New Gear From The Show - Part Two

Go Outdoors Trade Show - The Best New Gear Part 2

Somewhat predictably, this is the second part of our look at the new gear for next year direct from the Go Outdoors annual outdoors trade show in beautiful Harrogate, home of a million chintzy guest houses and the only part of the home counties actually located in North Yorkshire.

We can't claim to have covered everything - sorry to anyone who was missed out - but here's some more of the highlights from the likes of MSR, Black Diamond, Mountain Equipment, Lowe Alpine, Marmot and others.

Remember, most of it won't be in the shops until around March next year, so don't go upsetting your local outdoors shop by asking for it now.

National Geographic

You might have mistaken National Geographic for a rather nice magazine, but the company has now licenced its name and is churning out appropriate products. The boots are already out there and are produced by a major footwear manufacturer called 'K-Swiss' - they also make Kickers.

Most of the range is lowland or travel stuff, but the top three models in the range are suitable for mountain use, albeit on the pricy side of things. The top of the range Pyrenees, for example, retails for £165, which is a lot more than the magazine.

Also in the pipeline for next year are a range of National Geographic packs all turned out in smart corporate yellow and black and produced under licence by a US specialist called Interbrand - see their web site. The packs on display at the show certainly looked in the American vogue and quite smart with and the fabrics including Hypalon (think Zodiac dinghies) and a tough-looking reinforced polyester look tough. The emphasis is on backpacking and travel rather than mountain use and build on the samples looked good. No prices yet though.

New Nat Geo packs look the part with all mod cons, dual-stay internal frames, hydration systems and side front and bottom access to sac

Black Diamond

There's nothing massively dramatic up the Black Diamond sleeve, or if there is, we missed it, but a few neat touches and developments that look neat enough.

For starters the BD Moonlight LED head torch has a new Moonlight Pro partner in lighting. The Pro is distinctively silver in colour, but gets three AA cells instead of the original's smaller AAAs. The result, with lithium batteries, say BD, is a potential burn time of 400 hours. Otherwise it's like the original with a tilting housing, four LEDs and headband-mounted battery box. Light output is the same too.

The other tweaks are to the distinctive FlickLock trekking poles, which we like a lot. Next year, the lower FlickLock fastening is replaced by a heavy duty Binary adjustment system. The thinking is that the lower section doesn't need to be adjustable in length so a simple pull-out and twist mechanism that simply snaps into position makes more sense. A good move as it was usually the lower FlickLock that had a tendency to slacken off slighty when not in use.

There's also a new anti-shock pole, which is the first we've seen to house the spring mechanism in the handle. The thinking is that it's better to keep weight high up so it doesn't affect the swing of the pole. There's a new light weight cork handle to go with it too.

MSR

A couple of developments from MSR. One is a redesigned pump for the XGK and Whisperlite ranges which incorporates a simmer valve for those of you who always burn the hell out of your chocklit pud. It'll be standard on new stoves soon but also retro-fittable to older versions of the stoves.

There's also a new gas-fired stove, the WindPro (above). It's an alpine stove with a remote, tripod-mounted burner, which gives much greater pan stability than with cartridge-mounted stoves, but the careful use of materials means that it feels much lighter than other similar stoves we've used from GoGas and Coleman. Should be a winner, especially for snow melting...

Lowe Alpine

The biggest news on the Lowe Alpine stand was their partnership with eVENT fabrics, which we've covered in a separate article, but there's a lot more in the pipeline beside.

One big development for Lowe is the new range of Hyperlite lightweight packs. Like Berghaus, Lowe have decided to side-step ultra-minimalism, in favour of a combination of lighter construction with a more conventional back system than, say, GoLite (who have no back system).

The new packs have no lids and some neat tweaks like ridged aluminium staves to save weight, but are designed to carry multi-day loads with full, albeit smallish, hip-belts. The largest version is aimed at expedition use and therefore designed to manage full climbing loads.

The packs go by the names of Ion, Quark and Neutrino - isn't he a rapper of some description? - and can be recognised by the lack of lids.

Elsewhere Lowe say that 90 per-cent of their clothing is new for spring next year. We haven't got space to go into all the details, but there's a new range of - oh no - casual-type clothing with dreaded stylish looks, plus some baselayer newness as well. You'll be able to buy casual-looking but still functional stripey Dryflo tee shirts plus there's a long-sleeved version of the multi-textures Dryflo Zone top to stop yer arms burning in the sizzling Lake District sunshine.

