I like zealots. For starters they're more fun to talk to - give me
missionary fervour and a crazed glint in the eyes over studied
reasonableness any day. It's zealots who drive the world forward,
even if they drive it mad at the same time.
And GoLite founder Demetri Coupounas is a top notch, grade one
zealot for cert'. He's the man who pestered legendary ultra-light
trekking visionary Ray Jardine into making his lightweight designs
into a commercial product. And now 'Coup' as he's known, is standing
here in front of me telling the UK why we need it
too.
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Golite founder Demetri 'Coup'
Coupounas: 'Gear in the UK is
poorly designed and overengineered.'
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Here, in this case, being a cellar-like hall at the annual
Harrogate outdoors trade show, where Coupounas - nicknamed 'Coup' -
is unleashing his ultra-lightweight project range and philosophy on
the Brits.
'Gear here,' says Coup 'is poorly designed and over-engineered,
but still huge numbers of Brits are getting outdoors. People who do
want to go light though, just don't have the gear available to do
it.'
What he wants to do, and transparently, fervently, guilelessly
wants to do, is give the people that gear. It may sound odd to anyone
who associates ultralight kit with elite climbers and competitive
racers, but GoLite's philosophy is essentially about liberating the
masses.
Coup sees his market as 'discouraged hikers', the people who have
and did go outdoors, but are put off by black memories of huge,
sodden Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme rucksacks. People who associate
the outdoors with SUFFERING. As a aside, I can't help wondering how
many ex-D of E candidates ever set foot outside once the
certificate's signed, sealed and delivered.
Modern materials have given GoLite the capability to produce
incredibly light kit that still does the job, though at a price.
'Ounce for ounce,' says Coup proudly, 'it's the most expensive stuff
on the market.'
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Coup models the Gust climbing
pack: 18.5 oz / 523g,
RRP £130
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It's also a neat commercial idea - take GoLite's general pack, the
Breeze. It weighs in at a daft 11 or 12 oz depending on the size -
that's 340 grammes, for a multi-day hiking sack. To take an extreme
example, Lowe's Crossbow 70 + 20 weighs something around ten times
that weight. But the Breeze won't work unless you buy into the rest
of the system, for all its tough Spectra rip-stop Nylon construction,
it won't be able to carry bulky, heavy, conventional gear, so for it
to work properly, you have to buy into the entire system. That way
you get a multi-day pack weighing a bare 8 pounds.
That's right 8, E-I-G-H-T pounds. It's all about minimalism and, I
guess, at one stage removed, confidence. Things in the GoLite range
aren't so much pared to the minimum as redesigned from the ground
upwards. Sleeping bags are replaced by 'sleeping quilts', weighty
fleece by uncrushed Polarguard 3D insulated garments and there's even
a GoLite hiking umbrella in the range. All stuff that's been done
before, bu never as light and never as part of an integrated
system.
It's an attractive proposition: ditch the weight, move faster,
suffer less. But will it work in the UK? Not according to the
marketing manager of one large big UK gear company, who reckons the
harsh vagaries of UK weather call for a more robust approach,
something Coup himself obliquely acknowledges: 'What works in New
Zealand and Scotland,' he says 'doesn't necessarily work in
Colorado.' And presumably vice versa.
But then GoLite has tested its system in extreme climbing
situations and survived, nay prospered and Coup's chief designer
spent 15 years as top product designer for The North Face back in the
days when it was the cutting edge brand. 'My gear,' says Coup
proudly, 'is very inexpensive for what it does.'
The European operation is being set up as you read. A distribution
centre in Holland is designed to ensure that UK customers will get
exactly the same service and, believe it or not, prices, as their
equivalents in the States including a ten-day replacement period for
any unsatisfactory goods. A UK-specific web-site will be online
within the next few weeks at www.golite.co.uk, but the full range is
detailed on the US web site here.
Whether GoLite can convince British backpackers accustomed to
their heavy, robust packs to lay down their weighty gear and dance
across the hillsides remains to be seen, but I can tell you one
thing, that man Coup will be trying his darnedest. It is, after all,
a question of faith.
Links
GoLite home
page
Ray Jardine's
adventure page
Note: We hope to be reviewing some GoLite equipment on the
site in the future. And not a single weak gag about coups...
Remarkable.
Richard Gear
