EP 138 - CS40 Ultra Backpack Product Deep Dive

[00:00:00] Tayson: Everybody welcome back to the live ultralight podcast powered by outdoor vitals. Today we have one of your favorite episodes a product Deep dive. This is gonna be a product of API on the brand new cs40 backpack. We gave you a little bit of a teaser episode a while back, but this one is going to be where we where we just take off. Take it out behind the curtain. We really open up unrestricted unrestricted. You know, not being careful with what we're saying, how we're saying we're just gonna tell you how it is. It's gonna be a fun one. So these are, these are some of your favorite ones. They're usually a little bit longer. So, you know, I'm Gonna Pop a Top here and enjoy a drink. Nice, cool drink while we just hang out and talk about the details of, what's gone into this multi-year project. Let's turn into the cs40 ultra backpack. If you're new to this podcast, this is the little podcast. And really the purpose of this podcast is to get you out on trail more comfortably, more comfortably, and hopefully, and thereby more consistently. We're really passionate about combating this world of technology, which we all use and we all love, but by trying to empower you to get outdoors and you know go on some some Epic Adventures and get disconnected from Tech and get connected with yourself and with loved ones. So if you're interested in that, make sure you do subscribe also. Along with this, this podcast will drop as we're opening up a pre-sell on the cs40. If you head over to Outer Idol's website, able to have access to that pre-sell, you know, to get the product at a deeply discounted price. This is going to be a bit of a first come first serve scenario where we plan to raise the pricing as as things goes along. Now, I don't think this has been fully locked in, but we'll either have the most deep discount for open for a week, or it might just be for the first 100 packs and then we'll raise the price and then the next 100 packs and kind of raise that price a little bit so you'll have to go check that out. So don't sleep on this, go check it out, you'll still just see the details and the specs and and photos of the product there. So check that out while you're listening to this episode. Okay. Covered all the housekeeping items. Brigham, so, Let's start having a conversation about the CS4. I know we are just out on trail. Technically, got back yesterday, we were all, you know, getting some photos and things of the cs40. But, but log in More miles again with it, and just enjoying that pack. And Think what most people are going to experience with this pack. is just a level of comfort in a framed pack that different and better than I've ever experienced in an ultra-light category like this. Carbon fiber frame. Just it's it does some magical things but it's really good trip. we'll get into the details on all of that, but I guess, Brigham. Where where do you want to start? I feel like we kind of cover that origin story. A little bit last time of just, okay. Of of, you know, the idea behind this second pack. Why we're creating this second pack. But so maybe just give a very high level overview of that. If you want to hear the details of that kind of backstory of some of that you can go listen to that product teaser podcast. That'll be a couple episodes back but and a high level. What's the purpose of the pack? And what is it going to be to people?

[00:03:38] Brigham: Yeah, well it's a to make a quick. It's a it's a pack that we want to. Kind of meet the needs of another. Another group of ultralight Backpackers that, prefers a more minimal lightweight setup. They've got their gear system dialed and you know it's kind of exactly. What they need, nothing, they don't need or want, and but it's got to focus on. High Comfort levels stability, you know, support while carrying a load, And durability as well as

[00:04:20] Tayson: a very lightweight. I mean, I think we designed a lot of our packs with like specific avatars and use cases in mind. We, you know, our first major pack was the shadow light backpack. I think it was, it was designed with through hikers and mine for sure as a big Focus. But we also designed that with trying to keep, you know, really useful features, you know, along with the frame pack because to us, You know, a pack is really designed to carry what you need and sometimes, what you need can vary up and wait even if you're an ultralight Backpacker between food and water, carries and winter, backpacking, and all sorts of things. So, we, you know, besides just the weight carry distribution or not, but we were designing that with the idea of, you know, through hikers and just giving as much so many options, and some extra organizational, not what we could in a two ounce backpack or excuse me a two-pound backpack. With this one I say I would say we switch the mentality a little bit and we also brought in some newer technology when it comes to Fabrics that that we weren't in love with with some of the options at the time of Designing that pack. So when we designed the the shadow light, we we looked at DCF, you know, we considered DCF Those, you don't know, that's Dynamic of the fabric. and, and we I don't know, I didn't love it. I specifically remember thinking, I don't like this stuff. I don't feel like it's durable enough, I guess it's light and in a laboratory it tests really well, but I didn't, I didn't have confidence in it and I think that's I think that's that's probably the best way to some of it up is

[00:06:07] Brigham: We definitely could have done it and it would have provided, you know, one or two unique properties but as an all-encompassing fabric there was I'd say yeah a little bit of discomfort or we just weren't totally confident in. In having that be our one

[00:06:25] Tayson: backpack at that point. Yeah, but there's there's been new developments in Fabrics which we've been able to roll into this piece and so besides being just more streamlined, I would say in many ways, we we increased durability and we you know, I don't know if this arguable or not arguable, maybe you can, maybe you can add to this, you know, it's, it's Arguably, even more comfortable than the shot away. I don't see that. That's a compared to our own products so much, but to give it, I guess, just,

[00:06:56] Brigham: it could be. I mean, depending on the user and and the use case, it certainly could be perceived as more felt comfort for whoever's using it if if anything, it's just comfortable in a different way in that, it's a little more. Wow. So I've been using allowing of a little bit more movement and Agility or range of motion.

[00:07:27] Tayson: Yeah. so, that all being said, I feel like this pack really shines for people that are really focused on just doing bigger efforts big days through hikes, you know because it is that more streamlined approach to a pack you know a little bit less Pocketing and organization. But man this thing can just melt onto your body and fill you can feel very very at one with the pack. And when you're doing big mild days, you know, that's really really important. We are all able to shave off five, five oz out of the pack and increase overall durability with, with the Fabrics. We were able to use. So I think that's pretty good high level overview here. I mean, we're obviously really excited about this pack. I'm more and more excited with this pack the more I use it. And and it's been fun to kind of pull together, some of the, the promotional aspects of this and I'm all hyped up about it. So yeah, sure.

[00:08:31] Brigham: I mean, what one more thing I would add to the Comfort is, you know, realistically? I hope, I hope maybe it is that my hope is that it would be perceived as more comfortable because that would mean that there's some progression going on there. I I wouldn't want to, you know, let's say we had a pack 10 years ago. I would certainly hope that our pack now is more comfortable than then. And so the idea is that we're we're just trying to reach more. You know, more Backpackers with this pack we recognize that one one pack isn't going to be because it isn't gonna make everybody happy and we're certainly going to apply everything we can to make the best pack at any given time that we can. And so if it is more comfortable, that that would be that'd be great. Well, and

[00:09:20] Tayson: I think that brings up a good point to highlight about, just our values, our values really are that a pack is not It's not a, you know, nap Sack or whatever you call on your back. It's not just a, you know, two that's that's Collectively holding things together so it's even possible to carry it really is that we want the pack to not be a pain Point, not be a problem point. So one with your body, So that your focus is on. The miles ahead so that your focus is on being present and not being uncomfortable, not having a pack issue, not having discomfort or a hotspot or or or poor load management where it's altering the way that you walk, right? I mean, you got it. You get some, these packs that the weight like, like you can keep stuffing things into Pockets until it shoots two feet off of your back. And now you've got this weight, pulling you backwards all the time and so for us the we really value like an extreme level, the comfort of the pack and its ability to carry the load comfortably. In all situations, right? Not just when you have a minimal, eight pound base weight kit, but when you're also going on winter backpacking, when you're here in Utah, and you are carrying six liters of water. Or when we head out on the Uinta Highline Trail and most of us excluding Brigham or carrying six days, worth of food. There's these scenarios that are real world. Real life scenarios that really really matter and the pack should Empower, you should allow you to look at any Trail and feel confident to do it. Not say, you know, you know, this is a Long Carry, I don't want to do it because it doesn't work for my pack, but rather, there's a taxi. I can, I can handle whatever you throw at me, even if it is a seven-day trip out of one pack, you know, and staying comfortable there. So load management load carry is is I dare say priority number one.

