Cycling UK Forum

boris wrote:bubble-wrap, ladies may prefer double thickness, works well enough and is very light and as long as you like for a tall person.

You really know how to treat a lady

bogmyrtle wrote:

boris wrote:bubble-wrap, ladies may prefer double thickness, works well enough and is very light and as long as you like for a tall person.

You really know how to treat a lady

Brilliant.

That's tiny!

...and light, but far more comfortable than a traditional Thermarest! I use the Exped Downmat 7 pump for the cold weather and the Neoair for normal conditions. After an accident 3 years ago leaving me with bad shoulder injury I have trouble sleeping on traditional mats, but these, to me, are a revelation and I can have a decent night's sleep whilst camping.

I have given up on traditional self-inflating mattresses and now use an Exped Synmat UL 7S. Very happy with the change and I sleep much more comfortably. It is also light and packs up really good. Inflating takes a little more effort but deflating is a breeze.



Andrew

That's tiny!

...and light, but far more comfortable than a traditional Thermarest

Indeed it is. Just one cautionary note. I originally bought a 3/4 length Neoair as I'm only 5'4 and I'd always been happy with a 3/4 old style thermarest. However the extra thickness meant I couldn't get comfortable sleeping on my back as it was permanently arched. Putting panniers etc under my feet helped but I eventually gave up and sold it and bought a regular length Neoair. The mutts' nuts!

Nip down to Decathlon and get their self inflate mattress at a smidge under £20. You might need to add some air but it worked fine for me and its half the weight of my Thermarest 3/4 ultra. Team it up with their generous £5 blow up pillow for a great nights sleep!

I'm not against spending money on the right stuff but sometimes the big brands can be beaten on price, size and weight.

Alternatively sleep direct on the ground, no extra space needed but you might get a stiff back on hard ground!

foxyrider wrote:Nip down to Decathlon and get their self inflate mattress at a smidge under £20... half the weight of my Thermarest 3/4 ultra... not against spending money on the right stuff but sometimes the big brands can be beaten

Re big brands being beaten, the lightest Decathlon self-inflating mat I could see is 360g, certainly impressive at £25. The Thermarest ultralite 3/4 is 440g, but it's from a decade ago. Modern ones go as low as 230g (xsmall prolite) or 310g for 3/4 size. It's 260g for the equivalent sized Neoair.

I ended up buying the Alpkit 'Kipper'...

It's the kid's sleeping mat, but with the dimensions only 2cm shorter in length and 10cm shorter in width than the adult size, and a whole 140g lighter in weight... I was without a choice!

Self-inflating, good quality material and lightweight for 1/3 of the price of the more expensive brands.

Bargain

For anyone interested in the NeoAir - Field & Trek have the regular size for £87. However if you go to Go Outdoors, although they list the regular for £112.50 they do a "Beat a competetive price by 10%". I tried that and got one for £81.89 simply by showing the email response, that I had from clicking on the price promise, at the till.

Rick.

I'm just getting back into bike camping after a few (20!) years break. I'm amazed that people are now willing to stump up huge sums on self inflated (sic) sleeping mats. Surely a classic foam roll up doodad is what you need? Lighter cheaper warmer.

doctor-bond wrote:I'm just getting back into bike camping after a few (20!) years break. I'm amazed that people are now willing to stump up huge sums on self inflated (sic) sleeping mats. Surely a classic foam roll up doodad is what you need? Lighter cheaper warmer.

If you haven't looked for 20 years you'll be amazed at what technology has done to camping gear in that time! Not all of it may be for you, but for stuff you use a lot and/or are fussy about it's worth kitting yourself out with modern stuff.

In the case of sleeping mats, roll up foam mats are much bigger when packed and the wind resistance of carrying one probably equates to carrying something much heavier in terms of the extra pedal power needed to lug it around. Inflating ones are much more comfortable to sleep on (mine is 7cm thick!) and pack up small enough to go inside a pannier, and they aren't that much heavier than foam ones.

The idea, if you buy an (expensive) top quality one, is that you only need to buy one once. If my Thermarest gets damaged I can return it to the manufacturer to be fixed for £18 (if I can't repair it myself, and I've repaired a couple successfully), so it should last me many many years and even the old ones sell on ebay for nearly the retial price of new ones so I can always resell if I want to swap for something else later.

I used to use an A frame tent, which I'm sure would still work, but I love my new Vango Tempest which packs small enough to go inside a pannier and weighs a fraction of the A frame's weight

doctor-bond wrote:I'm just getting back into bike camping after a few (20!) years break. I'm amazed that people are now willing to stump up huge sums on self inflated (sic) sleeping mats. Surely a classic foam roll up doodad is what you need? Lighter cheaper warmer.

Cheaper, yes, lighter, yes, bulkier, yes, warmer, no, comfier, no. Try putting a foam mat in your front pannier. Another case of each to their own.

If you are careful, very careful you'll find the self-inflating mats very comfortable and will last a long time. But lay it on some grass to sit on and be prepared to have a trail of tiny tiny holes made by anything spikey - tiny thistles, a trail of a bramble etc - almost impossible to find but generally enough for you to hit terra-firma before dawn. Personally I always recommend carrying a foam mat as well - it doesn't weigh anything, just straps on behind (who on earth worries about wind resistance on a loaded tourer!) and it can be used for all those evenings sitting on the grass, and as an emergency mattress under the self-inflating item - in fact do this anyway as the combination is greater than the sum of the parts.

For round-the-world cyclists, don't even think about it - just take two foam mats and sleeping pills:-)

I like the luxury of sleeping on a Neoair but I also carry a short piece of foam mat wrapped round my tent to protect it from any possible damage from the bungies and also for all the other things that Bretonbikes mentioned. I was amazed just how useful it turned out to be.

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.