[00:00:00] Tayson: Hey everybody, welcome back to the Live Ultralight Podcast. Powered by Outdoor Vitals. Today, we are back with another episode of ask OV. We've been getting a lot of questions in and we're looking forward to answering those. We are Midway through August at this point and we just launched our Mountain Pursuit line. And it's been a, it's been an awesome week. So we're gonna talk a little bit about that. We've got a handful of questions about that as well as we'll we'll continue to pick through some of these other questions, submissions here. So I was doing today, Brigham.
[00:00:34] Brigham: doing well yeah, we were just talking offline about new school schedules and Kids are back to school just to that, so yeah.
[00:00:47] Tayson: Yeah, lots of. I don't know. I can't believe summer is over for our kids. I was goes fast. Goes even, I don't know as a kid. I feel like it went fast, but there's an adult like,
[00:00:58] Brigham: yeah, for sure. I mean, I didn't I think my kids started school probably two weeks earlier than I ever did. Which
[00:01:06] Tayson: is A different. Yeah but then they take more breaks during the school year. I do have better breaks like, like the
[00:01:15] Brigham: fall break. That wasn't even a thing, but yeah, it is now.
[00:01:19] Tayson: Yeah. I mean thankfully, I don't know for some people it's harder than others. I've learned in recent years too, where it's like, Kids don't have school. It's like this is a work day, you know. And if you have I don't know if you don't have someone staying home with kids. Usually I've been like do these teachers work. What are they doing? You know, this is this is babysitting at Subway. So, I have a lot of fun summer. I was like, recapping with the kids, what we did. And I mean, we went to Colorado. We went backpacking, we went camping. We went out to a lake and camped on the shore for five days and And
[00:01:55] Tayson: just, I mean, it was, it was a fun summer. It was busy very, very busy, but I don't know that I have it any other way, so I was
[00:02:04] Tayson: pumped about that, but We've also been working for. Many, many years, I'll just say that more than two years on the Mountain Pursuit line, you know, and on the fleece piece, we've been testing things for four years, you know? I mean, just lots of lots of iterations there. So, it's way fun to find, they'll be able to push go on a product line, and Release those. So that was ton of fun. We had an incredible turnout so much so that we we already increased our order size compared to normal and it's not going to be anywhere near enough. So if you're listening to this and you have interest in those pieces, if you go on
[00:02:48] Tayson: the website and now you're already gonna see stockouts and I'll explain that there's going to be some additional things getting restocked, but I'll explain that. I'm just a second but just don't sit on it because these are gonna be stocked out and we stocked out a long time. It takes it takes a lot of months to produce from scratch. Our products. These aren't products that just have Fabrics that are just readily available. They're custom colors, their custom Fabrics. It takes, you know, one button to not be available for things to get delayed. And so it takes months and months to reproduce and reship a purchase order for us. And so don't sit around because these
[00:03:27] Tayson: might not be available again until next. Spring might be late spring you know my the somewhere in there it's kind of a hope. Now we are working really quickly to try to get in more orders and sourcing and have them ready available but People just flat out, showed up. We also had some runs on some colors that were unexpected for this particular product line. The the Stone Brown just was crazy hot crazy hot compared to like how our Sawtooth Pants have sold where maybe Grace, we're selling a little bit more so that also has caused some of the issues. Now, we restocked some of those. So if you want if you looked at like day
[00:04:08] Tayson: one day, two, a lot of those things were restocked but we restocked; we basically air-freighted more of the shipment to us so that we could put some of those things back in stock, like the stone brown pants, like the olive green pants and the olive Pursuit Hybrid Fleece. Now, we will still be getting an ocean shipment. However, we will not be restocking any of the olive tops. We air-shipped all of those; we will not be restocking any of the Stone Brown pants or olive pants. So, the only thing is getting restocked will be black and gray tops and grey bottoms.