[00:11:24] Brigham: I mean, that's absolutely one of if not the top priority, you mentioned before, there was a bit of kind of focus on like the target. person or user of this pack and it's somebody that's probably doing Lots of miles over repeated days, whether that's just a one week, you know, 100 plus mile high or a full through hike. Um, the I guess the attention was given to knowing that. What may be tolerable in terms of like slight discomfort or how it may be affects your body movement, you know what may be tolerable or acceptable at like 8 to 10 MI. Could really drastically decrease the quality of your experience after say 20 miles in a given day. And so that's that's where we want to focus on. Yes. We're making a very minimal pack but we are going to focus on everything we can. To make the pack not inhibit or restrict people's potential on on the trail or, you know, out there in the back country want, we want people, like you said, just feel the tackle, any any trip and not have the Pack, be a reason why they can't do you know XYZ? So there's, there's a purpose and a reason for

[00:12:46] Tayson: a pack that's like, Super Niche, Focus, right? Like a running pack. Very specific to that. This is a backpacking pack but what we what we kept in this pack is the ability to do all terrain all types of backpacking. I, I literally use this pack in January, to Snowshoe into it or not Snowshoe snow ski into an area. And I was carrying a full winter tent, hot, hot tent setup. So, I had a large six-person, I believe teepee tent with a titanium stove, all of my layers, my sleeping bag. I mean, everything in this pack must still able to do it as well as take this pack on the into High Line and everywhere in between down into the desert. You know, it's just an empowering pack that I think people are gonna really be able to appreciate for that. And, and I guess just along with that. Like, they're definitely are packs out there where everyone's trying to make their packs comfortable. I feel like but there's certain packs, you can find out there and ours is definitely one of them where I feel like Down to the shoulder harness. We're just doing iteration after iteration trying to micro tune comfort and adjustability and I believe we might have mentioned this the first podcast, but I thought we had 10 prototypes on just the harness structure that the shoulder shoulder shoulder strap cuts and we were changing them, you know, sometimes millimeters at a time to Optimize those cuts better and better. And so sometimes when you're looking at maybe really Niche Ultra Lite, Cottage brands or or other things, I don't know that I have confidence that they're doing the same level of work and focus and they're also really building a pack. That's that's maybe only able to carry 20 pounds Max load capacity, you know? And, and that's just not going to cut it for what we feel. Like if you're making a substantial investment in gear, that gear needs to be able to work and a lot of environments, typically. So okay. So high level overview pack. Super comfortable, it's more durable. Which of those two do you want to start on? Because, and we'll talk about the actual design and pack itself.

[00:15:12] Brigham: We can go to some durability real quick. It's an easy one to tackle. I mean, one of the things we want to accomplish was to make a lighter backpack than the current option that we have. because that is an advantage to kind of the The person that this should appeal to, you know, somebody doing maybe higher mileage days. So, you know, save and five ounces in a backpack as kind of a priority that's, you know, The weight of your cook kit. It's It's a, it's substantial. And so if, if we're going to make a pact that, we want to save some, you know, reduce the weight on the the pack itself. But not sacrifice like durability or comfort. Then we had to put put quite a bit of focus into like the materials that we're going to use and how we're going to use them to maintain you know kind of our standards in terms of durability. There's not like a set like numerical value. Just means we didn't want to sacrifice durability or comfort so we had to look at what we'd use in the past. Look at other options, we can consider in the past and look at things that we hadn't used or tested previously. And, you know, look at what's out there and it was all, it was a very unrestricted process of, really anything's on the table. and, so, We, we ended up. Going and getting some, you know, some Fabrics that we hadn't used before. We got some Ultra fabric from Challenge and yeah, start making prototypes with that to to test that out. And the reason why we kind of ended up with the ultra 200 fabric Is because it is in a weight class, it's a 200 denier. Woven fabric, but it's in the weight class of most 100d Fabrics like robic nylon or other other hundred D options out there. So it weighs the same but it has like substantially more durability especially when you're talking like tear resistance, cutting resistance, tensile strength and abrasion resistance, which is a big one. That last one special is over. What was available before? Especially it's a big one. again, for the high mileage user at the end of a long day, or in the middle of a high exertion effort in the, you know, in the middle of your, your day's miles like You don't really want to be. Having to gingerly put down something or worried about like, oh shoot, I set down my backpack on some Sandstone or or just stuff like that because I think everybody you know, interested in this pack will be able to relate your tired. And you want to just sit down for a minute, lift your feet up and eat or have a drink so those you know that's where the abrasion resistance is huge. and I mentioned some of the 100d like typical nylon Fabrics, but We also mentioned earlier, our reservations are slight lack of confidence in, you know, the the common dyneema Fabrics out there. Those ones that's where our reservations lie is in the abrasion resistance of that fabric and so to give you some some like data I guess, like the ultra 200 fabric is, Is six times more abrasion resistant than the heavier weight Dynamo Fabrics that are on backpacks in the market right now. If there's a backpack in this Ultra like category that's using DCF and it's the heavier version, this Ultra 200 fabric is six times more Brazen resistant twice as you know, twice as much tensile strength and and overall strength terrorists as much stronger.

[00:19:18] Tayson: And so it's just a just like a big deal because I think Accidents happen, right? Accidents. Happen people, poke holes in their packs somehow, but personally, the only way that I've I've worn out packs or, you know, is that is through abrasion, it's picking him up setting them down, it's sliding in a truck. It's putting it up, you know, on a rock. It's where I had a friend and hopefully, he's okay with me saying this, but Dan Becker one time is tell me about. He went through some Slot Canyon Country out here in Utah with the DCF pack. And in one trip, he just put holes all throughout the whole pack, one trip with sandstone and slot canyons, and that kind of terrain, just The pack was done, right? And so, There's some serious reservations. I think that's the more common way. People are breaking or wearing out. Backpacks is through abrasion not necessarily. I don't know, something jabbed through the backpack or or if, you know, and if the tax made, right, like, whatever like something's not sticking through the path, like a frame or you know, whatever it is. that's, that's My thought on us that abrasion that's where most packs even get worn out to begin with. So six times more abrasive resistant than that and the same weight category. I mean, I mean like, this is a comparable weight fabric to 100 denier robotic nylon. So yeah, I don't know, I guess I'll stop my head. What like, Oz ounce per yard or whatnot? A lot of a DCF options are out there. But Yeah, so well, with this Ultra be slightly heavier or comparable to the heavier version,

[00:21:01] Brigham: it'll be comparable to like a like, a DC, or DCF 150. In terms of weight, but yeah. yeah, and then yeah, so that's kind of where we We tested that out. And that's where we ended up going was making the whole pack bag out of ultra 200 because we felt they had the best. Balance of durability and weight again. So we were able to keep a really really lightweight fabric that has really good durability. and then the other Areas or materials. We kind of went with just to do the most that we could to keep the weight of the backpack. Very low was looking at frame material. Was used. Aluminum internal frames before like with the satellite backpack. That's a tubular internal aluminum frame and it's it's I think it's three point eight ounces for that internal frame. And so Looking at. The goals of the backpack. And, you know, knowing that we we do want an internal frame for really good load support and load load transfer like, how do we How do you get lighter weight than, you know, a frame that's really lightweight already and and aluminum just was not going to be a good option. And so, I mean there's there's very few materials out there that are going to be at, you know, strong enough but lighter weight than, than that aluminum frame. So we Decided to look into carbon fiber and so got in contact with some carbon fiber suppliers and kind of nail one down that seems like a good, a good fit and a good company to work with and a lot of experience in this round. Yeah. A lot of experience doing, you know, Carbon Fiber specifically for backpacks. And so, yeah, had a lot of conversations with them. And, yeah, it was, it's a good fit.

