Mission Workshop Monty Review

The Monty is a well-conceived and durable messenger bag designed to be user-friendly, intuitive, and minimalistic. It is weatherproof, comfortable to carry, and includes all the features you need for a great bag. While it doesn't have a padded laptop sleeve, it makes up for this by providing weather protection for your gear, a large carrying capacity, and rugged exterior fabric.

Performance Comparison

Comfort

The Monty proved to be one of the most comfortable bags in our review.

The shoulder strap has a long piece of padding that works well for different body types. It moves easily due to being oriented for the left or the right shoulder. The cross-body stabilizing strap is fairly minimal but gets the job done well. Our one complaint with the stabilizing strap is that it isn't easily removable, so if you prefer to wear the bag without one, you'll be forced to cut the webbing to remove it.

Packing & Organization

Mission Workshop used a minimalist approach to design the Monty. This approach works well for packing and organization, which is why it earns favorable marks in this metric.

There are two open cargo pockets underneath a velcro storm flap. We had hoped one of these would be ideal for a U-lock, and while the pockets accommodate a small U-lock quite well, the storm-flap does not close as easily when we stored our lock in one of these pockets. The Monty features one large zippered pocket, which can accommodate a 13" laptop, and on the inside of that pocket, there are two additional and fairly large zippered pockets. These internal pockets are great for stashing things like a wallet or passport if you're concerned about pickpockets.

The main compartment is a large open basin — featuring some of the greatest volume of any model in our review — that can accommodate a 15" laptop in a sleeve, as well as nearly anything else you need to stash in your pack on your way to work or school. One of the coolest features of this bag is how you can either fold the flap down or use a roll-top configuration. Folding the flap down provides better weather protection for the zippered pockets (and your laptop, if you store it in there), while the roll-top closure accommodates much larger loads (for when you want to use your messenger bag to carry your groceries).

Electronics

While the Monty accommodates a laptop with a carrying sleeve and there are two places to stash your computer, it does not come with a padded laptop compartment.

You can either stash a 13" laptop in the front zippered pocket, or you can use the main compartment to house a 15" laptop in a carrying case. The zippered pocket has a waterproof zipper, and when you use the bag in the traditional flap-down position, it provides some of the best weather protection of any of the bags we tested. Despite this excellent feature, we didn't award top marks to the Monty in this category because this bag doesn't provide any additional padding for a laptop. This wasn't a make-or-break deal for us, as our lead reviewer prefers to use a laptop sleeve, but if you prefer to stash your naked laptop in a padded sleeve built into your pack, you might prefer another bag.

Ease of Use

The Monty is clearly designed with simplicity in mind, and it pays off because this messenger bag is one of the most user-friendly and intuitive in our review.

The shoulder strap cinches down and stays in place with minimal effort, and it is easy to reorient the shoulder strap for either the right or left side. The cross-body strap is similarly simple to engage. The combination of durable plastic buckles and velcro made for intuitive opening and closure of the bag. Further, the minimalist approach to pockets makes it easy to determine where to store your essentials. Our reviewers found it was slightly easier to remove some of the other bags in this review — namely those with a metal buckle for disengaging the shoulder strap — but otherwise, the Monty is among the easiest to remove.

Construction Quality

In terms of durability, the Monty earns some of the highest marks.

This bag is made with a 1000 denier nylon fabric and a weather-proof liner that are both durable and abrasion-resistant. When biking in a rainstorm, we never had to worry about whether or not our gear would stay dry — the materials offer impressive weather protection when they are in flap-down mode. The Monty is clearly built to last, which is why it is among the heavier bags in our review, but we're confident it will keep up with you over the long haul — even if you're hard on your gear.

Should You Buy the Mission Workshop Monty?

The Mission Workshop Monty achieves the goal of being both aesthetically appealing and ruggedly durable. The care and intention that went into designing this bag make it clear that the designers at Mission Workshop are cyclists and commuters who use and abuse their gear. We appreciate this bag's intuitive features, high degree of comfort, and minimalist approach to organization. If you seek a weatherproof bag that can accommodate large or small loads of gear, and you value products that are design-tested and made in the U.S., then you can't go wrong with this one.

What Other Messenger Bags Should You Consider?

We also really like the Chrome Buran III as another durable and high-performing messenger bag. This beast of a bag is well-suited for those who demand the most from their gear. It's durable, comfortable, packs items well, and is ambidextrous to boot. A slightly smaller option that we also recommend is the Timbuk2 Classic. This bag is less expensive than its beefier compatriots, but still plenty durable and capable of stowing all your essentials. Lastly, if you're still on the fence about messenger bags and haven't checked out our advice on how to buy one, the Oiwas 15.6" Laptop is significantly less expensive than almost all our other bags, and still performs well. It lacks the same rugged appeal as the Buran or Monty, but is reasonably weather-resistant and is a comfortable bag to carry.