Hayabusa Mesh Gear Bag

Introduction

The Hayabusa mesh gear bag is one of the roomier bags from MMA brands that features a mesh design. It's big, it's bad, and it's meant to fit all the training gear you can carry.

Official Specs:

• Constructed With Tough, Puncture and Abrasion Resistant Mesh Exterior, Coated Nylon Bottom
• Fully Ventilated Design Maximizes Your Gear's Longevity
• Large Interior For All Your MMA Gear and Apparel (14x14x25 inches)
• Water Resistant Inner Pocket for Separating Items
• Removable Padded Shoulder Strap
• Robust Main Zipper, Durable Hardware and High Quality Fabrics Throughout

Aesthetics

Sporting a plain black with the Hayabusa logo embroidered on the external side pouch on one side, while printed large across the mesh on the other side, the design is simple and slick looking. The metal zippers feature the Hayabusa falcon pressed on them. Overall, a no frills design.

Form & Fit

Not relevant here, so I'll skip straight to the next section.

Functionality

The mesh bag is much roomier than it looks, thanks to its flexible shape. In fact, this was one of the reasons I picked up the bag, as I wanted something that wouldn't be bulky when I had a light load, yet was able to stretch out to fill my needs when I had more stuff. I was constantly surprised by how much gear I can squeeze into it, and it should pretty much fit the regular Joe's necessary training equipment plus some extras. 

To give an idea, I usually load it with a BJJ gi, rashguards, fight shorts, shin pads, boxing gloves, MMA gloves, assorted protection like cups, wraps, and guards for the gym, and that's only half the capacity. It can comfortably load up another set of that gear making it work for two people. 

To deal with the load, the bag comes with heavy duty metal loops for the removable shoulder strap. If the shoulder strap is not your cup of tea, you can carry it by the handle.The handle consists of two straps that run from one side and goes underneath all the way to the other side, making it a sturdy system that's less likely to rip or tear from heavy loads. The main compartment can be closed with heavy duty zippers that feature a small hole for locking up if your gym isn't the safest place.

Now, this being my first mesh bag, there were some things that I certainly wasn't expecting. I've had the bag for 5 months now, and use it almost on a daily basis. The bag held up in places I expected it to tear, and tore where I expected it to hold. Despite the loads I place in the main bag compartment, the mesh material has held extremely well, with no tears or cuts as far as I can see.

What was disappointing though, was the durability of the three side compartments, all of which tore or fell apart in one way or another. The water resistant base of the main compartment has also started coming off. 

The bag contains two side compartments on the outside, one being a small mesh compartment that I hardly use, but the stitching of the mesh has somehow came loose from the zipper very early on, making it pointless to load anything there since it will most likely fall out. 

The larger side compartment held for a couple of months, but now has also finally torn from the zipper at certain parts. While it's still usable, I no longer risk putting anything inside for the moment. The usual things that goes in there is a mouthguard, sunglasses, a pen and some loose items, so I'm surprised how it could tear at all. 

There's also an inside compartment for putting wet clothes, and interestingly, this one has torn completely at the side seams. I admit I might have been guilty for overloading it, since I usually have a document folder in there as I go to work from the gym sometimes, or vice versa. That said, I'd still have expected a little better, as the document folder usually contains several sheafs of paper and is not very thick. This will probably hold up better if you load nothing but wet clothes, no heavy duty stuff in there.

The bag does an excellent job of airing its contents though, and makes it very easy to maintain. It hardly stinks since the stink isn't trapped inside the confines of the bag and are free to escape. One caveat though, mesh doesn't just let things out, it lets things in too. That can be a pain during the rainy season here.

Affordability

Official price of the Hayabusa mesh gear bag is US $59.99 (SGD $79). For the size of the bag, it's a decent price, although you might want to weigh it against a non-mesh design and figure if this is something for you. Being a sling design, you might also want to consider this against a backpack design if you carry a lot of heavy stuff, since it'll be less tiring to spread the load out on both shoulders for backpacks. My suggestion is to try it out at a local shop if available, or at least try out sling vs backpack designs of other bags to get a gauge.

Conclusion

While the Hayabusa mesh gear bag is awesome for storing and carrying all your gear around, the potential durability problems on the compartments might deter some who prefer to compartmentalize their gear neatly. If you're just looking for a large bag to dump all your gear in, this one will hold pretty well.

Update
I've been told by Hayabusa that this was an issue with the older batch, and the new ones that are shipping now have had these issues addressed.

Disclaimer

All comments in the review are my own personal opinion. Prices provided in brackets are merely for reference and are based on exchange rates at the time of writing. 

If you like this review and found it helpful, please post a comment or let the company or retailer know too. Should you decide to purchase them online, you might want to consult the online buying guide for advice.