Talkback: New From Mountain Equipment This Spring 2011

Jon, do you know how the ME Orbital compares to, say, the Rab Exodus? Obviously it's quite a bit lighter, but how do the fabrics compare? Cheers.

This is guesswork based on a previous experience of similar stuff, but I think the Orbital will, mostly likely, be more wind resistant - a quick blow test suggests it's pretty much windproof - but possibily not quite as breathable or as fast wicking, but I'd still expect it to be significantly better than than a membrane fabric. The ME fabric's smoother face may also be more abrasion resistant, but it's hard to know.

That's what I'd expect, but it's not always the way you think it will be. We're actually getting an Orbital in for review, so I should have a better idea before too long.

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OutdoorsMagic Editor | jon@outdoorsmagic.com 

Cool, thanks. It's nice to see there's now a fair few really promising softshells out there for under £150 that I can replace my knackered Macpac Stealth with.

Its intriguing because their website etc actually makes its sound rather like a membrane fabric. It'd be nice if they'd give that sort of fabric information!

I guess the stretch woven thing has maybe caught on over well after Haglofs bits sold rather well.  Certainly welcome though

There's a really wide spread of soft shell fabrics appearing, initially most of the non-membrane stuff seemed just to be in simple jacket form, but there are more technically-focussed, hooded variants appearing like these from ME, the Exodus from Rab, a couple of Haglöfs soft shells and others.

Putting hoods on soft shells makes a lot of sense in my book - what's the point of a fabric that can replace a hard shell most of the time if you then handicap it by producing it in a format which gives no head protection?

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OutdoorsMagic Editor | jon@outdoorsmagic.com 

I had a look at Exolite yesterday and it seems to be, although heavier in weight, (certainly the Exolite II does anyway) very much the same as Haglofs' Flexable used on their Viper II jackets and Lizard tops.
I was hoping for something a little new...

Well what precisely? There aren't that many ways of doing this and this is a good one

Having said that all the stretch wovens I've got/had do have subtly different fabrics and I've seen others, although no idea cf what practical difference it all makes.

(beyond air permeability of course, which they don't like telling us!)