Winter event kit recommendations

[Marc007ben]

Hi chaps,

The Winter event this year will be my first ever on the Bike overnight. Any recommendations on sleeping mats please? Super excited and can’t wait!

Kind regards

Marc

[psling]

What sort of budget have you got? How much do you want to spend up to how much are you prepared to spend.
Air mattresses tend to be the lightest and pack smallest.

[Bearbonesnorm]

Exped or Neoair are generally the 2 mats of choice. Neither are cheap but both work very well. However, make sure you compare actual physical sizes between the 2 as they have different ideas about what size small, medium, etc is.

There's an Exped Synmat UL7 here for £70 which is a very good price: https://www.millets.co.uk/equipment/100 ... lsrc=aw.ds

Or a Synmat lite 5 for £50: https://www.tauntonleisure.com/exped-sy ... BREALw_wcB

Not quite as thick but would be more than good enough for year round uk use.

[Single Speed George]

i only did the winter event once , and it was so cold and wet that i have vowed never again as im soft, but 2 good bits of kit the year i did it were y primaloft jacket whitch keeped me warm even when water was running in the neck, and my paramo smock withc keeped me dry on top other than the water running in my neck !

EDDIT:
sorry just saw that you were specifiying sleeping mats ... no good recomendation here

[whitestone]

As Stu says, Exped or NeoAir are the usual recommendations. On last weekend's Yorkshire winter bivy I think everyone had one or the other, apart from StuCowp who had a slowly deflating Klymit X-therm Didn't notice the "crisp packet" effect of the NeoAirs that some complain about.

I've the Exped Winterlite standard tapered mat and it's pretty narrow. If you move a lot in your sleep then it might not be wide enough, I'm 180cm tall and it's fine length wise for me and I'm a fairly static sleeper so not a problem width wise either. There's a wide tapered version plus the rectangular model if you do need something wider. The standard NeoAir is a bit wider than the Winterlite.

Some of the bigger outdoor stores like Cotswold often have examples on display so you can see what size they really are.

[Marc007ben]

Cheers Guys,

I don’t mind spending and few £££ for a decent nights sleep.

[Matt]

As a Neoair user I can recommend them mine is very good.

If I had the choice again though I think I’d get an Exped. (But it’s not enough of a difference to justify a swap (yet) )

[Dave Barter]

Why out of interest Matt?

[Matt]

Tubes run lengthways on Exped which I think is better

Neoair is a bit crisp packet noisy, Exped are quiet

Neoair valve sticks out whereas Exped is flat

Just little details really, like I said not enough to justify a swap

[Asposium]

Have a neoair xtherm
Packs small, light, warm.
Don’t find it too noisy, though I do sleep with ear plugs in.
Not cheap.

[Adventurer]

I have an exped down mat and also more recently an thermarest x therm.

The thermarest is lighter and I also found it warmer. If I had a choice I would get the thermarest. I did not buy the thermarest at first because of people’s view of the thermarest making a crisp packet noise. To be honest I’ve not found this a problem. It makes a little bit more noise than an exped but I’m a light sleeper and really can’t see an issue.

[Scattamah]

+1 on the Neoair Xlite. The noise folks refer to is the mylar inside. My mat started making aforementioned sounds after its first year of use (roughly 60-ish rollouts). I prefer the horizontal air chambers to the Exped verticals. YMMV.

Greetz

S.