[00:23:17] Tayson: Let me, let me interject here just for a second with with, it's not only carbon, but Different ways to make a frame, right? You've got tubular aluminum, you've got aluminum stays. So a stay would be like, a more flat, but wide piece. Usually, I don't know, like think of like, a less wide ruler stick, or something like that, and the same applies to even carbon. So you have tubular carbon, and then you've got more of a carbon laid in a, in a stay format. So, there was a lot of options because, I mean, that was definitely something as we could there's, there's carbon framed packs out there that have basically Arrow shafts. Carbon Arrow, shafts or tubular carbon as their frames. And you know, why would we not use one of those because those are much more economical, Or yeah, what. I can more economical?

[00:24:11] Brigham: Yeah, maybe a little bit. Well, I guess, the reason why we went with what we did, which is two carbon fibers stays, they're flat meaning it's if you think of it as a stick, right? It's a flat stick. So it's it's wider than it is thick and it's it's contoured you know to to follow the curvature of the spine. That. In terms of why would we do that versus? You know, just tubes. You can't Contour tubes. Well technically you can but you run. It's a big challenge is putting a curved tube in any kind of Channel or some sort of you know, structure that tube is going to turn inside and and you know, I've personally Tested this and sewn these things together. Myself with contoured tubular frames, and it's basically impossible to get that to not turn inside the frame Channel. And then now you've got a distortion of the the back panel profile, tweaked and One Direction or the other and it's terrible. So yeah, but but the other big advantage to what we did by using two independent stays. They're not connected at any point, is that? We're able to get like the vertical stability and the load transfer to take the weight off our shoulders, and transfer the weight to our hips via the hip belt. Having two independent stays. Allows the backpack to move more than if then say, like the shadow light frame, or any internal frame that has, you know, two pieces that come up vertically and then connect at the top or the bottom of the middle or anywhere. These two independent carbon fiber stays allow the backpack to move with the Motions of the body as we're moving like in a linear direction, there's our body still rotates and and You know, it

[00:26:31] Tayson: just moves on taxes, right? Hip is moving forward and then the next, the other side of your hip is moving forward and back as your

[00:26:38] Brigham: shoulders are kind of moving and your, your torso is moving. And so, oftentimes, they're encountered directions, right? And so I think that's one of the most noticeable or one of the more noticeable. Aspects of this backpack, as your hiking with it, as you can feel increased levels of mobility and and freedom of movement. so,

[00:27:02] Tayson: let me I've got some questions for you to dive into here. So before I do that, what, so with the carbon fiber, stay one of the coolest benefits is that we can we could work with our our carbon fiber supplier to Specifically tuned how much twist we wanted in it and how much vertical strength we wanted in that state. So we've got a proprietary blend really of a carbon fiber stay that both, you know, we've we've met they've matched that to the specifications we've given them and we've tested that to be able to, you know, have twists and play in the stay but also a insane amount of vertical stability which essentially means that it can move with your body, but it can also load transfer or take the weight off of your shoulders in vertically, transfer that down into your hip or hip belt. And so it really does provide some massive, massive advantages over a tubular carbon fiber or even a tubular aluminum frame. Because now you've got Contour in the frame and you've got the ability to kind of tune that into how much twist and vertical strength you have. Yeah, yeah.

[00:28:19] Brigham: Essentially kind of make a recipe based on the characteristics properties. You want in the frame to do you like like you just said you you can have it really flexible in a linear fashion or really stiff in a linear fashion and you can also Adjust how how much that that flat bar is able to kind of twist or counter twist. On itself, right? So that's all done by Layering the fibers, the carbon fibers. They're just these long fibers. And, and you you adjust the the properties of the final product by How many are vertically or linear laid down in a linear fashion versus like an angle? Because these are all stacked on top of each other. And then compression is used to basically mold it all together into one permanent structure. And so that's that's how that's dialed in. And it's it's really, it's kind of, it's really fascinating. It's really impressive and it's really fun to to have that capability to kind of Get that recipe for what we think is going to be the best experience for The

[00:29:33] Tayson: Backpacker. So let's talk about with the frame. I don't know how like another word to describe the size but the way that I Want to describe this Frame as is when you put it on. Your initial feeling is that it fills a little bit more Supple like a little bit more giving right away. But then as you use it and as you maybe, use the load lifters, you feel like the strength of the carbon and the frame as well? What I wanted to ask you kind of related to that is when I think about like an aluminum frame. And I've had good experiences with the aluminum. Like the channel light frame has done done me. Well there's this difference of This like Supple feeling of how this Frame feels like, you just can instantly feel the difference in the frame, having that little bit of give. But when you compare aluminum, To a carbon fiber frame. It seems to me. You get this more harsh, ride type of feeling this more harsh. Feeling because if you were to say, put tension on a aluminum, if you were to start to bend aluminum, It first, that's kind of easy, just a little bit, but then it kind of hits this breakpoint. And then after it goes past the breakpoint. I mean, it just ends and it essentially just caves away like it just gives out. Whereas, with carbon it has it and see, I guess, just tell me if you agree with this, it has more of an ability to be soft at first and then just get gradually more firm and firm, and firm. And it also has an ability to move or Bend Way farther before it would ever compromise the frame crack. And so you've got this like start to finish softer. Feel that gets more hard and maybe a good way to think about that as if you've ever had a fishing pole. Like, as you bend a fishing pole, it's really easy to start to bend it and bend it, a little farther, and it gets a little harder, a little bit harder, a little harder, but you can bend a fishing pole, when you can rent a lot. Good ones. You typically can wrap the End of it and touch the other end of it and make a circle out of them. It's that that that's been my experience of kind of explaining how it's more Supple. It's like more Supple like each and a half, just A fraction more give than an aluminum or harsh ride. But then, it just, it just stiffens up when it needs to and, and is actually a stronger more capable frame than the aluminum. Yeah. At least for a specially, when you're talking about wheat categories, but right, Um, yeah. I mean, I mean in your experience, I guess jumping from aluminum to carbon. What does that feel like to you?

[00:32:16] Brigham: I think maybe another way to Another additional characteristic as I would say, it feels a little bit more dampened and carbon like that is, that is one of the properties of carbon fiber is it is, it's more. Dampening of shock and vibration than aluminum a great example. If there's any photographers or videographers out there, you use a, an aluminum tripod. A slight bump or whatever, is affects the the camera way more than on a carbon fiber tripod. They just they absorb or dampen shock so much better and so that's that is going to transfer over to the backpack. The internal frame with our backpack. And so it does have a more dampened feel but it all. So, Yeah, I think the, the independent configuration of those all. So, Because it restricts the sum of those movements of the body less, you just feel less of the frame, like you just feel you it's you feel less of its presence in the back in the suspension system.

[00:33:32] Tayson: yeah, like if you were to go from the satellite, To say our our fast pack that's coming out later this year. Obviously, there's massive differences in ability to have range of motion and ability to just feel like the pack is a part of you write like a fast pack is really meant to feel very close to the body able to, you know, you'd be able to run with this thing. So you're moving, you're shifting a lot and I feel like the cs40 Bridges that Gap tremendously from say, a traditional aluminum style frame and set up to like a fastpack where you've got this thing, kind of Landing in the Middle where you just feel like you can move twist, have that Supple play in it just a little bit and I'm not talking about like bending over the fishing rod. Like it's not that kind of movement in this Frame at all. It's just even like it. Moving a centimeter is noticeable. And even though you might not think it is, it will be noticeable and and it's just a massive Improvement. So, we originally went with this carbon to, you know, like got interested in sort of playing around this really for some weight savings, right? We cut, would you say 3.2 or 3.5

[00:34:42] Brigham: oz for the previous one? Yes, so, I mean, the shadow life frames, 3.8 Oz, and this, the two stays combined her, two ounces even. So it's about a 40% weight reduction.

[00:34:53] Tayson: Yes, in the frame. So we so we reduce the weight of the frame by 40%. But what we also got with it is just this tremendous feel and comfort on the trail. Yeah that was I think a great

[00:35:08] Brigham: Like that, the hike we did yesterday or the day before. Is a really good one because there's a lot of climbing up. You know, rocks. that you can't really walk up and scrambling their 24 inch tall, rocks where you're maybe having to reach up and use a hand on a ledge or something or and really kind of Kind of go to Max Mobility that you're going to do with a backpack. Yeah, really steep some steep climbs, you know for like a couple miles it was a couple miles of that and that's I feel like that's a really good use case, or good, example, of kind of the advantages that the cs40 has in a backpacking trip like that.

