any).

okay, i finally uploaded all of my vacation photos and there are a couple of relatively good ones where you can see a fully-loaded smart alec on my frame. they're not perfect, but there's one that is straight-on from the back so you can see how tall it is on me, and there's one from the side so you can see how much it sticks out when it's full. there's also a good one where you can see my husband wearing it, for comparison. i tagged them all with "smart alec" so you can see all three pictures here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/veganchai/tags/smartalec/

we had great luck with our new aeronauts, as well. my husband wore his with the absolute shoulder strap the whole time (also carried a timbuk2 messenger bag as his personal item). i usually carried mine as a duffel bag, because i was wearing my smart alec as a backpack, but there was one point in the atlanta airport where we had to walk a fair amount, and i switched: i wore the aeronaut as a backpack, and then slung the smart alec also over my right shoulder (sounds crazy, but it worked).

[timarelay]

Thanks everyone for all the pictures! They've been really helpful and hopefully will also be helpful for other future short women shopping at Tom Bihn!

Yeah, I think it might just be that I'm too skinny. The back of the bag is actually wider than my torso. I tried it on again and while I've gotten used to how it looks, it still just doesn't feel right. Mostly the straps. I don't think I can adjust it any more.

If all goes right, I'm going to be in Seattle this summer. Boyfriend's doing an internship and I'd like to visit him so I can see more of the US beyond the north east. I think I'll wait till then to try the other bags that I'm curious about (like the Smart Alec and the Swift). However, if the Synapse comes out before then, I'm going ahead and buying it directly.

More pictures! This is after I figured out how to move the chest strap higher. It's as high as it goes, and the actual straps are as tight as they can be. I was showing my bags off to my boyfriend over skype (Yes, I'm excited enough about them that I couldn't wait another week or so till he comes back to show them off) and when I tried on the Brain Bag he suggested I tighten the straps more. I sighed and said they're as tight as they go.