Sprayway TL Mountain Jacket

Michael Brabenec 1

06/04/2001 at 18:36

Hi all. Being a student on a budget, I'm after a 'do it all' jacket that will cope with four seasons.

It's 2 layer tasan goretex

Is it good at £170, and if not, what is?

neil rich

06/04/2001 at 19:57

you've been looking at outdoorgarage.com I think
If you want this jacket then it's a good price, but theres lots more out there, if you don't particularly want to stick to a brand then find a 'discount shop' and have a browse. My favourite is Gaynor sports in the lakes. They also have a web site. They have loads of bargains from various manufacturers, last years colours, designs or whatever at big reductions. Also , in my opinion, don't dimiss anything that isn't Gortex, lots of manufacturers are using similar performance membranes although mr Gore would probably have us believe otherwise.
You can get a lot of jacket for £170 so spend wisely

neil l

06/04/2001 at 20:20

If u r on a buget try the Keela stuff
Why
1 its built in scotland - not a far eastern sweathouse
2 zero condensation
3 its fairly tough
4 they have wired hoods (Munro)
5 snowskirts
6 farily cheap (£140 Munro)

the only thing wrong is that it'll be hot in the summer and Very Heavy (Paramo like)

Michael Brabenec 1

06/04/2001 at 21:58

Thanks for the responses Neil(s!)

I browsed www.outdooraction.co.uk, and the sprayway looked like decent value. But as I'm not tied to any brands, the I'll keep looking as I'm not in any rush.

Rockrun had the MHardware Ascent Tech (conduit) for £80, but not in my size!

Are there any non-gortexes that suck? I've heard that one of the Marmont ones does when it comes to waterproofability.

Jon Doran

07/04/2001 at 14:29

Vast generalisation, but coatings tend to be less breathable than membranes - with some exceptions. MHW Conduit's pretty good, but not for gloves with pile linings...

I'd be wary of Lowe Triple Point from the point of view of breathability. Triple Point Ceramic is pretty good, but plain old Triple Point isn't as good on the breathability front. If you can find something normally priced at around 150 quid at a bargain price, you should be okay. There's very little around priced over 100 squid from the better known brands that's not decent - though at this point someone will leap in with tales of woe.

You guys are going to love the review system once we've launched it. Already operating on BIKEmagic.com and works really, really well. Should be ace for this sort of research.

Jon - editor

OutdoorsMagic Editor | jon@outdoorsmagic.com

Dave O aka Jungle Dave ;)

09/04/2001 at 14:42

I bought a Lowe alpine Triple point ceramic jacket at Chrsitmas time and it only cost me about £130 (jacket is a foreaker) and it is brilliant it copes with the crap weather we have had recently. Have a look at a Lowes Website as well

Jon Doran

09/04/2001 at 14:46

www.lowealpine.com if you were wondering.

OutdoorsMagic Editor | jon@outdoorsmagic.com

Rob Wylie

09/04/2001 at 15:23

Basically you do get what you pay for. If you can pick up a bargain then great, but price should NOT be a guide to performance i.e. if it's expensive it must mean it's a marketing rip off or if it's cheap it must mean that it's not very good. All very boring, but widely true.

Jon Doran

09/04/2001 at 15:30

There's a certain amount of truth in that - Rob works for Mountain Hardwear by the way - though you can still buy a decent jacket for less than you might think. MHW's Conduit gear has a lot of hte technical features you also find on their high end stuff.

You do though often find good stuff at end of season prices when new models and colours come in. You could argue that if the kit was any good, it would have sold at its recommended price, but its not always as simple as that. Rock and Run often have some very decent kit at very good prices when it's end of range, there's also an Ellis Brigham clearance outlet in Capel Curig and others if you look around. Ironically, sometimes stuff's reduced because its original price was just a tad more than the market would support.

OutdoorsMagic Editor | jon@outdoorsmagic.com

Rob Wylie

09/04/2001 at 15:47

Jon you are right - I just wanted to explain that price isn't the performance indicator (positive or negative). True if you don't mind a dodgy colour (or if you are size Small or XL) chances are you can get a genuine bargin, especially this time of year (end of season).

Jon Doran

09/04/2001 at 16:16

Price is a weird sort of thing anyway - going off at a tangent, how is it that a pukka shock absorber for my mountain bike would cost me around 300 quid, but for the same price, I could have four top quality car shock absorbers and a set of top notch, progressive springs? I know some of it's economies of scale, but it seems a bit mad to me. I'm not saying that expensive things are a rip off or that quality is or isn't related to price - sometimes it is, sometimes not - just that what determines pricing levels is so variable.

My advice, if you want to save money, is not to over specify kit. You see lots of people wearing expedition jackets to walk in the Lakes for example. Nothing wrong with that, but you pay more for a load of features you'll probably never use, a bit like going to Sainsbury in a souped-up Ferrari when all you need is a Ford Fiesta, if that makes any sense.

OutdoorsMagic Editor | jon@outdoorsmagic.com

neil rich

09/04/2001 at 19:42

I have a peugeot estate and shop at tesco.
Is this acceptable?

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