[00:35:53] Tayson: So let's talk about the layout of the pack for a minute. Let's start with with capacity. So the main compartment of The Pack Is 40 liters of capacity, right?

[00:36:05] Brigham: Yeah. That's in that's that's compartment, internal volume

[00:36:09] Tayson: just mean compartment internal so that's not including two oversized Side Pockets. So these side pockets are volumized so that's like your water bottle pockets. Um those are like very large and volumized with a drain hole in them. So you can easily fit Two one liter smart water, bottles in one side, you can fit the largest smart water bottle in there and and Extras. So, very generously sized. Then on the back panel, we have one large and volumized mesh pocket. So that's the volume iced in in the way that we've sewn it, but we've also put a little bit of a really cool looking DCF side layer on there, to help the ultra sorry to volumize that as well. So you've got this big back mesh pocket. I've got a roll top closure on this so you can. So the 40 liters is with the pack rolled two, three times, four times, four times. So if you weren't rolling your pack four times, so you rolled it twice. You'd get a little bit more capacity there. And then you have two Hip belt pockets as well. And so when you add all of these together, you're you're actually at about a 50 liter capacity pack. We call it a 40 here at vital because that's typically how we've done things is to really focus on the internal capacity of the pack. However, when you are shopping around, be very aware that most of the other providers out, there are combining some Pockets or all of the pockets and I seen this where like in the mesh Pockets I don't know how it's possible to claim like the volume like they are. Maxing the mesh pocket out and playing like 10 or 15 liters out of this mesh pocket. We're like, that's Insanity. Okay,

[00:38:03] Brigham: go conservative on our on the volumes, you know, we're very exact on Main compartment water bottle, Pockets hip belt pockets and we're Quite conservative on like the stretch pocket, it's volume eyes. Empty. So as an empty pocket, there's a lot of just room, you don't have to stretch it to create volume. But it is. A very good size, stretch pocket and and we can fit a lot in there.

[00:38:43] Tayson: So, yeah, like I say we've used it for like the high line. That's a five six days worth of supplies, you know, your water. We had gear to Brave, basically snow because we got snowed off the trail that your previous, so we're not just packing like the minimalist summer gear kit, you know, we're taking 15 degrees setups with well-insulated pads with layers. I mean, you know, Etc, there's some filming equipment, battery Bank, you know, those type of things and, and we're able to fit that in this pack, this pack will be like a very comparable to Think when I was matching him up like the Z packs are called 55 when you get into the details of that pack and this

[00:39:26] Brigham: pack they're going to be very very similar in capacities. Anything else specific to the pockets, you want to? You want to highlight the pockets? No. I mean it's a very simple minimalist pack. So there's not a lot of pockets and we pretty much just covered all of them. We do have

[00:39:46] Tayson: It belts are one hand operational. They're yeah, quite functional in that way. One

[00:39:52] Brigham: thing we can talk about because Tyler gave me. I don't I don't have a big phone. I mean we've had other people put their big phones in there but like a current generation iPhone. Max Pro. Max fits in there and it's a mouthful, you know, it is a mouthful and and it's not like we're trying to chase the largest phones out there to claim that our pockets fit in there. It's just a bit of reference. Like if if you're familiar with a phone of that size, it fits in there. And just to give you an idea of the hip belt pocket. So their volume eyes, you know, outward. They're not like a stretch hip belt pocket. I typically will put like my water filter and headlamp in one pocket. And then my phone. Keys and some like electrolyte mixes and a couple snacks in the right side pockets. Sometimes a beanie. So there are I think the really good size You know, like I said, we're not really trying to chase the world's largest hip belt pocket for for phones or anything but they're very useful.

[00:41:00] Tayson: Yeah and one one option to maybe I'll sneak this in right here. Is we developed an accessory that will launch at the same time as the cs40, which is a shoulder an attachable or extra accessory that you can just holder shoulder strap pocket, so it's fine. I wanted to say a water bottle

[00:41:22] Brigham: but it's also a pocketed onto your shoulder strap and so,

[00:41:27] Tayson: yeah. So you can slide this, this water bottle slash phone holder pocket or whatever you want to use it for on your shoulder strap. It attaches on there. Well I was just using it on the last trip. Really liked it. I experimented with both using and you know half liter size water bottle in there. You can get a larger one if you wanted to I had a flask, a 500 mil flask, and that fit with ample room. And then I also experimented with just using it to get to hold my phone, that worked really well. It's very, stable pocket. And during this pre-sell, you should be able to get one of those included with your pack. So we'll do a bit of a bundle where you'll get a discount and a free accessory with your pack. So again if you if you jump on the pre-sell you can you can have that added in that's a it's a stretch woven nylon so it's not a you know it's not a non-stretch very backpack fabric it's it's a stretch woven very stretchy fabric so it is really good like for the any like hydration food, snacks water filters. In reach minis in reach, full size, all kinds of those things. It's great. It's a great little accessory. Yeah, I've, I've really enjoyed it. I think I've been using like our fast pack so much to that, I get used to having those those Pockets there and they're handy, they really are handy. So that's something that you can. You can explore adding on to this pack very easily and And they're light. I don't know if you know, a weight on them but they're not. I I've tested that ones in the past that I'm like, this thing is robust, like, why do you need 500 denier fabric for a pocket? You know, and things like that. No, it's very light, very minimal and you can just just because I think we'll get questions on this. You can put this piece onto your pack, just buy on threading, your shoulder strap, and you don't have to cut the end. It's a little tight, but you can get get it on there without cutting the end of the strap there. So, So those are, those are pocket options. Plenty of options to use on the side of the pack. You also have a An adjustment. It's not just a single chord going across the side. It's going to be a chord that's going to go through one Loop and then back to the same side. So essentially you've got two Crossings of the chord, which I really, really like, especially if you're putting anything long on the side of your pack, such as a tripod, which I do occasionally, if you're ever gonna carry a fishing rod, if you're ever going to carry tracking, or excuse me, a tent poles, or I slid, my trekking, poles down the side, you know, and I was getting to and from the trailhead and in that having two straps coming across their very helpful gives you two different heights, you know, depending on what you're putting your lashing onto the side. So it's a very helpful and just really good at compressing and holding that in, although the pack is very specifically cut to, to hold the weight. Well, which I want to get into in just a second. The other thing that we did add to this pack it does have the ability or does have like the ice sacks Loop or you know

[00:44:32] Brigham: like the lower ice sacks loop with an upper shock cord like trekking Pole. Retention Loop works both for ice axes or tracking polls or, you know, long long longer items like that.

