Update: Peak Design confirmed this is an issue with some early Kickstarter models. They are doing warranty replacements on these bags! Woot!

I’d been rolling around with my North Face Base Camp Rolling Thunder for seven years—bright yellow, water-resistant-ish, tough as nails. My suitcase was still going strong. But there was one problem: two wheels.

When you’re stacking a heavy backpack on top of a two-wheeled suitcase, the weight pulls on the handle. Your shoulder gets involved, your back gets involved, and suddenly you’re half-carrying, half-rolling this whole setup through the airport and around the world. I’m getting older, and lugging a heavy backpack is less fun than it used to be.

About nine months ago, Peak Design launched their Roller Pro on Kickstarter. They were offering a discount—$500 with a bunch of packing modules instead of the regular $600. The hook for me was simple: four wheels meant I could stack my gear on the suitcase handle and roll everything shoulders-free.

I backed it. The wait was fine—I put it out of my mind since I was generally happy with the old suitcase and wasn’t doing a ton of traveling during that season. I didn’t really know what I was missing.

The System That Works (Mostly)

I got the Roller Pro a few months ago but didn’t put it into service until this trip to Vancouver, Austin, and Hilton Head. Three weeks on the road ranging from cold and wet in Vancouver to 80s and sunny in Texas felt like the right time to test it out.

Here’s the setup I landed on after a few airports and wanting to clear my body of luggage. The CPAP case goes on the handle first, facing backward. The backpack goes on the handle second, facing forward so it sits on the suitcase. The total combined weight is about 50 pounds. The whole three-piece system rolls hands-free through airports with the touch of a finger on hard tile. It’s a little bit more of a push on carpet, but not troublesome. Sometimes, however, bumps make the whole system top heavy and it requires more handling like when getting off an escalator. I’m still figuring out that technique, but it’s an annoyance I can work through.

When it works, it’s genuinely awesome. The four wheels glide beautifully. The suitcase is well-balanced, and the stacked system doesn’t feel top-heavy. I don’t have to carry anything—which is the real win here.

The Problems: Zippers and Size

Three weeks on the road revealed some serious issues.

The zippers are the biggest problem. When the bag is full, they don’t grab well. I’d be fighting with them in the gentlest way as I was trying to get out of my hotel rooms, trying to get the suitcase closed, wrestling with zippers that just wouldn’t cooperate. The North Face had much bigger, stronger zippers with meaty teeth—the kind that worked even when you stuffed the bag well beyond what was reasonable.

I thought maybe it was just me. It wasn’t.

A quick search shows this is a common pattern with the Roller Pro. Multiple Reddit threads document the same zipper issues—people struggling with zippers that don’t grab properly, zippers failing on arrival, zippers that work fine until the bag is actually full. Peak Design seems to be trying to understand the issue, but the pattern is clear: these zippers aren’t up to the task. The zippers have particular challenges getting around the curve when the bag is full on my suitcase.

The size is the second problem. The Roller Pro is significantly smaller than my North Face bag. The North Face is larger and flexed more easily when you needed it to. The Peak Design is more rigid, more structured—which is great for rolling, but terrible when you’re traveling in winter and clothes are literally bigger. Jackets, sweaters, layers—they take up space. Three weeks on the road with winter gear in this bag was hard in a way it never was with the yellow North Face.

The tech pockets aren’t useful to me. Peak Design designed these nice organized compartments for laptops, cables, chargers—but my tech goes in the backpack. I’m never going to bring my suitcase into the office like I would a backpack, thus the tech goes there. Those pockets just take up space that could’ve been used for clothes. The pockets also make the top of the suitcase feel flimsy. The Northface bag was some flavor of thick vinyl that could go in the back of a truck to Fairbanks. This bag seems to have a bit more of a pedigree aspect to it wanting to stay in the boundaries of “civilized” – something I don’t see with other Peak Design products I own. The motorcycle products run in all types of weather. The camera cube has been to Alaska and New Zealand and many places in between. The Roller Pro just doesn’t meet the standard of other products in the Peak Design cadre of products I know.

What I’m Doing About It

I reached out to Peak Design about the zipper issue. Their warranty seems solid—they say they stand by their stuff. Now the question is: how do they make it right?

What would “making it right” look like? A suitcase with better zippers? A v2 with more durable hardware (YKK zippers, maybe)? Something that can handle being actually full without the zippers giving up?

I’ll update this post once I hear back from them.

The Old Bag Stays

I’m keeping the North Face suitcase. It’ll be good for trips where I need more space and the conditions are harsher. I can take the North Face bag camping as its shell handles dirt better made clean by a simple wipe. When I bought the North Face bag many years ago, it was about $200. The price has gone up, which makes me appreciate those seven good years (and it’s still going strong). Looking back on this trip, I kind of wish I’d brought it instead.

Where I Land

The Roller Pro runs about $600 new (without the packing cubes the Kickstarter version included). The four-wheel system is genuinely great—rolling 50 pounds of gear hands-free through airports is exactly what I wanted. But the zippers and the size are real problems, especially for longer trips or winter travel.

This doesn’t change my view of Peak Design as a brand. I love their mobile stuff for the motorcycle—phone case, mounts, chargers. But this feels like a v1 Kickstarter issue that needs addressing. The suitcase works well as long as you moderately fill it, which kind of defeats the purpose as you’ll always pick up a few things on the road. I’m surprised these issues didn’t come up in real world testing before release.

I can’t recommend it until the zipper quality improves or Peak Design shows up and makes this right.

The four wheels were everything I hoped for. The rest? Not quite.