Not willing to give up the comfort of the NeoAir I took a chunk of Karrimat along on my last trip, originally it was to go under my feet but the bothy floor was that cold that I ended up with the mat under the mattress, and used my rucksack as a foot rest.
Clearly the NeoAir wasn’t up to the task, and the piece of Karrimat I owned wasn’t long enough to provide cover for the feet as well as the mattress. So I dredged the internet for a solution and what I found was the Multimat Adventure Long, a CCF mat. The stated weight was 215g so along with the weight of the NeoAir at 244g I had a combined weight of 459g. Only 73g heavier than the Multimat Super Compact Light 25 for a full length, more comfortable sleeping solution.
Incidentally the SC25 has an R rating of 3.8 against the 2.5 of the NeoAir, so I’d forgo the comfort of the NeoAir if the conditions dictate. After all there’s no point in having an uber comfortable mattress if I’m kept awake all night by the heat leeching out of my body; I’ve already earned that badge. That said I expect the NeoAir/Adventure Long combo to cope with most situations, now will I need this for Scotland in May I wonder?
7 comments:
Personally I have always found that the R-Value in a lot of thats (Solid, inflatable..etc) to be about 15-20% less than advertised. You put a 150-175lb average person on the mat and it's not gonna be as thick.
Good point. Doubtless there are more than one way of measuring this and that wouldnt help deciding which mat would suit when doing a comparison.
I don't know why they bother putting a rating on them, also. Sort of pointless when you're in the field.
They may have this already in production, but I would like to see an inflatable mat with several internal layers woven around each other made out of a heat reflective material. So at least the body heat from your body bounces back and maybe evens out the rating once you are compressing it.
I tried a similar combo last weekend in the lakes. The neoair was absolutely fine with a full length closed cell underneath. Mine's not anything other than some old packing foam cut and scored so it doubles as a back pad for Gorilla pack. Camped on a foot of snow and nice and warm.
Marcus, I glad to read that I'd hate to have to leave the One at home :(
BTW I dont own a bag that needs a scored mat (yet!) as a backpanel so I opted for the roll which is bulky.
Multimat uses a Tog Value, and not the R-Value. To be able to compare the both, a comment from my post on pads and mattresses gave some help:
"1 tog is about 0,645 clo and 1 clo is about R-0,88 (meaning the typically used american unit being (ft^2 h F)/BTU ). So 1 tog is about R-0,568."
I have a Multimat Adventure and am very happy with it. The NeoAir I don't take out in the winter, its not up to the job. For me only a summer mat, not useable in winter conditions.
HenDrik interesting comment about the cooment that was left on your blog abot mats and pads. And yes Multimat use TOG and Not R-Value.
I'm a bit concerned about the use of the word about when the figures quoted go to three decimal points but only two on one of them. I wonder whether the two systems of measurement are mutually exclusive.
Post a Comment