I needed some sort of shoulder bag, so I ended up with the Mountain Equipment Co-op Bon Vivant bag.
I wanted it for two reasons. One was to easily access stuff I need often, pen, keys, wallet, bus pass, subway tokens, etc. The other reason was that I was working in north Toronto, which meant that I was a long way from home. If things got really crazy, I was prepared to start walking home. I wanted to have a few things with me to facilitate survival.
As per usual, I ripped into the thing to make modifications before I took any photos of the original. While at MEC I took some photos of one, in a more photo friendly colour.
The first change I made was to add a different shoulder strap. The existing one was a mere 1" piece of webbing. I used a length of 2" tubular webbing. Taking a contractor grade garbage bag, I rolled it up and placed it in the center of the tubing. The garbage bag not only made for some padding, but could also serve as a rudimentary shelter or rain gear in an emergency. Some 2" tri-glides served to hold it in place, and a few others served to allow for length adjustment. Some 2" D-rings were also slid onto the tubular webbing to attach things to, and a 2" side release buckle was added down at the bottom front of the strap. At the back, I put my modified Petzl Tikka pouch.
Across the front flap I added two rows of PAS webbing (one with loop Velcro on it {you can see the reflective patch I put on it}), and on the front slot pocket (where I kept my wallet) I put three rows of PALS webbing. I initially had the idea that I might be able to put a small pouch on there, but that proved an unworkable idea. It did prove handy for some other things though - clipping a carabiner to to hang gloves off of, that sort of thing. Under the flap I sewed a 1" D-ring in place, that I could hang my keys off of. I could slip the keys behind the PALS webbing to stop jangling. Some other mods I made were to swap out the existing buckle with a Whistle-Loc, and replaced the zipper pulls with different colour cord for each compartment and Aerohead zipper pulls.
The front side has two slots for pens, and there is a zippered compartment at the back which I used for a note pad and GO passes.
In the flap is a zippered slot pocket in which I kept TTC tokens, my swipe pass (before I made this) and a few other odds and ends.
The main compartment...
...and the contents.
Left column, top to bottom.
Minor first aid kit. (The Coghlans case is great but I made up my own contents.)
Orange bandana.
Spare set of house keys.
Right column, top to bottom
Lexan spoon.
Contractor grade garbage bag.
Length of paracord.
3 AAA batteries.
Tin with MicroPur MP 1.
Film canister with dryer lint.
Roll of duct tape.
Pair of nitrile gloves. (Besides the obvious use when poking around in someone’s wounds, they also serve as pretty decent vapour barriers raising the temp range that a pair of gloves are good to.)
Not a bad setup. Served well as a means of carrying my every day stuff, and as a pouch to carry some basic survival stuff. Carried it for a while about 6 years ago, and then eventually switched to something else.
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