"we do the Velez Adventure in all black, we only made a few"

<Sits up> Say what now?

Yes it's true!

 Only a few left though as they weren't for retail originally. wing me an email and I can get one to your favourite retailer for you to take a look at. Just to be clear It has no reflective piping though. (obviously only if we have your size left).

Skippy wrote (see)

Yes it's true!

 Only a few left though as they weren't for retail originally. wing me an email and I can get one to your favourite retailer for you to take a look at. Just to be clear It has no reflective piping though. (obviously only if we have your size left).

Skippy wrote (see)On the whole, feedback (and sales) show that in general people like the Velez

I would say that people LOVE the Velez! It's a fantastic garment.

NPC - Great service from Cioch. We will never please everyone which is why we have the realtionship with companies like Cioch and Hilltrek the main thing is you got exactly what you wanted? 

Kev wrote (see)

"we do the Velez Adventure in all black, we only made a few"

<Sits up> Say what now?

Kev, was your Spider/Paramo-in-black sense tingling?

Read the beginning of this thread about over-heating in Páramo and would like to make some comments.

 Páramo does noty just do Nikwax Analogy - we also do windproofs, which for many summer conditions, if you combine them with the right base layer, work perfectly.

Almost everyone to begin with thinks that they have to wear several layers under Paramo Analogy Waterporoofs even in mild 10 -15 C temperatures. It's a mistake. Depending upon your level of activity, you don't. I am a big guy, 6ft 4 and bit overweight, and I use a Cambia vest (not tee shirt) under a Third Element for cycling even down to 5 degrees. I have a local 1 hour route that takes in 3 one in six hills to keep me more or less healthy. I might carry a Torres gilet in my day pack for when I stop, and then put it on top ...

Other smaller and thinner people would freeze with that combination.

Your heat loss is dependent upon your surface to volume ratio. The bigger your surface area relative to your volume, the quicker you lose heat.  Large round people have a low surface area to volume, and skinny small people have a high one.

The key is not to put on much when you are working hard, but keep something in reserve that you can put on top of your clothing  when you slow right down or stop ... taking a windrpoof top off to put on a fleece is a silly idea ... better to wear very little under your windproof or your waterproof and then put something on top of both -- we call it overlayering ...

chris holloway wrote (see)

Then we must agree to disagree

What do you wear instead in the winter?

If it's really cold, I'll wear a Paramo Parameter S shirt (something like the Mountain Shirt, but I forget which exactly) and take a thin Pertex top for when the wind chill hits me. I find the thin Pertex is less sweaty, lighter and packs smaller than the Paramo windproofs. Not as water resistant though, but it's all a trade-off. I might carry a thin fleece (Polartec 100 thickness) but rarely use it unless resting or on an easy descent. A lightweight eVent waterproof goes in the pack just in case, but I try not to use it.

Now I know that a Paramo waterproof would do the job of a thin fleece + windshirt, but it would be in my pack most of the time, and it's a bit big and heavy for that (I have a Viento with the thinner lining). It also wouldn't give me the flexibility of fleece OR windshirt OR both and is, IMHO, slightly more sweaty in use than the kit I use. I also couldn't get away with a thin base layer plus the Viento since I don't normally wear the windproof unless I have to.

I think I'd be more tempted to carry the Viento if it was lighter and less bulky. All the Paramo jackets seem to have an excess of material, with many areas of 2 or 3 layers of the lining (e.g. the pockets and padded strips in the back). I may go to someone like Cioch one day and get something simpler made, although I'm not sure it would be worth it.

I'm not knocking Paramo - it's excellent kit, and my wife loves it, but some of it doesn't really suit me. Beyween the 2 of us we own 3 waterproofs, a windproof, countless Parameter S tops (love the stuff), 2 pairs of stretch leggings, a pair of gaiters and a few Parameter A travel shirts

My brain is sufficiently active to realise that if I'm too hot, I'm probably wearing too much.  So my experience of nikwax Analogy waterproofs has always taken that into account, and with even a damp cotton T or nothing underneath I've often been too hot, by which I mean uncomfortably hot, and wanting to remove the garment as a source of active discomfort.

Before I tried the 3E someone at Paramo suggested I'd overheated in my Nevada because I didn't understand the vents properly...  Eh?  Open vents, garment cooler, close vents, garment warmer: not exactly rocket science, and with minimal (sometimes even non-existent) under layers, and all venting as open as it would go, I still got too hot.

I'm 5'8" and at 70 Kg, not overweight.  And my experience of Paramo waterproofs at anything other than cold temperatures, irrespective of under layers and vents, is I find it too hot to be comfortable.  To the point where I find a "normal" waterproof more comfortable, certainly anywhere past 10 degrees and more like 5 unless I'm not doing much. 

I understand how additional clothing affects my perceived temperatre.  I understand I can modify things through venting.  I understand how my activity levels alter things.  And still I have often simply  got  too hot to be comfortable when doing anything active.  One in six hills at five degrees I'd be toast in a lined jacket, certainly not "freezing".  I wouldn't be freezing even if it was freezing...