[00:04:42] Brigham: So, Yeah, what that means. So we The air-freight and the ocean shipment. Those are all the same order. But in our planning, we just decided that we would try to air-freight. It was about half of our Of the whole order. So that we could have, you know, a presale and, you know, people could get them. A little bit sooner. But it's, but it's all coming off the same production line, right? So it's all being made at the same time. So, yeah, and when he says, when we restocked those are It's not like, we had more made, we still had time before the production run was loaded onto the plane that we could say, hey, let's
[00:05:33] Brigham: load in more of the pants, because we sold out of so many already, so it's just taking more of the quantity that otherwise would have been put on the ocean shipment put on the plane, so that could get here sooner because there was such high demand so it'd be nice if we could. Wave a wand and have like, you know, 500 or 1000 more pieces, just loaded onto the boat. Yeah, but yeah,
Editor’s note: The Mountain Pursuit launch, presale, stockouts, color demand, air and ocean shipments, production lead times, restocking, and next-spring estimate describe August 2025 status. They are historical business and availability claims, not current inventory, timing, price, or offer terms.
[00:06:00] Tayson: I know, I wish hindsight's always 20/20. We tried, everyone really showed up and these things just flew. I mean One of our best launches we've ever done by a good margin. So there it's it's really cool to see that and we have some questions specific to this line today. So we wanted to jump into those First and foremost, just because they're really timely. But like I say we are working to restock these as quick as we can. We just had an unprecedented You know, demand Forum. So that's been been really cool, but yeah, we're gonna see some stock outs. All right, so here's let's just jump right into some questions here. These are actually all
[00:06:43] Tayson: questions that I pulled off of YouTube and just as a reminder you can ask us questions on YouTube. We'll try to pull those as much as we can. In fact, I actually didn't even look so while we're on the podcast, I'm gonna also be looking at some additional questions. Because a lot of these questions that I pulled are actually from our main Channel, not even our little Ultra Lite podcast. But since we released some podcasts there, I'm sure I'll find another question or two there so, but the first and foremost question is X. Also, I love the names on YouTube. It's not just like, you know, so-and-so asked this question. It's Expat Adventure Turkey
[00:07:20] Tayson: asked a discussion on this new fleece versus the Ventus hoodie. It would be a great discussion point. This case uses extra, you know? So basically asking if we're to compare the Pursuit Hybrid Fleece to the Ventus, when would you use one or the other? You know, how does that gonna work?
[00:07:43] Brigham: Okay, so there's, physically the, the main difference is our the Ventus is kind of like a typical jacket. It's just thinner and lighter so it's not as warm it sits on on the lighter end of a jacket warm scale. So that means it has an inner lining fabric with synthetic sheet, insulation in the middle and then an outer face fabric. So it's kind of like a sandwich of Two Face. A face fabric, aligning Fabric and a sheet of insulation inside. So very light and thin insulation but that that creates certain limitations and parameters that The Ventus has. The Pursuit Hybrid Fleece does not use any kind of sheet insulation. It's, it's, it's a hybrid
[00:08:40] Brigham: by the components that are used. It has body mapped grid fleece and a hybrid hybrid configuration of PrimaLoft Evolve with a face. Fabric PrimaLoft Evolve is a very high pile, open knit very lightweight, warm and breathable fleece, but it it has a face fabric over it to to prevent too much heat loss or the penetration of too much wind, but it is a much more much, much more breathable piece than the Ventus. So, What that equates to like, what we physically do, when, if you want? If you want a piece to just be able to be active in, move hike, whatever it is, but be active in for long extended periods of time. The Pursuit Hybrid Fleece
[00:09:29] Brigham: is the way to go the Ventus. Yes, you can do some physical activity in it mild to moderate activity and that is on a scale of how cold it is and how much wind there is so Um, it's much on the colder end, but it is much more of a lower mild physical activity, piece than the Pursuit Hybrid Fleece. It's just does not have the breathability, you will overheat way too fast in it. So if you're talking about if its 40 degrees, And you want to go for a walk. Or a hike. You know, the, the Pursuit Hybrid Fleece is going to be much better for I'm talking a mild walk. I would
[00:10:12] Brigham: not do the same walk in a Ventus unless it was like 15 to 10 degrees. It's just The Pursuit Hybrid Fleece is that just that much more breathable again and then duration like the Ventus might be something to walk around the neighborhood in if it's you know, 15 to 20 degrees just a leisurely walk. And that's like maybe an hour, right? But, but the Pursuit Hybrid Fleece, something that, you know, we're in the mountains and we've got 15 mile hike ahead of us and it's freezing cold. That's the piece that I would recommend to to wear.
