Tayson: So here's the big question, how do we lighten our gear and build our confidence. So we can start living a life full of Outdoor Adventures and memories without having unlimited amounts of time money and previous experience. That's the big question and we are here to help you find the answers. This is the Live Ultralight podcast power, bi Outdoor Vitals. Hey, what's up Obi tribe? Welcome back to the Live Ultralight podcast. I'm Tayson, I'm your host and we've got Brigham our lead
Tayson: designer here again on the podcast, which means we are about to cover a whole bunch of gear related topics. And there's going to be a lot of Education here, but it's also time to launch a new product and talk about the story behind the new product. These are some of our favorite podcasts to do some of our most downloaded podcasts. We know that you guys love to learn about the products and hopefully the whole goal for us
Tayson: is that we're educating. You and inspiring you and building some confidence but Brigham, welcome back. How's it going?
Brigham: It's good. It does actually feel like it's been a while. I don't even know when we did the last one, but it feels like it's been a while.
Tayson: It's been a little sporadic and probably going into the summer, it's going to get even more sporadic. So it for sure. Will I
Brigham: have some significant absence of?
Tayson: Yeah, seriously I've been looking at my calendar and I'm like, so when am I working? You know, it's bad. It's it's I don't know if I have a single like, full work week in June and in July, I don't even know. There might be one. Yeah,
Brigham: well, it's like Some heavy work weeks, the work weeks that are workweeks. Are,
Tayson: yeah, they're gonna be pretty intense, extremely efficient, no messing around and maybe bringing the laptop on the road, but I mean, thankfully for me I don't have much going on in May, I just got back from being out of the office for a week, so that's been good. But the rest of May hopefully is time for me to get ready for the rest of this, but I know it's not quite the case for you, right? You're you're heading back out right now.
Brigham: Yeah, we're going my wife and I are going down to the Grand Canyon tomorrow. We're going to do. Just a hike. Well, We're gonna start at the South Sky, bapt Trailhead. Well, no, we're gonna start at. We're gonna Park and start at the bright. Angel Trailhead run to the South cuyab Trailhead along the rim, and then go down to the river and follow the river to the route that goes out the bright angel Trail. So it'll be oh like 22, 22
Brigham: and a half miles. So it'll be fun. We're gonna Be testing some R&D stuff. Yeah. And hopefully not frying.
Tayson: It's already hot and dryer on here and you guys don't get don't get too confused, right? I just realized that we're recording this in May. Probably was going to launch either the very end of May or June. So, anyways, just a heads up on that, but it is already hot. It is hot. It's dusty and dry. There's already warnings out for Drought. It's kind of a sad, sad thing to see. But yeah,
Tayson: yeah. Hopefully, there's water in the bottom of the canyon there for you to.
Brigham: Yeah, I'm thinking the river will probably have some water in it. Yeah, I checked. On Friday, some of the water station. Access reports. I guess, but it sounds like we'll have water for the worst part. For sure like Basically, from the bottom. Back up to the top those whatever seven eight miles, it is, there will be like two or three water stations that we can get water at, which that's the hottest part and the worst part because you're now climbing the,
Brigham: I don't know, I think it's like four or five
Tayson: thousand feet but I'm looking forward to it. And that's that's pretty nice that they just have water for you. I don't know if I've ever been on a trail with Aid stations like that but now I'm sure it'll be fun. 22, Mile Loop. That's pretty good too. So Sweet. Well, I guess let's let's Dive Right In. So Today we're going to get to talk about a complete. We're gonna call it a redesign, but it's basically a new product that's replacing an
Tayson: old product. It was that we changed that much on these that it's, it's a brand new product. We're just gonna call it redesign and that's for our top quilt, specifically, our down top quilts for the last year. Plus we've been doing a lot of sampling and testing. And, and Lots of tweaks. And, and honestly, it's been much longer than that, we've, you know, had a lot of discussions for basically, two years on top, quilts, and ideas and Concepts. And we finally,
Tayson: really, Got into it and got it done. I mean, it's it's sometimes it's a big process to to make changes and make things happen, especially when you're like us and have a lot of projects open at one time, but today, that's all we get to talk about. So I thought before we got into the specifics on it, we talked just a little bit about top quilts. A lot of you that are probably listening, maybe don't currently run a top quilt. Maybe