Mountain Equipment

We ran a scoop on some of ME's new stuff earlier this summer - remember the sleeping bags with built-in, mummy-shaped mats? How could you forget? And if you have, shame on you.

ME had a few other interesting bits and bobs on show in Harrogate. One neat development is a 100 per-cent waterproof stuffsac going by the name of the Pneumo. Available in dazzling orange or dazzling orange, it makes a great hat. Alternatively you could use the dri-bag type roll-over sealing top to keep water out of your sleeping bag after expelling the air through a cunning built-in, one-way valve - think inflatable mat-style gubbins. Prices will range from £13 for a 5-litre version up to £25 for a 50-litre biggy come rucksac liner.

Also in orange is a new ME self-inflating Insulmat sleeping mat with a distinctive coffin shape. Okay the shape saves weight by shaving grammes at head and toe, but that's only part of it. The foam used is apparently hollowed horizontally for maximum efficiency, it has a grippy Grip Tec finish to stop you rolling into a small, cold ball at the end of your tent and a lighter grade of foam at the foot where there's less pressure. And hey, it fits straight into coffins too. Oops, sorry.

No chance of losing this on a dark and stormy night then. Favourite colour? Orange

Last but not least, like pretty much everyone else, ME has a new Paclite 3 jacket, but while their's isn't the lightest - we reckon that's the 270 gramme Berghaus smock or Haglofs 280 gramme LIM Ultimate - it's the lightest Paclite 3 top to have passed Gore's extreme wet weather test. Weight is 390 grammes, with a full wired-hood, map pocket, water-resistant zips and ME's neat cut.

But really last but not least, the ME rucksac range has had a small addition in the form of the new 25-litre Cirque pack. Unfortunately our pic is absolute pants - come on, it was the last day of the show - but it's a neat zip-entry, fast-movers' pack with hydration facility and a 3D mesh back for ventilation. It looks neat. And very black. Trust us.

Marmot

There's always been interest in Marmot's lightweight PreCip jacket on the OM forum, with a few satisfield customers putting their opinions where their money went, so we reckon on some real takers for their new PreCip Plus Meteor jacket which is new for next year.

The Meteor's cut is modelled on Marmot's established Liquid Steel jacket and it's a very neat bit of kit with welded pockets and seams reducing bulk and adding mobility, a full zip-away hood, neoprene wrist closures and reflective strips - you can see those all right because of the flash...

The real ace though is the new, improved PreCip plus fabric. Like standard PreCip it uses a combination of hydrophobic and hydrophilic PU with a special silk-based polymer in a microporous coating. The Plus version though is more breathable, standard PreCip scores around 60 on the RET breathability scale, Plus registers 50-55 which is close to Gore XCR. Feels nice and soft against the skin too.

The Meteor weighs in at 'less than 450 grammes' and will retail for £150 when it appears next spring.

Vasque

Another big American brand that's starting to make a name over here; Vasque have been shedding their standard brown leather boots image with a raft of interesting new products over the past 18 months.

A couple of developments really caught our eye. There are a two new trail-running shoes dubbed 'Velocity' and available in men's and women's versions. The one that might appeal to British winter runners is the waterproof version which features a zipped upper to keep the mud out over an inner lined with a highly breathable waterproof fabric. We could tell you what it is, but then you'd have to kill us, or something like that, so we won't.

The other interesting development - and these are due in the shops this autumn we think - are the Talus approach shoes which are the first non-Five-Ten shoe we're aware of to use the aweseomely sticky Stealth rubber. They're also available with Gore's new XCR waterproof breathable liner, which we think is significantly better in warm conditions. Prices are £65 for the shoe, £85 for the shoe with XCR and £90 for the XCR-lined mid version. Very nice.

Petzl

We recently carried our first impressions on the newly available Duo LED head torch with a five-LED module which gives a choice between halogen and LED lighting - it's in the shops about now and the five-LED module is also retro-fittable if you already own a standard Duo. Cost of the module is 25 squid.

But if five LEDs simply aren't enough, Petzl has just announced an eight-LED version. It's more than a simple add-on though. The newer, higher-powered version features different electrical gizmos, so you can choose between three different LED setting - full, intermediate and economic - it's also regulated to provide a steady level of power for between five and 65 hours then, when it senses that battery life is low, it switches to a 'background light' setting for the next 45 hours so you can start reading your copy of Touching the Void with confidence. Should be available soon and, we'd guess, the extra LEDs will provide enough light for confident walking use.

And that's it for part two. More quick takes in part three...