[00:10:49] Tayson: Yeah. Set a different way. I'll just try to say this completely different way to relate to maybe if you already have some pieces. So if you already have like a jacket so it's a synthetic jacket. The Ventus is like that jacket, but a very breathable version of it, right? And then it'd be like if you have just a sweater or a fleece piece, And you know how breathable that is and how the wind can blow through that. Well the Pursuit Hybrid Fleece is like that breathability with a little bit more wind resistance with the face fabric. So very breathable but just a little bit more wind resistance. So that's kind of like hopefully that might just
[00:11:27] Tayson: help you if you already have some pieces to be able to be like oh the Ventus is a really really breathable Jacket versus The Pursuit is a is a Just more Dynamic, hybrid fleece?
[00:11:39] Brigham: Yeah, I mean I'll repeat, the pursuit is I will say probably close to 10 times more breathable than eventus. So in terms of bracketing that in the Ventus, it is breathable for a lofted insulation jacket with two layers of face Fabric and a liner. It is a breathable jacket but Pursuit hybrid fleece is massively more breathable. Another way of looking at it is You can use the Ventus more as an outer piece, where you just your your more static. You're more stationary. And you just need a little something to keep you warm because it's a summer evening in the mountains. And you're those last couple hours of the day, maybe you're just hanging around Camp,
[00:12:26] Brigham: the Ventus is great for that and it will block more wind and be a little more insulating than the Pursuit Hybrid Fleece. But the physical activity and exertion, and temperature, really are kind of like the up and down the shift in, which piece is a better application. So to build on kind of the temperature
Editor’s note: The Ventus and Pursuit Hybrid Fleece construction, breathability, warmth, wind resistance, activity level, and use-case comparisons are August 2025 product claims and personal recommendations. Verify current materials and specifications; performance varies with weather, effort, layers, and physiology.
[00:12:50] Tayson: range and some of the stuff you're talking about. I've got another YouTube comment, that's asking looks like an awesome piece. What's the temperature range? These have been tested in. So obviously people always loved, I actually got this question like within a week. Someone asked me, what's the temperature rating of this jacket? I'm like there's no such thing as a temperature rating of a jacket. I don't know why that question comes up so much because no one, no one has a temperature rating for a jacket that I've ever seen, right. So So we give personal anecdotes of how we use it, you know? And and so, The personally I would I would use the pursuit piece
[00:13:31] Tayson: in like 40 degree or under temperatures Fahrenheit, 40 degree or under depending on the level of activity. Also though. Right is going to be how much use it? Well, I use it above that. Yes, if I'm sitting still, yeah, it's a super comfortable piece to just have on all day if I'm doing like low activity, I'm doing High activity, you know, it's probably around 40 degrees and under that, I'm going to start to use the piece a lot. Now, I went to You know, like the Wind Rivers and I was in Colorado on the San Juans. And in the winter, I used it. Just late morning, early, or yeah, early morning, late evening in September.
[00:14:12] Tayson: And then, when I was in the San Juan's, I was not active, I was very much sitting around in the mountains, hanging out, but in September, you know, cold breeze blows. It's cold. Like, even in the daytime, you know. So I actually, because I wasn't doing activity. I kept the piece on almost sunup to sundown. And then if I went to, like, do a push and hike and or something in the middle of the day, I would usually take it off because it's a little bit too warm for even September, not to be pushing. But yeah, that's just kind of some quick brackets and so quick brackets for you. Bring them on. Yeah,
[00:14:45] Brigham: right that I mean, a huge chunk of testing was done between temperature ranges of 15 and 25 degrees Fahrenheit. I have used it in temperatures down to Like mid to high single digits. And that would, I would say that was my, my moving outer piece. So I had a base layer and then the Pursuit Hybrid Fleece. And then, The the nice thing is that when when in testing it, I was able to leave it on for multiple days. Like full duration, so I would sleep in it. Wake up in it. I can it sleep in and repeat and those temperature ranges were, you know, High single digits to low teens up to about 35, maybe
[00:15:36] Brigham: 40 degrees on some trips. But Full, you know, 24-hour cycle of temperature range at elevation probably 9 to 10,000 feet. And so, yeah. Those are those are the temperatures that I now personally in the testing process for example, there was one trip we did where it was in the desert and The highs were in the low 60s and I did deliberately hike in the piece into the low 60 degree temperatures. That was so that I knew so that I can answer the question and know how it behaves what it is like Choose to do that. No, if its 60 degrees, I don't want any insulating piece on whatsoever, unless it's 90-mile-per-hour winds
[00:16:21] Brigham: but but having done that, I know like what it what it feels like and it feels like a bit warm like I would want to take it off but did I overheat to where I was you know, just dying or excessively sweating know? But it was also I would say like a more mild. physical exertion, it was hiking with a backpack but on pretty either even or downhill Terrain
Editor’s note: The roughly 40-degree, 15-to-25-degree, single-digit, 35-to-40-degree, elevation, all-day, overnight, and 60-degree testing comments are personal August 2025 experience, not temperature ratings or safety guarantees. Build layers for current conditions and individual needs.
