Alpkit (and other stuff)

I have to be honest… I have an awful lot of gear…. It’s not just the cycling… it’s the hiking, kayaking, camping (and was mountaineering when I had weekend access to mountains worth the effort)…. To be honest most stuff you can buy these days for the outdoors market, whether it’s cycling, hiking, kayaking or whatever, does what it’s supposed to…. I use a lot of different bits of kit in my outdoors life, most of it I can’t be bothered to say anything about mainly because it just works and most of the large manufacturers have such extensive marketing campaigns and exposure in magazine/web reviews I don’t see the point in repeating what has already been written elsewhere…. after all, that is what Google was invented for right (as well as earning stupid amounts of $$$ for it’s owners/shareholders)? From time to time however I come across some bits of gear that are just brilliant… which is my pretty lame lead-in to telling you about Alpkit (http://www.alpkit.com/). If you didn’t already know they are a small British outfit, selling direct, making some pretty bloody good kit for a usefully small amount of £. By ‘good’ I mean functionally it’s well designed, well made, does it’s job very well, plus the products tend to be of an innovative and interesting flavour while still being useful… (at this point I should say I have no personal interest in Alpkit at all, just telling you about some stuff I’ve found to be really good… though if anyone from Alpkit is reading then freebies are always welcome, lol)

My first Alpkit product was a 25 litre waterproof roll-top backpack called the Gourdon. Tough and simple I used it on my bike tour of Ecuador and Colombia… I liked it because it works really well as a waterproof stuffsack on the rear rack for carting around things like extra clothing, camera, sleeping bag etc but means I have a backpack too for days off the bike when I want to go hiking in the mountains or schlepping around the local markets.

(sorry, I really like useless pics that like that above masquerading as informative…)

My bike trips tend to have quite a lot of days exploring on foot as well as biking so it was ideal. 2 months of being lashed to my rack bounced around on poor roads haven’t left it with any weak spots that could compromise waterproofness. It only cost £20 too…. It was so good that when I got home I saw they’d released a smaller 20 litre version complete with mesh pockets and a bungee cord… for even fewer £. I bought it, it’s been in use continuously since as a commuting backpack for wet days and on day hikes. I used it this past weekend in the Brecon Beacons (more on that in a mo) and it was great – comfortable to wear all day and tough as the old proverbial…

I also just bought a bivy bag for £30 to take to Tunisia. I have a hooped bivy already which I hope I don’t miss in the desert… <not expecting rain> which I would take but it’s not very discreet being bright red. So instead I have this, exciting isn’t it (note cunning arrangement to show the logo..):

It only weighs 300grams and is as discreet a colour as I can find anywhere. I’ll let you know how it performs when I get back.

what else.. umm, ah yes… the Jeanius (great name, being dim took me ages to figure it out…ahem). When I’m travelling by bike I really really like the luxury of having some normal clothes to wear when I’m not on the bike.. you know, in case you want to hang out at the local salsa joint without looking like something from the North Face brochure (albeit scruffir and dirtier).. The trouble is regular kit doesn’t work very well when you’re ‘out there’ in terms of getting wet and dirty… and it’s kind of heavy to lug around for those few times when you really do want to blend in and feel ‘normal’… cue the Jeanius… a pair of jeans that should, in theory, work really well in the great outdoors… a reasonable cut for being active in without looking like a tit, bit stretchy, water-resistant and probable implications for easy cleaning… not surprisingly I now have a pair and I’ll be giving them a decent work out too over the next few months.. stay tuned. In the meantime tho you can read all about them on the website anyway.

Before I leave this topic I might as well mention the various other things they do really well… waterproof stuffsacks, titanium in various forms (including a rather nifty folding cutlery affair), clever tent pegsand some really good value down sleeping bags and jackets, thermarest-style mattresses and so on that may not be the lightest in their class but they’re cheap for what they are and well made too… After all is said and done however, even if you don’t want anything(no-one ‘needs’ a folding titanium spork after all) the website and online shop is worth a visit anyway to read the product descriptions… possibly not the best example as it goes with the one useless item, the tin can man, on the website is this one:

“Nick Chopper was busy with his axe, every so often he would get a bit careless and as his name suggests, chop off a limb. Each time he made a new limb out of tin, after a while he had replaced everything but his heart. Eventually Dorothy came along to take him away, but he wasn’t having any of it. With a world class swing and every part of him bullet proof he was going to take on the gnarliest alpine routes and the most overhanging M14s. One day he found his heart, but it was stolen the very same day by a girl called Nimmie so he gave up the climbing and put himself on the shelf.“

Enough of that, I think I’ve given them enough of a plug… so, yeah – apols for being a bit quiet over the last week or so. I’m being “swamped by life” as a friend rather succinctly put it. I did escape for a long weekend tho, just some quality hill, camp and pub time with a bunch of nice folk from the OM forum. I’ve visited the Brecon Beacons and Black Mountain on many occasions but always on two wheels… skinny rubber as well as knobby. I’d been meaning to visit on foot for a few years so it’s nice to have finally got around to it. It was very much a weekend of deja-vu moments… “hey, I know that trail” or “hey, I know this road” and especially “hey, I’ve been in this pub before”… We completely lucked out for this time of year.. the weather looked like this:

and the hills looked like this:

perfect.

Even the conversation was good with only the slightest amount of geekery creeping in of the “my tent is lighter than your tent” flavour. I opted out of all of that by dint of the fact that we were ‘basecamping’ so I took my biggest, most comfortable tent and chunkiest, most comfortable mattress.. and had some seriously good quality ZZZZZzzzs at night as a result.