When it comes to transporting your valuable ski equipment, a reliable and well-designed ski bag is essential. Volkl, a renowned German ski manufacturer with a century of experience, offers a range of ski bags designed to meet the needs of both racers and recreational skiers. This review focuses on the Volkl ski bag, examining its features, durability, and overall value.
Almost every racer packs race skis in a roll up, or "burrito" bag. They are almost all made with four zipped slots, and will fit four pairs of skis with bindings. Most are designed to fit up to a 230cm ski {so any ski}. You flip over the excess length, then roll the bag up.
Most have three straps to tighten up the roll. They're lightly, but adequately padded, and the outer material can handle some abuse, IME. Now before baggage weigh became an issue, my kids would fly to Europe or the Southern Hemisphere, with their teams, and they would each travel with two of these bags.
They were a real handful to muscle through an airport, when fully loaded. And of course they were being transported in vans....often a couple of vans just full of skis. Back in those days, some of the ski companies made these with a lot of padding. I would guess that then, the bags weighed 20 lbs empty.
Today, if an athlete is flying in a situation where they are not part of a big group, and likely to be hot with the fees, the kids that our kids coach tend to travel with three pairs in a bag. And, yes, though they would prefer to NOT be removing bindings, they often do. Those most often end up in carry on.
If you're going to be removing and reinstalling bindings, I'd suggest that you want the holes drilled and tapped pretty perfectly, and you want to make sure that the screws are a perfect fit.....which is not so easy for we mere mortals to source. Last, I'd travel with some waterproof carpenter's glue to seal the holes.....on anything other than a race plate. It's easy to loosen, but gives a waterproof seal.
Every race ski company makes these bags, and makes them available to their athletes. Some also sell a lot at retail. Rossignol makes a very good bag, and it's available at less than $200. It will last. I prefer it to the other one that's widely sold.....SYNC. But seriously, everybody has them branded for their race skis.
A good place to keep an eye on is SidelineSwap, where a lot of racers sell their "stuff." Bags like these tend to get held into, though. We have a bunch and will keep them. No issue putting poles in the bags. My kids traveled with poles with speed bends, and never broke one.
Of course later on, their pole companies supplied them with pole bags to make the process better. Again, when flying with baggage was not a huge issue. For example, if you had a USSA card, or had your travel booked via an agent that worked with a lot of clubs, a carrier like United never even counted.
I've had to unpack the bags, and carefully fit skis inside a rental car, fit the empty bags in the car somewhere it. Or, I've made sure that the car had a roof rack, and I've traveled with line to tie down the bags. With 215cm and 220cm's, I think that this is the only way to go.
I'm familiar with the Swix bag that you mention and you'll tear it apart, and yes....only two pairs. We have SRD, SYNC and dB bags and I would never overload with there pairs, and I would not pack speed skis in them. My limit are 196cm Bodacious.
Volkl 30L Flight Boot-Backpack: A Closer Look
The Völkl 30L Flight is a boot-backpack forming part of their more casual range, suitable for anyone from racers to everyday punters.
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The bag is of a really super-simple construction and design. There is a large main pocket that takes up most of the size of the bag, designed to fit a pair of ski boots with straps on the back wall of the compartment to hold them in place. This compartment fitted my boots with ease - Völkl says it will carry up boots of up to 330mm sole length, but my 324mm boots fitted in with consummate ease, and with a little give in the side walls you could probably exceed these measurements if needed.
The side and back walls were reinforced to give the bag structure and protect your back from the boots or buckles digging into your back or catching you when the bag swings on and off. There is also a laptop sleeve, accessible from outside the back but tucked away behind the back padding. This is a really well thought-out feature; I took my work laptop - comfortably - with me wherever I went, with no risk of it being swiped out from under me and the padding from the back meaning I knew it was cushioned wherever I threw the bag down.
There is a top pocket which is perfectly sized to slip a charger, passport wallet, and small washbag. Alongside fitting a pair of boots, there is so much leftover space for you to pack quite a lot of stuff in the main compartment. This saved my skin when my main ski bag got lost, as I had a spare pair of everything in my backpack, alongside my boots, limiting what I had to beg, borrow and steal to go out for a day’s skiing.
The Velcro strip on the front is a nice touch, allowing personalisation with flags and patches. Furthermore, as the name might suggest, it fits airline carry-on dimensions, and with plenty of room to spare too. You can carry it through the airport and easily, easily, slot it into the overhead racks wherever you are going. Another huge win for function over form.
The light-grey colour of the bag and the materials used does mean that the bag shows wear very easily, even on the reinforced material used on the front panel. Some of the stitching around the main zipper is already fraying, demonstrating a need for better manufacturing or quality control. There is little in the way of additional support, too, meaning your back may feel it if you are carrying the bag around for more than a weekend or so, but this won’t be an issue most of the time.
Furthermore, the single main opening panel, zipped up via a single main zip running around three sides of the front of the bag, can raise some eyebrows about security - admittedly no one is going to try and grab a pair of boots from your bag as you walk by, but if you do carry anything valuable in the main pocket, it may be advisable to utilise a small padlock or some other device to secure the zippers.
The wheels are essential for navigating airports. It has multiple compartments, which is great for packing and really solid padding for protecting your skis. I prefer to load this with 1 or 2 pair of skis, then pack my ski clothes, etc. around the skis to finish packing out the bag.
With that said, it is very heavy and has more room than you can really fill within the airline weight restrictions. bought this for my first time traveling with skis and alone with two kids. It's really BIG. I couldn't find a way to pack it without going over the flight weight limit and ended up having to pay for extra weight. Great ski travel bag.
Here's a summary of the Volkl 30L Flight bag's pros and cons:
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Fits airline carry-on dimensions | Light-grey color shows wear easily |
| Spacious main compartment | Stitching may fray |
| Laptop sleeve with back padding | Limited back support |
| Velcro strip for personalization | Security concerns with single main zipper |
The downside of a burrito bag for you is that they are big and unwieldy, so you'll need to figure that out in terms of transport to and from the airports.