[00:16:50] Tayson: Okay, keep this discussion movement. I think we covered that pretty well. Again, it's there's a lot of preference in this but hopefully they give you just some things to mull over Jeff. Fox said I have already pre-ordered two of these pants. I did have a question. Why you chose not to put DWR coating on them?
[00:17:13] Brigham: Uh, well the answer is they do have a DWR. I'm always going to point this out. These are we are is not a coating. It's a, it's a, it's a finish or a treatment. A coating is more of a permanent thing. So, but it does have a DWR on it now. Just like all dwr's it eventually wears off. And so, yeah, the pants do have a DWR applied to the outside. I've got
Editor’s note: The Altura Dynamic Pants DWR treatment and wear-off comments describe the August 2025 product. Verify current materials and care instructions; a water-repellent treatment is not waterproofing or a performance guarantee.
[00:17:37] Tayson: a question about satellite. I'm gonna Circle back to that one, come into a couple of questions that I was seeing out online. Someone says, Brigham that you need a few more hours of sleep. Is that a problem right now? Not live on this one. But
[00:17:50] Brigham: yes, the greatest sleep in the last But
[00:17:54] Tayson: David Cooper, who we've backpacked with before, he's a writer says, I can't believe I listened to an hour of this design talk. It sounds like a really cool jacket. This one. No, are are the front pockets mesh for added ventilation?
[00:18:08] Brigham: Yes.
[00:18:10] Tayson: yep, if we were to have two layers of the main fabric, it would just be more hot and that was not the design intent for this piece wanted to be light vented. Yeah. So and that's the problem we've had another pants. So I really like that they're venting pockets and stuff Um, I think there was one other one here. I mean I think that might be it actually. I think some of these others were just more so comments. Any other questions you've seen? Just pop up on these pieces this week that we can cover for everyone.
[00:18:56] Brigham: On these particular pieces. I mean, some of them have been like just like Hmm. color questions. Maybe some sizing. sizing questions with sizing we I feel like we do a pretty good job of actually trying to be I'd say more accommodating on more sizes and but just to like, kind of preemptively, you know, I know that there are going to be people out there whose size We can't offer. It just doesn't make sense for us. It's just kind of is not something we can afford to do, there's some sizes that I mean if we were to have He let's say, 2000 units. Of. A pair of piece. And we had that size over a year,
[00:19:52] Brigham: it might sell five and so that's that's just not something that we can do and We do feel. Sorry that we can't get all the sizes in, but yeah.
[00:20:07] Tayson: Yeah, yeah, unfortunately it just doesn't make sense. Financially for us, the bigger, the company gets the better. You know, that cut us with continued expansion of the women's side of things too. We'll continue to expand those. I will say we are apprehensive of launching more women pants but women tops, we do a lot of those and eventually we'll do more of the pants, the thing with women pants for the most part. Fit is extremely challenging for us and two women will wear a lot of the same tops is men. But there is a much more broad range of women that would wear pants versus they want to wear leggings versus they want to wear. More
[00:20:50] Tayson: options, I guess, you know. So it's a tough one for us on the bottoms especially, but on tops will continue to accommodate more and more for women and we will get to a Crossroads as a company where we do need to. Probably do some things with women. Bottoms particular, pants, shorts, leggings, and figure something out there. Now, I would probably say though with comparing the Sawtooth Pants. If women are trying to fit these for themselves. Fabric in the Altura Pants is going to be more forgiving and stretchy and loose-fitting in Mobile. So if you're not worried about looks in particular There's a higher likelihood that if you're buying one of these pants, I'm going to
[00:21:34] Tayson: tell you to buy the Alturas over the Sawtooth, there's just more stretch and forgiveness in it to try to just make make things work better, I guess. You could say we have a women's cut in the Sawtooths, they're probably almost all gone at this point and we're not restocking those but just something to note there. The fabric in the Altura is quite a bit more stretchy. And so you'll that'll just give you more forgiveness. A lot of women's bottom have a lot of stretch in them and so something to just quickly point out, okay? Moving on, then. Eliza Adams is asking when the new Shadowlight
Editor’s note: The size range, unit economics, women’s tops and bottoms, Altura and Sawtooth fit, stretch, stock, and discontinuation comments describe August 2025 products and company decisions. They are not current sizing, availability, fit, or future-line commitments.
