Tom Hutton Let there
Is lighter kit always an advantage? Or is it a compromise that some would rather not make? Tom Hutton looks at the pros and the cons.
I
was cleaning my mountain bike many years ago, outside my house, when my neighbour’s little girl, Becci, came out to see me; wheeling a shiny new pink bicycle which she duly started to tell me about in a way only 5-year olds can. I learned about the pedals, the handlebar tassels and even the big, fat white tyres. Having explained all there was to know about bikes to me, Becci propped her new mount up on its side stand and walked over to my bike, lifting it from the wall and exclaiming ‘it’s not very heavy is it?’
Beaming with pride – all those titanium parts were worth the outrageous price I paid for them after all – I was just about to agree with her when she added ‘it’s obviously not a very good one’ and put it down again, raising her eyes to the heavens as she did so.
There’s a moral to this story. And it’s not ‘don’t waste your money buying expensive mountain bikes for little girls.’ The moral, as I see it, is that lightweight gear is often misunderstood. Becci, bless her, who hadn’t yet ridden her bike up the road from her house let alone put it on her shoulder to carry it over the Garburn Pass, didn’t need a light bike. And there are plenty of well-educated outdoor consumers out there that probably feel the same; even if they are being bombarded with all kinds of marketing messages telling them otherwise. This is where the outdoor retailer comes in. It’s up to him or her to identify the real requirement of their customer and then to fit him or her out accordingly.
The first thing, perhaps, is to understand for any given item just how the weight has been shaved off. The answer is usually one, or more, of the following:
Technology – development in materials has resulted in similar or even improved performance from something that actually weighs less than the more traditional version. Think Dyneema over Cordura, or titanium over steel, as just two examples – there are hundreds and then there’s the technological advances in construction techniques, for example welded seams. The downside of this type of diet is that it usually costs more.
Trimming – weight can be saved by completely removing features or even making things smaller eg less pockets or shorter hems on waterproofs. The upside of this is that it sticks with tried and tested materials and by using less of them should even
12 SGB OUTDOOR AUGUST 2010
be Light
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