[00:44:48] Tayson: The and then we also added four little tabs to the bottom of the pack. So that if you choose or so inclined to attach something to the bottom of the pack, you can run some Shock cord. In fact, the marketing team wanted me to, to use this to get some photos of it. So I put my healing Ox, chair there with some Shock cord and very, it's very easy to, to attach something down. There it sits in a very secure spot. I was actually what I liked about it, and this is where we need to probably get into the curvature of this pack a little bit is, is that even attaching it there? If you have to do this, this isn't like something we strongly recommend, right? But we put it there, as an option for those that strongly wanted the ability to attach something to the bottom of the pack, they're lasting loops. Yeah. It the way that it sits is not like it's hanging clean off the bottom of the pack because there's curve to this pack. So if you were to look at the side profile of this pack, essentially the very bottom corner where your hip belt and the bottom of the Packer connecting essentially, the back of it does not just go out flat like a square. Its gonna start there and start to curve up and around in the purpose of that and and is to hold the weight up and against your back not to let it sag down and away from your back and You know, you can, you can do that for saving in a square bottom. If you had like a perfect compression strap, you know, you can kind of get a similar effect, but in the grand scheme of things, you don't want weight in this, in this kind of quadrant, that's far away, like straight out over your butt and in far away from your back. So The Pact similar to The Shadow light, but more exaggerated, it will will curve up and around, giving you an incredibly stable feel. Even if you never once tightened a compression strap on the side of this thing and the bottom, there's no compression strap down there because it's just not needed. Yeah. That so that it's really like intended to be a compression. Curve it it forces the volume or whatever the contents are, it forces the weight because it doesn't allow it to to go any lower. So that curve forces the the load up and in more closer to the lumbar as a posed to the Bottom of the pack. So it forces the the load higher and and closer to the body and then that's

[00:47:22] Brigham: That's by design for the stability of the load in the comfort and how the weight is carried on your body. And so that's kind of like the compression actually built into the side profile of the backpack. And then what after it curves upward, it does start to actually curve about mid of mid torso or mid-back. Is the widest or deepest? Side profile of the pack bag, so it curves up and out, and then continues curving outward and hits that maximum depth around mid spine. And then it tapers closer to the body as it gets to the top of the pack back and that again is. So if forces or doesn't allow an excess buildup of tons of items towards the top of the back, the top of the backpack because now you're creating stability and balance issues where where that load can potentially kind of mess with your center of gravity and your stability. So we want to keep things a little higher and and Tighter to the body way low on the pack and have Anywhere, you want to carry the most weight in the most? Volume really like right around, you know, the middle third of your torso. And so that's how the side profile of the bag is, is shaped. And then, you know, we do have The the compression cords on the side and there I mean, really. They're they're way more usable for containing things on the sides because the depth of the backpack is is deliberately designed to not be so deep that you can stuff so much gear that extends far away from your back because that creates discomfort at it it creates fatigue on your, on your back, and your shoulders. And so, that's all deliberately designed into the into the shape of the

[00:49:17] Tayson: packback Yeah, and I just if you're listening to this podcast, you're here because you kind of enjoyed these details. But but These Details Matter for Comfort on, on the trail. And if you were to just pattern out a backpack with very squares and things like that, you would not get and feel the stability of the cs40. And Brigham was 100% right when he's talking about like the side compression straps, I pretty much have never needed to use them for actual compression. Because it's almost like when you feel this pack up it's like you're filling up a funnel like like a funnel. That's clogged at the bottom, right? So the more stuff you put in there, the more it shifts down into the pack but at the same time, the funnel itself is holding the pack or holding everything that's put into it in the optimal place to be comfortable. So let's say you only fill this pack halfway up. Well, the weight like if you only feel that half of the capacity up, where is the stuff would fall inside of the pack is Pretty optimally held in place whereas an other packs. It's it's pretty critical to like pack the bag, horizontally then use the side compression straps to lock everything into place. Before you stand that bag upright and and this isn't a knock even against like our Coda UL for those of you interested with the coda UL. If you were to just like fill that bag halfway or like, have it completely uncompressed from those internal compression clips and then fill it halfway up. Every piece of your gear would just be sitting in the bottom of the pack. The way that we've cut the cs40 and design. The cs40 is it's going to strategically hold more that weight higher in the backpack and hold it, very secure and stably. And these are the kind of details that it's like, you don't really have to worry about compressing and getting your load right nearly as much in the CS4. Yes. Like we're still gonna strongly, encourage you to pack the bag. Wait wise in a certain in a certain way like you know put your sleeping bag in the very bottom and melts into that bottle, you know, section of the pack. Very, very well but it just takes a lot of the thought out of that, a lot of the necessity for Compressing and getting your load you know packing it right. Getting your compression straps on the side just right because the pack inherently is going to create massive stability in just the way that we've cut it to begin with. it's Those are the details that I that do matter and that's the details that you guys, you know, are getting to take away from from listening to this long-winded fun podcast for us, okay? Let's talk about Pockets, talked about capacity, we've talked about the cut of the pack. Let's talk for a second about the back panel of the backpack. And and then from there, we'll get into maybe some of the harness itself. But something that is unique that you pointed out in a product training, you did here at the office. Was that like you don't look and see the ultra fabric on the back, right? It's that we've added in different layers of things. So what's going on on the back panel? It's extra labor, it's extra cost. But the purpose, behind it. Why what are we doing there? we just

[00:52:35] Brigham: wanted the Some attention towards comfort. So we didn't want to just Sew up a really simple back panel that. Put, you know, a waterproof back a waterproof fabric, right? Against your body, and call it good. We want

[00:52:52] Tayson: Ultra is waterproof waterproof

[00:52:54] Brigham: and like, you know, pretty much are always going to sweat with a backpack on just just Anything fabric contacting pressing up against your body is going to be warmer than not having contact against the body. So but like the idea of having a waterproof fabric directly against my clothing, just not not appealing and and so we we didn't we designed a like an intentional back panel that has a good density and thickness of foam in areas where it's going to contact the body and then left the foam out where, you know, the there's natural curvatures along the spine, like a concavity vertically, you're most human beings spines, there's a, there's like, a concave nature to, to the back. And so, we left that area without foam, you know, to allow for airflow and weight reduction. And so, we basically just made the foam panel to have really good contact in the lumbar area and then up the side of the back. Whereas going to run up your, you know, two towards your scapula. That's where the foam is. And, you know, we wanted to have again comfort and weight reduction. So you know, the back panel is really a multi effort. kind of objective where or a multi-objective effort where we are trying to save weight and be comfortable. So everything you see when you look at that is targeting those two objectives comfort and when I say comfort and what weight reduction here, So so we have a bunch of holes, cut out of the foam, you know, because that makes the foam way less but it also allows for some airflow to kind of enter and circulate in the back panel. So you

[00:54:53] Tayson: just gives the opportunity for your body heat to just move away from from you right through its own mechanisms and Dylan not. So yeah. So to recap that essentially we've got a fabric Ling over the top of the DC, the ultra Fabrics so that you don't have this waterproof fabric, almost sticking to you for, for lack of a better word. And then we've optimally cut these the padding within this, the back panel to allow air movement to reduce weight and, and allow it just heat to heat to move away from move away from you. And then what about the shoulder straps and hip belt? As far as you know, are they minimally You know, give us some context of what we've done there.

[00:55:41] Brigham: Yeah. So the shoulder straps. We kind of took the same approach as we did with the back panel, we wanted to keep them as light as weight possible, but very comfortable and the Comfort comes from the thickness and the density of the foam combined with a lot of cutout areas along the, in the foam of the shoulder strap. That reduces a lot of weight and it adds another element of pliability or softness to the foam. That's not associated, with the denseness of the density of the foam. Having A row, essentially, a big column of cut out, holes in the foam, allows the foam to to bend and twist along the Contours of your body in a really effective way. And You know, the other benefit of that is by having these big holes, cut out of the foam and you know, you've got space or mesh on the inside or against the body, that's a very poorest breathable body of fabric and then you've got these big holes in the foam. And then on the outside layer, the fabric is this ripstop mesh. So You can see through it. So it it really kind of allows maximum heat dissipation away from your body, some airflow. And and great weight reduction.