[00:22:12] Tayson: comes out and we do have a lot of launches. So let's talk about the upcoming things, we have because we already, you know, put on the sales page, essentially that we have said that we have a new puffy jacket coming out and that piece we just said fall right now, but that piece is going to be closer to October. Now we might put on a presale just like we do with these ones. There's some things up there and when it'll be here. Exactly. But it did we. We built an entirely new fabric for it. And we had some delays in the first production, run of that fabric and so it took a little bit
[00:22:47] Tayson: longer, we were hoping these all three of these pieces would launch at the same time. But Quick, you know, sometime in October is what I'll say for that piece. The Shadowlight though, is going to be coming a little bit sooner, it's going to be sometime in September. I'll just I'll just say kind of more mid-september, but we might surprise you, we'll see. But it's it's on, it's, it's closed. And I'm definitely excited to to get that piece out. We were all of these. I mean, just like with anything, it seems like first production runs of anything. There's a higher likelihood of having a delay in production on the very first time they're producing it.
[00:23:24] Tayson: And it seems like we kind of caught that with a few piece of this year for sure. But I'm really excited to be launching new stuff and I'm really excited about the new Shadowlight coming out for people. So we'll save more conversation. In fact, make sure you're subscribed because those will probably be some of the next conversations we have on here. We talked about the OV100 challenge. I will do a trip recap on that really soon, probably within a week of this podcast. And then we will jump to really talk about the behind the designs of this of the shadowlight for the most part. So, it's closed. It's coming and I've loved
[00:24:00] Tayson: that pack. I'm really excited about that. All right, let's look at a few other things we have. Well, We have maybe five minutes, we try to keep these to 30 minutes, keep them short concise, so let's just touch on
[00:24:14] Tayson: this one because we do have a new jacket coming and we have more stuff coming as well. So, what happened to The LoftTek products and will they be coming back?
Editor’s note: The puffy-jacket and Shadowlight presale, production-delay, September/October launch, OV100 recap, and behind-the-designs comments describe August 2025 plans. They are historical intentions, not current launch, availability, schedule, or company commitments.
[00:24:28] Brigham: Yeah, no no no no designs or plans involving LoftTek products in the future. The As far as what happened to them, obviously we let them sell out. And without ordering more and developing anything new there. I think a lot of it is we we do want to have we have a strong focus on performance and insulating jackets, you know, we We've learned and had high high success with our down products. And, and I'd say we're Very firm Believers, and in the benefits of benefits of down. They're, you know, being a backpacking company with a focus or a concern about, you know, weight, warmth to weight and how much weight we pack and packability down.
[00:25:29] Brigham: is a kind of superior obviously and warmth-to-weight and packability, but so yeah, just kind of having that That high confidence and seeing the success of our like all the down products that we've kind of released over the years I think. Yeah,
[00:25:45] Tayson: just like you started just performance. We've just been able to achieve higher levels of performance. And we've just matured as a company and continue to push the performance levels of our product. We actually had a conversation with the supplier recently about, you know, a loft to a similar LoftTek, insulation. And yeah, I mean to this day, they've continued to try to innovate some of that stuff, but it's still only about a 600-fill-power range for fill power compared to what we're using now, which is more in the 800- to 900-fill-power range of fill power. And so there's a that's a very significant, you know, 30% difference or something like that in warmth. But then
[00:26:27] Tayson: there's also things like Um, how well those pieces perform over time, and there's just no denying that down over time continues to outperform, you know, down if you take care of it that like it, it doesn't break down. It's not like a synthetic that can slowly break down or have other issues in the Loft that can can have issues with, with washing it or some of these kinds of things that, that then reduce performance over time, whereas down, it can really perform almost as good as brand new for a much, much longer period of time now benefits. Yes, there were some huge benefits and we sold those hard, you know, with the LoftTek jacket.
