Ten colours

There is no standard sizing in padel, so judge a bag by what it is built around rather than by a number. This one is built around a single racket: 31 x 10 x 50 cm, with the racket in its own compartment and room for balls, a bottle and your valuables. Anything that has to swallow a second racket, court shoes and a change of clothes is a different class of bag and roughly three times the size. The test is whether you ever carry more than one racket.

On volume, soft wins. It stretches, so it takes an extra pair of shoes and packs flat when it is empty. On everything else the moulded shell is doing work you can see. A flat panel of Sunset Orange reads as one block of colour on a shell that holds its outline, where a soft bag folds the same panel into creases and shadows. That is the whole argument for a hardshell bag you chose for its colour, and it is why we make one kind rather than two.

Usually not. The most common mistake is buying for the busiest week you can imagine and then carrying a half-empty bag that is still bulky every other day. Count what you actually take to a normal game and buy for that.

You can, and plenty of people start that way. What you give up is structure. A normal backpack has no dedicated racket compartment, so the frame sits against keys, bottles and shoes, and it collapses around whatever is inside it. The frame is the part of a racket that fails, and it is the part an unstructured bag protects least.

A backpack spreads the load across both shoulders. A shoulder-style paletero puts it on one side, which is fine for a walk from the car and noticeably less fine across a tournament day. Pick by how far you actually carry it. If the walk is a hundred metres it barely matters. If you take public transport, park a block away or walk to the courts, it matters more than anything else about the bag.

Not in this one. The racket has its own compartment rather than sharing the main space with balls, a bottle and whatever else is in there. On a soft bag without separation the frame rubs against everything, and on a bag with no structure it can also be pressed into a curve by whatever is packed around it. A moulded shell cannot bend that way.

It depends whether you change at the club. A dedicated shoe compartment is genuinely useful on a large kit bag. On a compact backpack it costs more volume than it saves, which is why the NomadX backpack does not have one: it is built around a racket, balls, a bottle and your valuables, and court shoes travel separately.

A thermal compartment slows heat reaching the racket. It does not stop it. A car at 38 degrees outside reaches around 47 inside the cabin and close to 70 on the dashboard within an hour, and sustained heat degrades the foam and adhesives inside a padel racket whatever bag it is in. Our position is that no racket should be left in a car in a South African summer, and we put that on the care card rather than selling you a compartment that makes it feel safer than it is. The NomadX backpack has no thermal compartment and we do not claim one.

The honest version. Under about R700 you are buying unlined fabric and a zip that will go first. Between R700 and R1,500 you are mostly buying construction, which is the part that decides how long it lasts. Above that you are usually buying capacity you will not use or a tour name on the side. The NomadX Hardshell Padel Backpack is R890 on pre-order, against R1,150 once the first run lands.

Whichever one you will spot on a full rack from the other side of the court, which is the entire reason the range is ten colours rather than one. In practice: Electric Blue and Sunset Orange are the easiest to find at a distance, Forest Green and Deep Burgundy are the quietest without being black, and Pitch Black is the only one that will not help you find it. Every colour has its own page with its own photographs.

Every bag photograph on this site except Lilac Purple is a digital representation produced from photography of the physical bag, so the colour may vary slightly from what arrives. Lilac Purple is photographed from the physical bag. If the colour is not what you expected, you have seven days from delivery to send it back for a full refund.

Longer than most people expect, and what fails is rarely the fabric. Zips and the stitching around handles and straps go first on almost every bag, which is why they are worth looking at before volume or pockets. We offer the six month quality guarantee required under South African law and no warranty beyond it, and we would rather state that plainly than advertise a number we cannot stand behind.

Wipe it with a damp cloth, never a solvent, and let it dry open rather than closed. Do not leave it in a hot car, which is the single most useful piece of care advice in padel and the one nobody gives: a dashboard passes 69 degrees within an hour on a 38 degree day, and that heat is bad for a racket and bad for any moulded shell. Keep it out of standing water. There is nothing else to it.

Do not store damp kit in it, which sounds obvious and is most of the answer. Our backpack has no ventilated shoe compartment, because it has no shoe compartment at all, so wet shoes and a damp shirt should travel separately and come out the same day. Wipe the inside dry and leave it open rather than zipped if it has been raining.

Two to three business days to the main centres, three to four regional, three to five outlying, and five to seven to remote areas. Orders are dispatched within one business day, so the clock starts the next morning rather than the moment you pay. A pre-ordered bag is dispatched when the first shipment lands in the first week of December.

Yes. Seven days from delivery to cancel for any reason under South African consumer law, and a 30 day exchange beyond that on unused stock in its original packaging. On a pre-order you can cancel for a full refund at any time before the bag is dispatched. Message us before you send anything back so we can tell you where it goes.