[00:57:08] Tayson: These aren't paper thin padded straps. I mean,

[00:57:11] Brigham: yeah, that's the next point is that we we specifically dialed in again the thickness of the foam, the density of the foam, you know. And then those cut outs and that those three things really achieve like kind of what we're trying to accomplish in making them really lightweight. There's no point in just having Heavy shoulder straps like that's counterproductive to have shoulder straps that are overbuilt or heavy. That's just weight, literally on your shoulders. And so they're really lightweight they breathe. And we maximize the the potential for breathability on the shoulder straps and they're very comfortable that the pliability of that is really good and it's not just this thin this thin firm foam that you know sits on top. It's it's a

[00:58:05] Tayson: really good combination. You brought up the fabric on the outside of the shoulder straps, there are a couple Fabrics besides just Ultra in this pack. So that outside I mean so what you call it, it's a ripstop mesh. Yeah it's a really interesting piece and what's cool about it. If you go to the website, you look at photos, you able to see that. It's it's somewhat see through Which again allows for breathability, but it also gives the pack a really cool look because you can see the the colored foam on the underside of the fabric there, we're also using a secondary fabric because what like what we're coating, the back of the panel, the back panel with so that you don't have Ultra up against your skin. What is that fabric? And why are we using that? Yeah, so that's just a secondary fabric outside

[00:58:56] Brigham: of the ultra fabric. That is the main pack bag. It's just 100 D. Robot nylon. Lightweight fabric that really. Carries. No burden has no workload and bit of a redundant, like layer on some extra layer, which actually is, you know, it's with a back panel, especially where you're sewing, and load-bearing shoulder, straps, and load lifters. And, you know, things like that having extra layers, sewn together is really good. And so that's kind of like a two-fold reasoning for that. And so because there's a lot of stitching that you'll see, there's a lot of stitching that goes into a back panel, is a kind of what you maybe call an engineered backpack. There's a lot of stitching and so having extra layers of fabric there makes it really strong and so yeah.

[00:59:54] Tayson: So we we also touched on the fact that the ultra is highly waterproof. Question is going to come up of our is this backpack seam taped or not? The answer that is no. Why did we choose not to seam tape? This

[01:00:13] Brigham: really, because The I think the most effective way to keep gear dry is to use dry bags. and then there's You know, we have a drain hole in the bottom. and, It's just not the best solution for everybody. So now the pack is not waterproof, it's not seam tape, the fabric is highly waterproof, and we use You know, really good seam construction. Now, if somebody wanted to waterproof it they could and they could, you know, email support with questions on how to do that. I've already talked to our support team. You mentioned actually seam taping, or excuse me, seeming, this from the outside. Yeah, that I'm just saying because that's the easiest most effective and easiest way to do it. That's the key is it is the most effective, it won't. Maybe look at the best because You can have this. This glued looking substance going down your seams but when you seam taped the inside of the pack, you're having to tape over this, this layer of fabric. That's, that's kind of seen essentially that this hanging on the inside of the package.

[01:01:24] Tayson: But the biggest thing, I think to point out there is the pack is going to be very water resistant, I'll say extremely water resistant, but when you, when you make something waterproof and you you claim that it's waterproof and you seam tape, it and claim that it's waterproof, people have become very reliant on it being waterproof and there's factors of time, the amount of abuse backpacks, take amount of abuse seems take. The amount of, you know, if you're sealing up the pack or not and so becoming overly confident that your backpack is 100% waterproof. I is just not something I would ever recommend. You can find plenty of stories out there of how that didn't work out for people on trail. And so, yeah, for us it's this is a highly water-resistant backpack, but we would still encourage you to take your own precautions such as with all of our top quilts and sleeping bags. Well I guess obviously sleeping bags but our newest sleeping bags. The Summits, they're going to be coming with a dry bag, like that is the compression bag that is this. You know, your way to, to take this on, the trail is to use a dry bag compression system. We've we love, we love that for years, that method of using dry bags for organization. Making sure everything is dry. They're moldable, meaning you can, you can push the air out of them and then kind of shape them a little bit. And and they just have worked very, very effectively for us. So that's our philosophy. That's our style on seam, taping the bags and how we feel like you should you know go about or how we feel our opinions on how you should keep your gear dry. So okay, and we've gone through a lot of the pack. What if, what if I missed so far?

[01:03:03] Brigham: We haven't gone over the hip belt. We talked about the hip belt Pockets but the hip belt We took a very similar approach with the hip belt, so against the body is going to be spacer mesh. And it's it's a little bit. A little bit more dense and softer space for mesh than the shoulder straps. That's because that's where the weight is going to be carried, right? So that's where we want the most comfort, so we dialed in, you know, we tested different thicknesses and densities of Foams again and it's a very generously padded. Hit belt and we did the same targeted cutouts. So there's big, big cutout, long skinny ovals in the, in the hip belt. To again, reduce weight allows some heat to move away from the body. And then it really helps the hip belt pliability because that that hip belt, you know, that's again, what's carrying all the weight but it's also, Probably has the most pressure in terms of contact with your body. And so we want that to to easily conform to the Contours of your hips, or your waist area. And so, By. Designing those those cutouts into the foam of the hip belt. It really helps it conform and Take Shape while maintaining all the cushion that the thickness of the foam provides. So and it's it's not just like some straight cut half oval shaped. Pad. It's anatomically shaped to have, you know, more more wet, or breadth to it in, where, in the areas that are going to hold the most load on your body and then We do use. 2 point. webbing system, meaning where the webbing is sewn to the hip belt, To buckle it to itself. It's sewn to the hip belt in two locations that are about two or three inches apart. And what that does is as you tension the hip belt and they're forward, pull tensioning on the hip belt webbing and a single Center Buckle. But by having two contact points or two attachment points on each hip pad, it spreads the pressure out when you when you tighten the hip, Belt. So, you're you're going to buckle a single Buckle, right? You know, around your navel. And then there's a webbing you're going to grab and pull forward for leverage and it's really smooth. It's really easy. And so it's I feel like it's it's a very effective and comfortable system. Yeah, it really helps just just distribute that weight as it

[01:05:56] Tayson: comes across your belly. So you don't have one single Strap coming across your belly, you've got kind of

[01:06:03] Brigham: two that are taking the

[01:06:04] Tayson: brunt of that, and it's really good transition from a, you know, wider hip belt into the straps. I wanted to, we didn't really touch on this. Specifically, but the the hip belt itself is technically, it's removable. You could swap this out for a smaller hit belt, but there is more velcro in it this time. Meaning like it's very securely attached to the pack which is nice. It's not going to migrate or move on you. But also we took away the removable back panel feature that was on the that is on the shadow light for this pack. And it probably worth just kind of touching on that for just a half a second and in in y, right? So, I'll let you handle that or like, answer that but I mean, both both are good options. Just this one's a little bit more laser focused on. So I'd say but

[01:07:03] Brigham: Yeah, I mean definitely part of the equation was weight savings. Its uses a lot less foam in the back panel than than, even our own backpack and maybe some other options out there. But because it's Back panel. If you were to look at it, it kind of just looks like A u. with kind of like a really thick bottom curve of the U. It's the general shape of it. So again you've got a lot of Lumbar foam, lumbar contact with the foam at the bottom and then the foam goes up the size of your back and that is permanently fixed into the back panel. It's covered or sewn. To the back panel with stretch mesh, over top of that. So you can look through the mesh and see the foam as a posed to it, being a solid rectangle. Basically of foam sewn between two layers of pack bag fabric, you know where there's there's other bags on the market where they have maybe a quarter inch thick foam pad just kind of sewn into the inner side of the back of the backpack. This foam is. Semi exposed, you can see the foam panel behind the, the stretch mesh. And so yeah, I'd say it's, it's focused on Being very stable, not shifting around and being as lightweight as possible while maintaining really good comfort. some, some good breathability and Yeah. Yeah I think

[01:08:43] Tayson: I think one of the edges or advantages a little bit to this is just like you said, because there's less moving parts. There's really no need to worry about like shifting or adjusting anything so that like like in a system where you have a removable back panel or back foam pad, you've got pieces that are holding that in place, and, you know, that those can shift a little bit over time or if you're taking it in and out. You got to kind of get it right back in the perfect spot again and So I feel like it's just very streamlined and like you said, it has weight reduction abilities as well. So yeah, I think maybe the another way you could put what you were just describing is there's less less potential for error with having it, kind of permanently a fixed inside there. okay, so covered top to bottom harness system. Covered Fabrics. Covered the the frame. Now, we did not cover the top straps. Really quick, there is a large, top strap that goes up and over. It's a single top strap, it does Fit a bv450 450. Yeah. So bear canister can fit on the top of that. It's not necessarily. The recommended place to put the bear can start.