[00:27:07] Tayson: Let's just say, like, we talked to very much about the water resistance factors how performed when it was wet. Well, since then, we've just continued to test and test and test and the reality is a lot of down performs really well when it's wet and dries really well. The other side of it is how like, how do you wet out a down jacket or anything and it's extremely, extremely hard for any of you that have these fears. I would say if you have a down piece, Take go fill your bathtub up and try to wet it out and you'll experience. The difficulty of wetting out a piece of down and not only that we've innovated
[00:27:46] Tayson: on the fabric side and made it so much harder to get moisture into a jacket that that builds a lot of confidence in us. Also just feeling less relevant. To have a LoftTek, you know, imitation down that's synthetic for all of those those reasons. I think another way of kind of
[00:28:07] Brigham: Helping answer. This is In terms of what we did with LoftTek products like they were a basically, a synthetic down imitation basically, that's what it is. Is it was a synthetic loose fill insulation. That was trying to Do what down does and when it comes to loose fill insulation, nothing can do what down does and the performance benefits, vastly outweigh any potential drawbacks of loose fill basically of a down. So, in a piece that we would want to use a loose fill insulation, you know, we just tested and learned continually learning that the down is just a, you know, across the board is just, you know, the period there are there is a place for
[00:28:54] Brigham: synthetic insulation and we have found that that is more in the sheets, you know, continuous sheet. And with synthetic insulation, and those pieces are different there on the Lighter Side. Their application is a little bit different. You know if you kind of look at like the Ventus our Ventus hoodie and compare that to, you know the the Vantage Alpine jacket that we're going to be releasing in a little while. completely different use case and you can you can almost physically just kind of do the calculation in your mind and and see where you can go, you know, apply synthetic sheet of insulation to certain pieces because it makes a lot of sense.
[00:29:37] Tayson: yeah, if we were to try to make a really, really warm jacket, and synthetic That'd be LoftTek series. As a company, we met. I would just say we matured and our performance standards increase and to be quite Frank The LoftTek jacket. Didn't meet performance standards for us anymore.
Editor’s note: The Vantage Alpine release statement was an August 2025 intention, not a current schedule or commitment. The LoftTek discontinuation, 600 versus 800–900 fill-power comparison, warmth-to-weight, packability, longevity, wet-down, drying, fabric, and synthetic-insulation comments are August 2025 design and performance claims. They do not guarantee current specifications, durability, moisture performance, or suitability.
[00:30:14] Tayson: It just We wouldn't be happy with that piece and we so that's that's why we let it go. Okay. That's all the time we have but I did want to quickly tell you guys this. We are introducing a new way for you guys to ask questions through SpeakPipe. This is a way for you to record yourself asking a question versus typing it in. So if you just want to quickly record a voice, memo question to us, we can then take that in and we we may play it right on the show. We may summarize it but it allows us to just have a more conversational way of answering questions so that is SpeakPipe.com forward,
[00:30:54] Tayson: slash live ultralight and we'll put links in the description of the podcast. But again, SpeakPipe.com forward slash live ultralight and that'll be fun way. That'll be a little bit more interactive interactive for sure. And we can, you know, understand a little bit more of the question. Sometimes we read these questions and there they can, sometimes be a little bit challenging to understand too, so we look forward to that. So if you have questions SpeakPipe or leave a comment on YouTube or write in a comment, those comments that are written in and end up on a sheet for us to also, look at here, so trying to make it as easy as possible. Last
[00:31:31] Tayson: questions, we actually, you guys been doing a good job, we have more questions than we have time to answer most of the time, so ask really good questions and you're more likely to get on the show, I guess you could say. But Appreciate it. Make sure you're subscribed. We will be doing a recap of the OV100 and that we did out in the Colorado Trail. And yeah, you haven't shared this or rated, please do so and we'll see you guys on the next podcast.
Editor’s note: The SpeakPipe, YouTube, and comment-based submission workflow and planned OV100 recap describe August 2025. Generic submission and support channels are not included as episode resources, and the historical workflow is not a current support guarantee.
