Lightweight/fold-away sleeping mat

[johnb]

i've gone through 5 thermarest and exped self inflating mats in last two years. Used them as seats in a chair kit and they all delaminated.

now use mainly foam mats as they are indestructable for the chair kit and two matts for sleeping, one alpkit self inflating and a thermarest neoair small size as a spare. I have to take a spare as waiting 4/5 days when in scotland to get a replacement and sleeping on the floor is not fun.

total weight is less than 900g and well worth the redundancy.

using a self inflating mat to sleep on and as a chair when you are 14.5 stone and 5tf 10 just does not work.

Don't know what relevance your weight and height have on the failure of all your mats. I am both heavier and taller than you and have no problem.

[stephenjubb]

maybe its when I sit down due to dodgy knees I come down with a bit of force. even so even before I used a chair kit had delaminated 3 of them.

The exped sim lite is described as

High frequency welded seams and strong lamination of foam and fabric for durability. Delamination is generally the most common defect in self inflating mats and the reason why the lamination process gets special attention.

from http://www.exped.com/exped/web/exped_ho ... endocument

It took me 4 days to delaminate it.

Delaminated 4 thermarest prolites, 1 neoair and the above, I kinda give up on them.

[stephenjubb]

Also forgot 1 Exped Air Inflatable mat got punctures, Exped Downmat valve went and 3 other Alpkit beds (problems with valves) before they improved their design.

maybe I'm jinxed

suffice to say had enough of self inflating mats letting me down on tour.

2 have lasted 2-4 months of touring, the rest all within 2 weeks.

[johnb]

That's some record Stephen, you must be a nightmare for the manufacturers returns department.

[stephenjubb]

That's some record Stephen, you must be a nightmare for the manufacturers returns department.

[willem jongman]

The choice is wide these days. I think the insulated air beds are the new technology, and offer a vast performance improvement. For cold weather, the Exped downmat is great. For cool weather you have two good choices: the Exped Synmat Basic for a great price, and the Thermarest Neoair Allseason (sturdier than the classic Neoair) for a higher price, less pack volume and lower weight. If you are into really low weight gear for summer, there is now the Neoair Xlite (but more fragile and noisy) plus a couple of Exped extralight mattresses.
Willem

[alicej]

BTW I've fixed a tiny hole in a Thermarest on tour by finding the hole, deflating the mattress and closing the valve, putting a little blob of superglue over the hole and letting the suction of the mat trying to inflate itself suck a little of the glue inside.

Allowed it to dry and then inflated to sleep on with no problem. Worth knowing if you use them, I now carry a little plastic bottle of superglue in my kit (the metal tubes can split and spill the glue everywhere so plastic bottle is better).