Shoulder straps bottom attachment: on the belt or on the bag?

[Federico Calboli]

I have noticed that some bag attach the bottom part of the shoulder straps (the part that slides allowing to loosen or tighten them)  to the belt, whereas other bags attach them to the bottom of the bag/frame, independently of the belt.  I was wondering whether there is any practical difference aside from how the backpack is made/how it looks.

[Doug Coe]

I’ve never seen one that has the straps attached to the belt. Can you think of an example that’s currently being made?

[Daryl and Daryl]

I’ve tried them on the belt and it didn’t work well at all.

I suggest attaching to the bottom of the bag/frame.

[Lester Moore]

It’s common for UL backpacks to have short fabric “wings” at the bottom of the back panel, sewn into the side seams, where the shoulder strap adjustment webbing is attached, along with the hip belt ends. However, it seems that the distance down the back panel where one attaches the shoulder strap webbing may or may not be the same distance where the hip belt attaches, based on torso length. For example, a tall, thin person with a 25 inch torso length would likely not want the shoulder strap webbing attached 25 inches down as well, as their shoulder and chest girth would not require this much room under the shoulder straps. There seems to be a happy balance between having the shoulder straps attached too high (being too tight on the shoulders) versus attached too low (being too loose and the backpack sags down low on the back).

[Federico Calboli]

Examples of backpacks with those straps attached to the belt are Seek Outside or Kuiu.  I have a Seek outside, and a simple hack of knotting the straps to the frame make the whole thing *much worse* in terms of load carriage.  I am not sure why though, hence the question of whether the different anchoring points make a different in load carriage and not just manufacture.

[Doug Coe]

@federico Wow, I’m surprised Seek Outside has their shoulder straps attached to the belt.

Would you mind posting a picture of this? Or a link to a photo (clearly) showing this online?

I’m collecting ideas for a myog backpack and so I’m curious to see how the smart people design packs!

[Greg Pehrson]

In addition to the 2 examples Federico mentioned, many old-school external frames have the shoulder straps attached to the belt. My old Lowe Alpine Contour IV (a mammoth internal frame pack) also has this setup.

What they seem to all have in common (plus the SO and Kuiu mentioned above) is that they are all heavy load haulers where the majority of weight is meant to be transferred to the hip belt instead of the shoulder straps. I’m sure a BPLer with more engineering knowledge than me could explain the reasoning behind this better than I could.

[Federico Calboli]

Here is an image.  As you can see the strap comes up (and is physically attached to) the belt and goes through the slider in the shoulder strap.  As I mentioned, if I change this setup the load feels much worse, hence my curiosity.

[Federico Calboli]

@gregpehrson Savotta external frame packs anchor the shoulder straps to the frame, not the belt.  I am just curious of whether this makes any difference in practice.  My own hack did not work, bit it was a hack (my goal was to separate the movement of the belt from the shoulder straps entirely, which I achieved, albeit at the cost of a worse load carriage).

[J-L]

Katabatic Gear’s Onni packs have their shoulder straps attached to the hipbelts. Look closely at the pictures and you can see where they terminate in the top seam of the hipbelt. I don’t know why exactly they do this, but I feel this gives the shoulder straps a much better contoured fit than if they were sewed to the bottom of the pack. The shoulder straps run right down your side to the hipbelt instead of being pulled away to the pack edges = less shoulder strap pressure in the armpit for me.

[Doug Coe]

You learn something every day! (Or at least today.) I had never even conceived of this as a possibility.

@federico—Thank you for the photo. It makes me wonder if, when you crank on the shoulder straps, the top of the hipbelt is pulled away a bit from being tight to your body. Hmm.

Now I’m wondering which to try when I (eventually) make my own pack. It seems like keeping them separate is simpler.

Btw, those Katabatic packs look so sweet!

[Federico Calboli]

@sierradoug I think this thread has not yet reached the point where the question ‘why these two different attachment styles and does it make a difference’ has been answered, so I would not say we got any useful intel for a MYOG pack.  I think we are stuck at ‘hey, did you know there are two different ways of attaching these straps?’

[Andrew Stevens]

I make most of my packs with a small padded waist belt and have the straps run down the waist belt and into the seam; I guess I mostly split the difference.  I have made a couple of packs where the shoulder straps runs down the waist belt wing and turns sharply to become the waist belt.

 

[Doug Coe]

<span class=”profile-data”>@nuttool</span>—That’s a really clever idea, turning the shoulder strap to become the waist belt. I looked at two of your previous threads (with your myog packs) to see how that looked.

I’m planning on a full-wrap (lightweight) hip belt for my first myog pack. So I think I’ll stick with the usual attachment of the shoulder straps to the pack body.

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