Meet the Yeoman: it's a capacious duffel bag, cheerfully ready to schlep gear for your next adventure. It’s likely to become your #1 go-to bag for road trips, camping, and for handling excess gear that needs to fly as checked luggage.

Specifications
Dimensions: 24.6" x 13.6" x 12.8" / 635 x 345 x 325 mm
Weight: 1 lbs 12 oz / 795 grams
Volume: 4330 cubic inches / 71 liters
In stock and ready to ship in colors Black, Steel, Navy, Aubergine, and Coyote; available for order here.

The humble Yeoman has features that are more or less common to duffle bags, but with TOM BIHN attention to detail, materials, and aesthetics. Two-inch webbing handles snap together with a padded palm grip, top dead center; under that, a generous hatch opens wide with a #10 YKK double slider zipper for easy access. There are no pockets inside or out to confuse things, though there are five O-ring tether points.

The Yeoman is built entirely from our U.S.-made 1050 denier high-tenacity Ballistic nylon — but unlike other TOM BIHN bags, which are made from flawless material, the Yeoman is made of upcycled 1050d ballistic, fabric that we call “seconds”: it may have cosmetic blemishes, which do not impact its utility or durability.

Here’s the thing: we are perfectionists around here, and what our fabric inspectors consider “seconds” isn’t necessarily what our fabric mills would consider seconds. When we receive ballistic nylon with flaws, it’s ours to keep: because we are one of the last consumers of domestic 1050 ballistic, our mills no longer accept returned goods. We don't receive much flawed fabric, but we've been saving up what we do get, waiting for the right idea to come along. And so it has: the Yeoman Duffel.

So it's highly likely that you will find some small cosmetic blemishes somewhere on your Yeoman Duffle, which may include irregular shading, a streak or lighter colored yarn, a small "slub" (a knot or thick spot in the yarn), or some unevenness in the urethane coating. These blemishes or flaws are strictly cosmetic in nature, and will not impact the Yeoman's utility or durability. These peculiarities are inconsistent and will vary from bag to bag, meaning no two will be exactly alike. This also means that while you can choose the color of your Yeoman Duffle, we cannot tell you what its unique personality will be: it's 100% potluck (kind of exciting, eh?).

We took our Yeoman Duffel as checked luggage on a trip to Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks just a couple of weeks ago. In the Yeoman, we packed our tent, sleeping pads, sleeping bags, and multi-tool (can't carry on your multi-tool). Through the zippers we used a TSA-approved cable lock, and because it's made out of 1050d ballistic nylon "seconds" (see above), we weren't as stressed about the baggage handling process marring the bag (though in the end it came back us to us looking as good as it did when we checked it). We know, we're biased because we make it and all, but we've still got to call it: this bag is sweet. The huge zippered opening means you can easily see and access your gear even in low-light situations. The side grab handles are, well, handy. The top handle is pretty darn comfy and the webbing for the handle is just big enough so that some folks can slip the Yeoman over their shoulders and use it as an impromptu backpack. So there's our take on the Yeoman; for more on our trip, go here.

P.S. On the trip, around the campfire, we sewed National Park patches on our Yeoman Duffel with our travel sewing kit. The Yeoman is one of the easiest bags we make to sew patches on (so long as you're sewing them where we did -- on the top of the bag.) Our plan is to add a patch for every National Park, Monument, and Forest we visit (and we want to visit them all!)