Pete. 

you're a very warm person peter

another thing that gets touted as an aganst is the weight of paramo. it replaces a fleece, windshirt and shell - is there any appreciable difference in the comparative weight.

there is a tendency to regard the jacket as a waterproof and a want to carry the damn thing. at that weight, you must be joking (although some people do but it's not for me). no!  it just requires a shift in thinking. it's a jacket that happens to be waterproof. like a rab vr plus shell but nowhere near as hot as that combination.

from personal experience of comparing the velez against fleece/windshirt the velez wins hands down because of the front ventilation that isn't available with the fleece/windshirt. it wins against a fleece/shell for its sheer breathability and being able to have the leeside vent open - and imo a great hood that allows ventilation and doesn't make your head boil and which can be removed and used with a fuera.

has anybody found a use for the lower inside pocket on the velez other than threading your pack belt through?

Some people 'run hot', some people suffer from a medical conditions. I have a medical condition which means my body is incapable of properly controlling its temperature, I sweat like the proverbial pig when I'm working even moderately: a gentle stroll down the high street on a day like today will get me sweating all over; the staff in the gym think I'm about to expire after I've been jogging on the treadmill for ten minutes because I'm so sodden. Conversely, if I'm not moving I freeze (and it's nothing to do with being wet: I freeze just as well and just as quickly when I'm dry).

I have a Velez which I use with a thin baselayer in the depths of winter and the air temperature is near to zero. If it's any warmer, I'll sweat so much and my comfort is so compromised I cannot work. Much of the winter I walk in a thin baselayer and a Montane superfly or my Paramo fuera top.

If you have a normal metabolism, it is probably very hard for you to appreciate just how horrible having an abormal one can be, and how difficult it can be to 'dress appropriately'. For these people, like me, something like a Paramo top with a pump liner simply is not going to be right for them for much of the year. No 'you only need to wear a base layer' or 'you're going to sweat anyway and the pump liner will dry you out'. Those of you with normal metabolisms just have to accept that!!!

ps: I'm not anti-Paramo; one of my favourite pieces of kit is my Fuera, and I love the Velez on really cold winter days, and the idea behind it is great (though please do the Velez Adventure Ladies in some decent colours!!). 

Parky, it only replaces those things if I'm not otherwise going to be carrying them, and on a nice day it's entirely possible I won't be. Furthermore, I prefer to wear a light garment and carry another light one, than wear a heavy garment that I find too hot. The fact that I can use the fleece without the windproof, or the windproof without the fleece, means that a Paramo waterproof isn't a straight replacement.  Buffalo always argued a Mountain Shirt replaced 4 layers, and it does... but crucially what it doesn't do is replace just one of them, and the vents simply don't make up as much ground as the advertising suggests.

I am often stuck carrying it rather than wearing it, because I often find it too hot to wear it.  It doesn't require a shift of thinking to get around that, it requires it to be a cooler coat on a lot of the occasions I may want to wear it. It may not be as hot as a VR plus a shell, but I'd be wearing the shell over a base layer, not a VR.  I usually wear a layer or two less than folk around me.  In Norway last summer Roos would be wearing her Velez while I just wore a Parameta shirt on quite a few occasions, for example.

As for the comparison of windshirt/fleece, it rather depends which combination.  You say there's no front ventilation on a windshirt?  There is on my wife's Montane Helium... 

Yes, I obviously do run a lot hotter than a lot of other folk: that's natural variation for you.   And if you don't overheat in their waterproofs that's great... for you.  But I wish people would realise that for some of us you can't magically disspiate what we find to be uncomfortable levels of heat just by explaining to us that we don't understand the venting, or what our surface area/volume ratio is, and so on.  Ever see people who you think must be freezing as they're not wearing much, even though they seem to be perfectly happy?  Do you think they'll suddenly feel uncomfortably cold if you just explain to them?

I regard Paramo's waterproofs as very good bits of kit in the right place.  But for me that "right place" is not as a general mountain waterproof or even general mountain jacket.  I freely acknowledge that for a lot of people they're fine in that role, but that doesn't make them right in that role for everyone, and it isn't just because we're thinking about them the wrong way, or don't understand how they work. 

Pete. 

To add to Kate's post, note that the natural variation of "normal" also falls in the "can't use Paamo Analogy much of the time" spectrum.  I don't have (or at least have never been diagnosed with) a medical condition suggesting my metabolism is particularly weird, and I suspect it's just towards one end of the normal range.  I become a blob once we're at around 25, whatever I'm (not) wearing.

Pete. 

peter, apologies. i didn't make myself clear enough apart from you are obviously a warm person. my comments were not directed at you personally. they were general observations about objections that crop up which then don't make sense when the people then say what they do wear.

you have obviously sussed out what works best for you.

Parky, thanks for that note.  At least I can manage to be toasty when other folk are freezing with everything on, it is at least a two edged sword...  Nick, I have often felt like Paramo fans have treated me to egg-sucking for grannies 101, which is why I may over-react a bit... hopefully not too much!  Rest assured that the reversible shirts are well up among my favourite general hill-going garments for my body... quite often nothing else when those around me are wrapped up in 3 layers.

Pete.