Snugpak sleeping bags?

[slowpeddler]

Hi

I've been using my Snugpak sleeping bag for 10 years camping touring and have never been cold. I have pushed through the fabric at the bottom but it is merely a cosmetic tear

I have no intention of replacing it.

I have a Snugpak jacket and that really is bulky but the sleeping bag compresses down. I store it loose in a wardrobe until i need it and always send it for cleaning after every trip. It goes in my back roller with an Exped mat and still have room in the bag for lots of other gear.

If I were to replace it i think I would buy a Rab

John

[Sweep]

Interesting post slowpeddlar.

Can i ask which bag it is you have and what range of conditions you use it in?

Am slightly puzzled though. If you think it so great why would you contemplate a move away, to another brand, to Rab.

[slowpeddler]

Hello Sweep

i wasn't really clear. Its a Softee 3, the black military version that was being sold off cheap somewhere. Having said that I didn't notice them in the Sandhurst shop many years ago but then everything in there was olive green!

What I meant to say and will say now is that I have one or two items of Rab kit and I like it. BUT I am not going to change my bag. It has not been used for winter camping but has been used March to End September and that includes frost but not snow.

I think weight for cycle touring is an overworked criteria. Utility/cost/bulk/reliability is equally important to me. Get a good piece of kit and keep it.
I have tried lightweight kit but it doesn't last and I suffer from angina of the wallet. Buy carefully and look after it. If i wanted to be lightweight my doctor keeps mentioning the 10 kilos I ought to lose!

[Sweep]

Agree with you totally on weight and bikecamping slowpeddlar. So much superlightweight stuff seems to cause challenges to materials and hence cost. And needs very good quality control if it is not to fail.

It's for these reasons that i think my next bag will be a snugpak and have pretty much given up the idea of a superlight down bag.

Agree with you also about packed bulk. Important for me as I tend to pack a lot of stuff. This one of the things that looks good about snugpack bags. Far from light but seem to pack small. There's an army supplies shop in manchester that seems to have a broad range to check out.

Have you considered extending the temperature range of your snugpack with appropriate liners?

[pjclinch]

There's light and there's light though. In trying to appeal to weight weenies some things are going, IMHO, a bit further than is useful for most of the people, most of the time. This doesn't make them bad products, but it does end up with some of them getting sold to people who'd be better off with something else. So the lightest sleeping bags are aimed at the likes of Mountain Marathon competitors where it's one night, comfort is a very secondary issue and every gramme really does count, but marketing being marketing they want to shift as many as possible so tend to oversell the virtues rather.

My main sleeping bag is an ME Lightline. If memory serves I'd have got it at the tail end of the 90s and it's still going strong. By modern "ultralight" standards it's probably considered a bit of a brick, but it bulks and weighs less than similarly warm synthetics and is built not to fail on expedition, as opposed to being built to weigh as little as possible. There's still plenty of products like that about, but you do have to look across ranges and remember that the lowest possible weight isn't the only thing to worry about.

Not all down bags are built for weight weenies, and where the construction is from more robust materials the intrinsic lightness and compressibility of the fill should still put you ahead.

Pete.

[Sweep]

Thanks for the post pj. To clarify, if needed, i wasn't suggesting that any of those "advanced" products were bad products. Human nature to try and "improve" and "improve" stuff i suppose

[pjclinch]

I'm just pointing out that there are down bags for "real world" use as well as "elite endurance athlete" use. Most of my go-to kit dates back a few years and I tend to favour a built to last approach, but I still use down bags primarily for the lower bulk.

Pete.

[slowpeddler]

My last tuppence here,

I do use a compression bag, in fact it comes with a compression bag but I only compress it on tour. When compressed my Softee is quite packable.
In my standard back roller classic. I have the bag, my exped mat, pillow (compressed) spare clothes (I never take much, just wash and wear), first aid kit. Down the bottom are a couple of spare inner tubes and a folding 700x28 tyre, which I've never used. On the top, my waterproofs.

There's loads of good kit out there, if you're happy with your own then great.

The most important thing is to have fun on a bike. Camping touring for me is the ultimate freedom: no parking fees, no petrol pumps,no grotty hotels, you get up and get your head down whenever you want, park anywhere, eat at any time you like. Do what ever you like.

All this on an unladen machine that weighs less than a car wheel, what is there not to like about cycle touring with a tent?

John