Legendary climbing pack brand Pod Sacs is now part of the same group as Rab and outdoordesigns.
You'll be seeing a lot more of cult climbing pack brand Pod
Sacs from this spring onwards with the brand having been taken
over by the company behind Rab and outdoordesigns.
Sheffield-based Pod was founded by Pete O'Donovan in the early
eighties with the packs being made mostly by Pete himself. Despite
being available only in a handfull of outdoor shops, Pete's focus on
quality and durability, made it a cult brand among hardcore Sheffield
climbers who appreciated the ruthless functionality of the packs.
The legendary Black Ice, a 50-litre(ish) all-rounder using
Cordura, Dyneema
and Hypalon with triple-stitched and bound seams, bar-tacked stress
points
and with a modular design allowing it to be stripped down from 1.6kg
to an ultra-low 950 grammes when needed.
To put Pod's legendary build quality it in perspective, we dragged
a mid 90s Pod Cragsac for a year in the late 90s and at the end of
the trip it still looked virtually brand new.
The downside though was that there were only five stockists of the
packs in the UK making them a bit of a rarity despite their obvious
quality.
More Packs, Same Quality...
Now that Pod's part of the Equip stable of companies, the brand
should be much easier to find, but Equip is adamant that the quality
of the packs will remain outstanding even though production is being
moved to the far east with the same emphasis on top-notch materials
and bombproof construction with triple-stitched seams and the
like.
Pete O'Donovan will continue to work with the brand with a focus
on quality control and design. The compact range of eight technical
climbing packs will continue to use bombproof fabrics like Cordura
and Dyneema, but larger production runs will also allow Pete to
incorporate other materials like Hypalon which he couldn't previously
use. The range also includes chalk bags, crash pads and a rope
bag.
As we understand it, initially the range will remain unchanged
albeit with some detail improvements, but with some new models mooted
in the future.
In many ways the story echoes that of another small Sheffield
brand bought by Equip a few years back, that was Rab. Hopefully Pod
will do just as well
More information from www.podsacs.com
once it's up and running again. You can expect to see new Pod Sacs
appearing in the shops early in 2008 though there may still be a few
Sheffield-made packs out there.
