I’m a Briggs & Riley luggage fan. My standard carry on currently is their Baseline CX — an improvement over the 20″ baseline I was carrying previously because it’s lighter and has a new compression system — basically a design-assisted way to scrunch down the bag (the modern equivalent of putting it on the bed and sitting on it) in order to shove in more stuff. Which frankly is a key component of what I’m looking for in a carry on.

Briggs & Riley bags are high quality. They have a lifetime guarantee that the reports I’ve seen are of it really being honored. I’ve never had occasion to test it, since my bags haven’t been destroyed (I did have a throwaway off-brand bag eaten once by Alaska Airlines’ baggage system in Seattle, but no such damage to my Briggs & Riley bags). That’s actually the most important test, in a way — that they offer a lifetime guarantee that’s actually honored is a pretty good testament to build quality since it must mean they don’t expect to need to honor it very often.

But the bag I carry isn’t all that sexy, it’s a two-wheel upright and I do occasionally glance over at the Rimowa Salsa bags I see dancing through the terminal.

I haven’t tried it myself yet, but Briggs & Riley has come out with new bags. They don’t compensate me in any way to share the opportunity but since I hear from just about every travel company’s PR folks every week when there’s a brand I like a lot sometimes I hit them up to see if they want to give stuff away to my readers. And Briggs & Riley was amenable.

Briggs & Riley‘s new TORQ bags offer the sort of cool hard shell that I think looks really great, an extra wide wheel base to prevent tipping no matter how much you shove in, and four spinner wheels that let you pull the bag tilted or wheel it upright.

The hard shell is reinforced to prevent damage. I’d expect the wheels to eat lots of damage but this is a manufacturer that stands behind their products 100% so it seems a good bet.

Of course Briggs & Riley is all about functional luggage, as much as I like the look of the new bags their bread and butter is the business market epitomized by their @work line.

Now, these are not inexpensive bags. Not the most expensive by any means but you need to be a serious traveler to make them worthwhile. Part of me is still the $25 bag picked up on Nathan Road kinda guy. Run a carry-on into the ground, toss it, replace. But I’m past the point where I want a bag that doesn’t balance well or where the handle is inconvenient to pop up. So I do like a better bag.

With these two bags together Briggs & Riley says they “have your business and leisure covered… Don’t sweat it this summer, Briggs & Riley has thought of it for you.”

That’s a strong claim, and my past experience with their bags support it. I admit I’d love to give these a try myself but my commitment is to do giveaways of pretty much anything I can get access to rather than keeping merchandise for myself. Hopefully the winners will return here and let me know their experiences!

I’ll be giving away one bag from each line.

• Come back this afternoon and I’ll post the TORQ giveaway. Winner picks the color.

• Then next week I’ll post the @work giveaway.

Stay tuned!

(Disclosure: I do not receive anything from Briggs & Riley in exchange for this giveaway. I’m not even getting product samples. I just try to bring available merchandise that I’m a fan of to my readers whenever possible.)