[01:10:04] Brigham: Yeah. I I mean If you're packing your backpack so fold that you have to put your food you know, on top of your backpack, maybe. Reconsider your packing choices because it's your pack on the food anyway, right. So right? Yeah, we can easily fit six days of food inside the backpack and so the best place for the bv450 is inside the backpack and you know like we've tested this out packed, a full backpacking trip, loadout. And then stuck the bv450 on top of that. And it's easily contained within the roll top. That would be the definite recommended way to pack your bear canister, more secure, absolutely. And it'll be way more comfortable and stable like having without having that, you know, five pounds of food weight hanging out on the vertical ice. But the strap will, the strap will contain the, the bear canister.

[01:11:05] Tayson: Um, I think we've covered most of everything. Now, we can go through, we can go through

[01:11:10] Brigham: sizing and volume choices. Sure. So there's going to be small medium, large hip belts and small medium large or tall. Yeah and we did we actually changed to just small medium large just to avoid confusion between like hip belt and and torso sizing so you can order any configuration of torso size and hip belt size. One thing I do want to point out is if you the the size small Torso we could just say the size small bag portion that takes into account, the Torso size of the user, but the size small specifically, is a shorter backpack. So the, the frame and the total pack height is 2 inches less than the medium and the tall. So for shorter people, actual total height of the pack including the internal frame is about 21 and a half inches versus like 23 and a half inch frame with the medium and the tall. So, but again, you can, you know, you can be a small hip belt with a medium torso or a large torso, and you can be a large hip belt with a small torso. So you can order those those configurations. The small bag is 2 liters less capacity, so it's it's not much the internal volume on the small was 38 liters. So so one thing to note,

[01:12:52] Tayson: there will a couple things to note there actually but Cutting that frame down what that allows the user of a small pack. A small torso frame person, is this still gonna allow them to have full range of motion of their head. And this pack does that exceptionally, well, you will be able to look straight above you. We've got some shots yesterday of Brigham or two days ago. Brigham literally looking straight up, a Slot Canyon. So that's been a big and not Improvement but just a major factor in design is making sure we're you know keeping the ability to look around not being covered by a frame because that's that's another reason that maybe someone would ever consider dropping a frame. Is if they've had bad experience with, you know, head mobility in a frame, these are not that way. But we also cannot, you know, any chance that we have the opportunity. We need to talk about why are frames are 23 and a half inches or 24 inches tall versus these standard, you know, frame size out there such as in the other one, you know author like 18 inches tall or let's say One of the more main most popular bad companies out there Ultra Lite bag, companies out there in a medium sized bag. They've got a 20 inch tall frame and that's like the best Was a 20 inch tall frame in a medium torso. Keep in mind, I'm six foot two and And I am a medium-sized torso so don't just order at all because you're tall. We had a guy that was in that worked for us that was six four and that dude barely fit a medium torso. He was almost the size, small torso, he was just all legs. So it doesn't matter how tall you are. What matters is your torso size? So follow the sizing recommendations on the site. If you don't know, you can do measurements but Please be aware of that because if you because the one of the number one things that we see is tall, people ordering a tall bag because they're tall and then returning it and I can promise you. You'll be more comfortable like wearing a bag that is fitted appropriately for you or even smaller than you. Then if you buy a bag that's too big. You just can't you can't get rid of the gaps and stuff that are created by your shoulders. If you buy a tall and you're really a medium torso. So please be aware of that please order the proper bag but bring them. Why do we have tall frames and why are we so adamant that they matter?

[01:15:18] Brigham: Um, again, it all comes down to comfort. I know we're talking about ultra light loads, but we we want every advantage that we can get. So if our pack only weighs 10 pounds, I want, like, As much of those 10 pounds carried on my hips as possible. So but it's even more important if it's 25 pounds or 30 pounds but the point is, you know, mile after mile day after day, If? if we're carrying weight on our shoulders, That fatigue is our body that requires a bunch more energy and it wears our bodies down. Faster. It's less comfortable. And so like there's so much emphasis on comfort and you know we've we've talked about it before but the reason or how Is how Comfort is achieved the an internal frame and how tall the frame is? A backpack Carry's weight. It's just a bag that carries weight and your body holds it. So the backpack carries weight and we put it on our body. If we just put weight in the backpack and then put shoulder straps on our shoulders, our shoulders are holding all that weight. we want a way to Lift some of that weight off, our shoulders and transfer the weight somehow down to our hips, which are much better suited to carrying weight for sustained period of time as a putting that stress on our vertebrae. So, It's pretty difficult for a bag. Full of gear, that weighs something you can't really, transfer weight up off your shoulders. If there's nothing above the shoulders, to pull the weight off the shoulders. And so if we have an internal frame that is say 24 inches or 23 and a half or just call it 24. The top of the frame is going to extend higher than the top of the shoulders and if you put a load lift or webbing strap there with attention or when you pull on the webbing, Because of Leverage when you pull on that. The webbing is going to lift the weight of the bag up away and off of your shoulders. And because you have a rigid structure supporting that up against your back, that follows the Contours of your spine, now that weight will be transferred down to the bottom of the backpack, where there is a fixed, a hip belt with generous padding and lots of contact. And now you're able to transfer well, over half of the weight usually about 60 to 70% of the weight. To your hips that can't be accomplished. If a backpack has an internal frame, that is no higher than the shoulders, because there's no leverage to lift the weight off of the shoulders because the leverage point is that the same height or lower than shoulders. So essentially if a backpack has an internal frame that is no higher than the top or the highest point of the shoulder. All it is providing is some rigidity and stability, and that's about it. Now there might be a small percentage of pressure that can be taken by really wrenching down a hip belt, but

[01:19:03] Tayson: It is you have to Sag your shoulder straps, right? So like if you did your, your hip belt tight and you sag to like, you loosened your shoulder straps, that would allow the hip to take some of that weight. But then you've got these slap sloppy shoulder strap. The top of the bag is sloppy not stable. It's just any any amount of instability.

[01:19:26] Brigham: Senate fatigue on the body over time and and your cares lower than you want. Now the whole point of going, you know, as light as we can is You know, that the benefits that will always be there, you know, if you're carrying the crummy a setup possible, but you're really light, you'll be way better off than carrying a crummy setup. That's really heavy. So that's the constant, right? But, We're basically just not satisfied with any comment of well, it's just 15 pounds and it's really not that bad. Well our mentality is we don't want it to just be not that bad. We want it to not be uncomfortable at all after 25 miles in the day. So if we can take some weight off the shoulders, when we're going to take the weight off the shoulders, we're just not satisfied with kind of the the thought process that it doesn't really matter or you know, I've been doing it for years or some of that thought process that that there's just no reason or benefit to be had. So our internal frame between both of the afraid, the frame stays weighs 2 ounces 2.0 Oz. That's like if I were to just take a sip of water, that's two ounces and it's for like kind of carbons ability that. Again, I'm just not going to accept or be satisfied with that, you know, it's comfortable enough. Like, I just want to do everything that we can to Kind of account for every variable that we can to make the pack more comfortable. And that's kind of the bottom line.

