Mountain Warehouse Pace 30 Review: The Budget Hiking Pack That Punches Way Above Its Price
Most budget hiking backpacks make one of two compromises. Either they strip out the features that actually matter, the hip belt, the ventilation, the raincover, in favour of hitting a low price point. Or they include those features using materials so flimsy you spend the whole hike wondering how long it’ll last. The Mountain Warehouse Pace 30 largely sidesteps both of those problems, which at this price is more surprising than it should be.
RRP: £74.99. Almost permanently on sale for £45. Often additional sales can drop the price to £35.
What It Gets Right
The Mesh Back Panel at This Price Is Almost Unheard Of
The Pace 30 uses a tension-suspended mesh back panel that holds the bag away from your back and lets air circulate freely between the pack and your spine. On most bags anywhere near this price, you get cheap foam pressed flat against your back and a sweaty stripe down your shirt within 20 minutes. The suspended mesh eliminates that almost entirely.
This is the single most important feature for anyone using a pack for hiking or commuting in warmer conditions, and finding it on a bag that goes on sale for £35 is the main reason this pack deserves more attention than it gets. The difference in comfort on a full day out is not subtle.
Fully Featured for the Price
This isn’t a stripped-back basic pack. It has a padded hip belt, adjustable chest strap, compression straps, bungee cords, a hydration bladder sleeve, and a built-in raincover stored in a pocket at the base. A tethered raincover that packs away into its own pocket is rare even on more expensive bags. Finding it here is a genuine bonus. It stays put in wind rather than becoming a sail, and having it already attached means you’re never scrabbling through your bag in the rain looking for it. Being a massive Decathlon fan, I wanted to get the MH500 backpack but the one thing it was missing was the included raincover and dedicated pocket.
The zip panel loading design also makes it easy to get into the main compartment without unpacking everything to reach the bottom. That’s the right call and it’s not universal even at higher price points.
Versatile Enough for Multiple Uses
For day hiking, commuting, travel, or just carrying more than a rucksack can handle, the Pace 30 covers the bases comfortably. It’s light, measuring 52 x 30 x 24cm, and the profile is smart enough in black that it doesn’t look like you’ve arrived via a campsite.
The Trade-offs
The Volume Claim Is Optimistic
This is worth knowing before you buy. The Pace 30 is advertised as 30 litres. Other buyers have noted the plastic frame imposes significantly on the main compartment, and the convex back panel eats further into the usable space. In practice the pack feels closer to low-20 litres of genuinely usable volume. Not a dealbreaker, but if you’re looking at the Pace 20 and wondering whether to size up for the extra capacity, save yourself the trouble and get the 30 instead. You’ll end up with roughly the same usable space.
The Materials Are Budget, Not Premium
The nylon main body fabric feels solid enough and holds up to normal use without complaint. The mesh and padding on the shoulder straps and hip belt are a different story: standard budget foam that does the job but lacks the quality you feel immediately on a bag like the Osprey Hikelite. There are occasional loose threads on the stitching from new, which is the kind of thing that shouldn’t happen and does anyway on lower-cost manufacturing.
The plastic frame is the bigger uncertainty. It works fine and provides the structure the back panel needs to function properly, but plastic under repeated load ages differently to aluminium. How it holds up over several years of consistent use is harder to predict than it would be on a bag with a metal frame and a lifetime warranty behind it.
Hip Belt Pocket
There’s a single zippered pocket on the hip belt. It’s tight, small, and marginally useful for a card or a snack, possibly your phone if it’s not oversized.
How It Compares to the Osprey Hikelite 28
The Hikelite costs roughly twice as much and is, bluntly, the better bag. Better materials, better comfort, better build quality, aluminium frame, more outside pockets, and Osprey’s All Mighty Guarantee means you can use it hard for years without worrying about replacing it.
But the Pace 30 does something useful that the Hikelite can’t: it lets you try this style of hiking pack at low risk before committing to the price. If you’ve never used a suspended mesh back panel bag and you’re not sure whether the format works for you, spending £35 to find out makes considerably more sense than spending £85 on a bag you might not get on with. Mountain Warehouse also offer returns if it’s not right, so the risk is minimal.
Try the Pace. If you like it, and you will, make the jump to the Hikelite knowing exactly what you’re paying for.
The Bottom Line
For a first proper hiking pack, a budget commuter bag, or a travel pack that doesn’t cost a fortune, the Pace 30 does a lot right. The mesh back panel alone puts it ahead of most things at the price. The materials and plastic frame mean it’s not a bag for life, but it’s a bag for now, and at £35 on sale that’s a fair deal.
Verdict: UNDERRATED
A suspended mesh back panel at this price should not exist. It does. Buy it, try it, and when it eventually gives up the ghost, you’ll already know exactly which Osprey to replace it with.