There are a few pictures posted online of the Suur-Kukkaro and Askare mounted vertically on a bag (in my case, Niukka) so that the drainage holes are on the side instead of the bottom.
What is the size of those grommets? I would like to find some plugs for them.
Otherwise, how do people prevent water ingress when the bag is mounted sideways?
Background: I carried a Triple Aught Design Litespeed, version 1 (I think), full black 1000D Cordura, for 14 years nearly every single day, on every commute, on every flight, on every bus/train ride, etc. I tried to replace it with an Arcteryx Granville 16, original version, blue, which I carried for 1 year before the PU coating started peeling on the zippers. My goal in purchasing the bag was to find something that was close to the Litespeed as possible, but with a more minimal, less "tactical," look, and without any PU coated zippers; pealing PU coating is the fastest way toward an ugly bag. I prefer 1-compartment bags.
The bag appears to be constructed extremely well. I am really impressed by the stitching, cutting, and seams.
The Niukka feels light. Of course it is much lighter than the Litespeed, which is an infamously heavy bag. Supposedly it is heavier than the Granville but it feels lighter; I think this is because the Niukka's harness is notably better than the Granville's.
The Niukka is about the size I expected. The narrow width is perfect and the ability to control the depth with the compression straps is a must for me. It would be the perfect size if it were 2 or 3 inches of taller.
My Niukka is black. I am not sure black is the best choice for this bag. I noticed immediately that the webbing is not pure black. It is black threads weaved with silver-ish threads that have a blue-ish/voilet-ish tint. In the sunlight they are VERY un-black. I think the website photos are close to accurate regarding this; I had hoped it was just an artifact of the photography.
My Niukka arrived a few hours ago, and it already looks dirty just from traveling to a coffee shop. The material seems to be the perfect texture for picking up lint and dust. I wonder if there is a particular (DWR?) coating I can apply that would make it repel lint better? (In contrast, my Litespeed and the black section of my Granville never attracted lint like this, as they seem to be slicker.)
The compression straps work great to reduce the profile of the bag. It has a good shape both compressed and when not compressed. Tightening and loosening the straps requires notable effort; I hope this gets smoother. It is nice that the compression works without the strap going across the front of the bag, and it is nice that you can make it work that way too. I need to pick up some strap keepers. Which ones stop the dangling without making it hard to compress the bag?
The main zipper does not move smoothly around the corners when the storm flap is in place. I think this is due, in part, to the tight corner radius. (If the bag didn't have the tight corner radius then it wouldn't look as good.) Since I live in SoCal I have already folded the storm flap back from 8:00/4:00 up to rectify this. I like having storm flaps when traveling, but I wouldn't want to deal with them on a daily basis given how they affect the zipping.
On my bags, I keep both zippers at 2:00 when closed, then pull one to 10:00 to open the bag. This way, I don't have to unbuckle the top compression straps, and nothing can spill out. In order for this to work with this bag, you will not want your most commonly used item to be near the back of the bag. Don't try to store a laptop at the back, especially in that water bladder pouch, if you use it often. The elastic is too annoying for that, its opening is too close to the top, and the back/top of the bag isn't flexible enough to bend it back to make it convenient. I was hoping to hang some kind of laptop sleeve from the loops that are inside. I found this won't work, though: the loops are sewn too low to prevent a laptop sleeve from bottoming out. (The bag doesn't have a frame sheet, so if they were at the very top of the bag, then the back pad would probably bend/crease.)
Instead of hanging things on the back, I added a stuff sack with an old puffy jacket to the bottom, that everything sits on, basically a false floor.
The bag feels quite comfortable with my typical light load. The shoulder straps seem like they could handle a load that's reasonable to expect a bag of this size to carry. The compression straps help to stop the load from shifting around, which improves comfort considerably compared to a bag that doesn't have compression straps.
The zippers don't give that "perfect" premium feeling, nor do they feel bad. I appreciate that the inside zippers are relatively loose and so easy to open/close with one hand.
Purchase experience: I purchased the bag on May 5th online from Scandinavian Outdoor, got a notice that is shipped May 6th, and it arrived (in SoCal, USA) May 8th, using standard shipping. Much quicker than I expected.