[01:21:12] Tayson: Exactly that the angles that are created by having an a tall frame, a frame, that is tall enough to exceed the height of your shoulders. That creates the angles that allow everything to go into motion to transfer the weight off of your shoulders. So it's been a while since I've done this, but I'm pretty sure I'm an 18 and a half inch torso. So that's measuring from, you know, the top of my hip to specific murder rate on your on your neck area. if I was to buy a backpack with an 18 inch torso, the frame would have to sit exactly on the top of my hips, when a reality, your hip belt is typically going to be more dead center or centered on the top of your hips. To even reach the top of my shoulders, which means on an 18 inch frame. There is zero possibility for me to load lift that using the frame. but to me, would almost argue that there's That there's almost no reason to have a frame if it's only 18 inches for me personally. Yeah,

[01:22:16] Brigham: I mean, I would say, I'm not going to go that extreme because it provides stability like that. Like, that's what it provides, and there's some benefit. But the, but the, the benefit is like, exponential. When you actually have a frame that is high enough to lift weight off your shoulders. Something another thing I think about to help describe this, like, I don't know if there's any moms or dads out there or anybody that's ever lifted the kid up and giving them a shoulder, right? Like that's a very common thing. Would you rather lift up a 30 pound kid and just stick them on top of your shoulders. Or would you rather lift up a 10 pound kid? And put them on your shoulders. What do you think is going to be more comfortable for 25 miles or to take the 30 pound kid

[01:23:05] Tayson: and put them on your back like a piggyback ride? Like I can carry my daughter around, that way, way more comfortably than when, if she was sitting on my shoulders on my last a few minutes before. I'm like, oh my gosh. That's right. So to kind of walk back through that again, even with me with an 18 and a half inch torso. If I had a 20 inch frame backpack, Still would basically where it should ride. The backpack should ride on my hips. That's going to put the top of the frame level with my shoulders, which still doesn't create any angle to create loads. So just to recap all of that having a tall enough frame in correlation, to the height of your torso, is incredibly important to load transfer that we've tested, that a ton with packs. We've tested about a ton as a sportsman. I mean, that's how my graduated high school, right? I didn't grow up. Backpacking. I had I had grown up more of a sportsman with my family and background and I had carried more like 100 pound packs out of the field that I had backpacked on trails and that's the kind of experience and and that's continued through life, right? But like like that's the kind of experience that really highlights the importance of this and it's probably made us hyper focused and aware of it because I I can't I can't even fathom. Sometimes when I look around it. Some of the other packs out there, why they would do the things they do when they have the ability to make a pact actually load transfer and be comfortable and give all these advantages that that we, hyper focus on it. Seems like, but I promise you, when you guys get the pack and especially after you put in 10 plus miles with the pack, you will see the difference. Even if you are a 10 pound base weight guy or an eight pound bass weight guy, but by the time you add food and water, you know, you've got 15 pound pack, pretty easy. And by the time you do 10 miles, you will absolutely notice this and Just well, this is probably a good time to say this, but we're actually going to be at PCT Trail days this year. Yeah, one of the things that will probably do is really bring packs there to help showcase when you put a pack on the correct way and you tighten it up the correct way. Just how much more comfortable it is? And again like Brigham mentioned for a weight penalty of two ounces Which is less than, you know, a single snack that's in your hip belt that's less than a couple swallows of water, you know it's it's a it's a nominal amount to be able to stay comfortable, you know, past 15 pounds which a lot of other packs that aren't really utilizing this. You start to get discomfort past 15 pounds. And again it comes back to the original purpose of everything which is this pack should feel you to be able to any Adventure that you want to whether you want to go through some of the most remote Wilderness areas in the lower, 48, and Alaska, or anywhere in the world. Or you want to do Hutto Hut hiking? You know, this pack should Empower. You should keep you present and focused not uncomfortable or not questioning whether you really want to carry that much food that far, you know, those types of questions. So,

[01:26:19] Brigham: yeah, we would just so much rather people. Be like have the option, it's not like the lower, the weight is, then the less the penalty, the penalty will be always, but it's so much. More rewarding for us to make a pact that. Enables more opportunity and doesn't restrict by way of not providing adequate Comfort or support. And so that's just just kind of what we believe in.

[01:26:50] Tayson: Yep. Okay, I think we've covered about everything. Brigham we've yeah, no,

[01:26:58] Brigham: I think we're good. Yeah, no. I think I Covered good. And we specifically say the way to this pack. Yeah, so the pack the medium. Belt with a medium bag is 27 oz.

[01:27:11] Tayson: Okay. pricing wise, I am going to go to the website to get this, but this is a pack that we designed with truly know price in mind, let's build the best possible pack for the most passionate Backpackers out there doing the biggest efforts, and just Hyper hyper focused on the infield performance of this pack which means this pack is going to be quite a bit more money than the shadow light. The fabric itself is I'll just say exponentially more money. The frame is exponentially more money. I mean, they just are. This pack is, is a It is a it is a sizable investment for us and we're actually going to take a lower margin on this pack because of that. It's, it's it's it's a, it's a truly premium Premium Pack where we did not hold back in any way shape or form putting the most expensive frame and the most expensive materials and building it and just a absolutely premium state of the art selling facility partner of ours, that's been a partner for years, you know, producing some of the most expensive high-end gear for other brands in the world. So it's truly a remarkable pack. But again, you will be able to get it at a discount and with that free water bottle accessory during the time of pre-cell. And the sooner that you purchase, the heavier that discount will be. So, you know, don't sit on this if this is a pack that you're interested in and I think you should be interested in this scheme of things. Yeah.

[01:28:56] Brigham: Just want to make the point about your comment about using expensive materials. I want everyone to understand that we didn't we're not bragging about using expensive materials and we're not using we're not we're not choosing to use expensive materials so that we can say, we use expensive materials, we had the objectives that we laid out early on that we mentioned in the podcast and the previous podcast and we selected the materials base on what was best to accomplish the objective of the pack and they're very expensive materials. And that's how it plays out is. We're not, we don't want to sell people pack with, you know, the message being this uses the most expensive Fabric in the world. Like that's not the point. The point is that we use the best materials that we can find that provide the best performance and meet our performance of objectives. And that's, that's Kind of the way we do things. Yes, that's 100% accurate.

[01:30:04] Tayson: But as as you guys being a fan of ours, that's listening to the podcast to this point. As you know we are a direct to Consumer company. We sell direct. We do not go through wholesale, markup channels, you don't see our products and REI or on backcountry.com because we refuse to do so so that we don't have to add on extra markups, which even allows us to build this pack at a very competitive price. If we had built this pack and had to go through those channels, there would have been decisions that maybe would have gotten back off the table, such as the carbon fiber frame because it just would have added too much expense to. I mean, this this would have been a 500 plus dollar pack pretty easily if it was going through retail channels. So in real and all reality maybe 600 dollar pack or more. So we still we still care about keeping the price down. Yes. But we are. We were very laser focused on the infield performance. We want people to take this out on. 2000 mile through highs and finished the hike, just absolutely loving the pack and with the pack, not broken down and in shambles, and I think that that's exactly exactly what we've built. So challenge you guys, go look at this product on our website. Look up any details, you can drop questions about the product, also in the comments on YouTube here, if you're watching on YouTube, We are also running, and this will kind of earmark the clothes first per se of the, the review giveaway. So, if you have not yet written a review for the podcast, you can still write a review and be entered into win a free cs40 or or, you know, if you end up buying one on pre-sale because you don't want to wait, which is what I would advise. We'll give you the will either refund you know your money with some store credit or give you the store credit. So don't don't wait on this to see if you win this pack. Definitely take advantage of that pre-sale pricing and we will take care of you, but go Rider review for the podcast. It definitely helps us a lot, but I really do challenge you guys to to When you get this pack, put it on and just feel the difference of the plushness of the frame and the comfort. And, you know, can't wait to hear you guys's feedback on this obviously for Brigham. And myself. This is something we've got to work on for a long period of time. And it's always very fun to find the release it into the world and start to, to hear the feedback and see people take it into the Wilderness for themselves. So yeah, really appreciate that. Brigham, really appreciate, you know, you're all of your work going into this packet, it it's come together and such an amazing way. And, and you continue to just push that the needle forward here at revitalift with, with our purpose of Designing Performance, Based gear and performance, Focus gear and gear, that really will perform for our customers. So, Yeah, and you last thoughts. No, I'm just really excited. It's been a lot of fun. The places we've got on and tested the pack or phenomenal. It's just a lot of good memories and I'm really excited for people to get it, take it out in the field and

[01:33:21] Brigham: To make good use of it.

[01:33:22] Tayson: Yeah, yeah, I am as well. So, okay, guys, make sure you're subscribed to the podcast. Make sure you leave us a review. We will give you from the time that this podcast drops. Like on day, one will give you seven more days to enter into that giveaway. After seven days, we'll go ahead and call it and in your views the come in after that will not be necessarily entered into this giveaway. So go give us a review, we really appreciate it and we'll catch you guys on a future episode.