Gear review: Baltic Flipper

First off  Packrafters sometimes choose not wear buoyancy aids, some even wrap their foam sleeping pads around themselves in an attempt to increase there safety in a risk benefit situation.

Now I have struggled with the concept of this for a while, having worked in the outdoors for 15 odd years and attending lots of white water rescue training course where it is drilled into you the you will wear your PPE (personal protective equipment) with in 15feet of the waters edge, let alone on it.

Enter the Baltic Flipper this snazzy garment out of the packet looks like your standard Gillet that you see outdoory types wearing around outdoory type places.

That's not two gillets but one it's reversible! Hows goods that? i can't find on the label what it's made out of but it feels similar to other buoyancy aid with like a hard wearing nylon/polyester/cordura type fabric?
It weigh in at around 630g for a size large, each block of buoyancy foam is swen into it's own pocket which should keep everything where it should be and allow the user to fold it in to on to what ever their chosen method of carrying gear is.

There are other options on the market that are a tad smaller and lighter, but they are not CE certified at 50N of buoyancy, so in my mind this is well worth the £121 price tag with free UK postage ( but I would say that wouldn't I?)

Overrall I reckon this is a great addition to your adventure tool set, the piece of mind of a certified buoyancy aid If you choose to wear it and the bonus of an extra piece of warm kit for you to look cool in on your adventures.

Cheers
Andy  Amazing gear and adventures found here

Surly Moonlander, Surly Pugsley photo shoot

First off A massive thanks to Paul Masson from Cycletherapy who kindly gave up a bluebird day and came and took some awesome pictures of myself and Rob riding fat bikes.

Enough from me I'll let Paul's work do the talking.

Enjoy  

Revelate/epic designs

During our recent expedition I had the opportunity to use some of these bags to haul my gear.

The setup comprises of : Frame bag, this can be custom made to fit your frame size/shape also custom widths incase you've got wonky knees.

Handlebar harness , this bit is really cool as it carries the big bulky(but light) stuff. An extra option is a top pocket which sits on top of the harness, I found this really usefull for snacks, spare gloves head torch and all the other little things you want to hand.

Saddle Bag, this amazed me you can fit so much gear in there, I had pack towel, spare trousers (not lycra but full on trousers) spare base layer, spare mid layer, spare waterproof socks, woolly hat and my down jacket! The other great thing i discovered was it did get in the way while riding and I could still drop my seat a couple of inches for decending chunk.

Here's what i thought about them,

Pros: The bags i'm sure would survive some kind of explosion or maybe a bear attack, very well thought out design

They force you to consider what your taking as they are not the T.A.R.D.I.S this is great because how many times have you returned from an adventure not having used the 27 pairs of pants you packed?

Because of the design you have to play the jigsaw game when packing, but in turn this means you know exactly where you have pack your hip flask.

The bags themselves weigh the same as air so your not lugging extra weight like with a BOB trailer (9kg on its own)

The bags have a custom option so at the time off building you can choose to have this there or that here, and the frame bag will fit your frame perfectly which really helps to keep it safe and secure

You can use all of them or one or any combo depending on what your doing.

Riding your bike is still good fun.

Cons: They force you to consider what your taking as they are not the T.A.R.D.I.S

You spend a little more time breaking camp and repacking (opposed to a BoB)

You can't just unhook them and go riding like the BoB but they will come off easy..ish

you would struggle to carry lots of food and your gear

If you choose the custom option it will only fit that bike (frame bag) nb the bags i borrowed were designed for a surly karate monkey but they just so happened to fit bike like a glove.

Overall

I really liked using the bags and will be e-mithering Eric at Revelate designs for a set of my own soon. I think and would there reasonably priced and would last and with all the custom options you can really tailor them to your adventures.

The shear flexibility has to be mentioned too ,multi day fun or overnight bivvi the bags have an answer.

Check them out on his website clicky