Tayson: you've been scared of top quotes in the past because of drafts and I mean there's a lot of content out there. People that switch to a top quilt and switch back to sleeping bag. There's a lot of switching in general. I feel like I've seen some like influencers or channels on YouTube and stuff that I probably seen him switch back and forth, three or four times, and Like make videos about it each time, you know it's it's a Hot Topic but
Tayson: there's probably a lot of you that don't have a top quilt or considered it but never got one. So we're gonna kind of talk to people. We want to talk in this podcast as if we're talking to people that maybe have never tried a top quilt. But at the same time we're gonna get a little bit technical in trying to explain some of the changes. We made that have a significant impact on usability of the top quilt. so, obviously with the
Tayson: top quilt, The biggest pros of the biggest reasons that you're looking at, it is just massive amounts of reduced weight. You cutting out zipper. You're cutting out, extra Fabrics. You're cutting out a hood. You're cutting out. Just extra Fabrics, extra baffling inside and it all adds up to, to shaved weight. I probably should have pulled this number off the top, but I think in our products you're looking at about a pound difference to go from a top quilt to a sleeping
Tayson: bag which adds up specially when you're running across the top of the Grand Canyon or something like that. In 100° weather already that kind of stuff can add up. And so that's the number one reason that we see most people run with the top quilt. There's definitely a few other reasons that people like them. Obviously, reduce space kind of goes hand in hand with the reduced weight, but they are going to be smaller in space. They're gonna fold up smaller. Compressed
Tayson: smaller. Some people like them because they don't like the constricting nature of like a mummy bag, so it gives you a little bit more Elbow Room per se a little bit more freedom not as claustrophobic but you know, potentially in them. So I don't know any other reasons, I'm kind of missing on just why people are in love with top quilts right now. I were in love with them for that matter. It's our preferred Sleep System between me and you, I
Tayson: believe, I mean, we different cases in the winter and the winner. Personally, I go back to a sleeping bag, quite often, but three seasons out of the four. I'm doing most of my stuff, it's it's in a top quilt.
Brigham: Yeah, I I'd say I'm about the same. Yeah, for winner. Winner, winner trips. I have been using the sleeping bag, but the rest of the time I've pretty much consistently stuck with the top quilt for the weight for the compatibility, I guess with Building on some of the things you already talked about. Just, I just saved, like, kind of Versatility. like, If you maybe over over insulated yourself, you took a 15 when you could have got by with a 30. But
Brigham: the versatility of the top quilt is, is Allows you to kind of compensate for maybe being too warm. You can vent your heat a lot better.
Tayson: That's a great. That's a great thing to cover. Because if hypothetically, if you only want to buy one bag, right for us where we live, that would be the 15 degree. You know range. But if you buy a 15 degree and you go out and it's 40 degrees out there, you could really be hot and a top quilt that's going to be easier to vent and you're not going to be carrying that much more weight. You know, to go from a
Tayson: 15 degree, sleeping bag to a 30 degree sleeping bag. You're gonna have a bigger increment jump typically I think you know again I probably should pull some numbers here but essentially it's easier to over-inflate in a top quilt and have it cover a broader range and be more versatile. Without feeling like, you're carrying a bunch of extra bag, a bunch of extra weight and a bunch of extra bolt. So I totally agree with that. And I mean, in some people They
Tayson: get a zero degree top quilt and they use try to use it year round, you know because it's possible. But it's your degree sleeping bag. You'd be pretty. Dang miserable at times. Oh yeah. Even
Tayson: with the great venting option in a bag it's just How much more difficult? So that is, that's a great. That's a great one for sure. So, there's kind of some of the whys, why top quilts why they're important, and why they're just downright popular right now. I mean, I think they're just incredibly popular right now, and so we wanted to take a different approach. And so, a little bit of a history lesson at least for my perspective on top. Quilts is
Tayson: Top, quilts really got popular. Kind of at the same time as Hannah camping got popular, they really went hand in hand from what I saw. Potentially, there was a company out there making top quilts for ground people, you know, years and years ago. But I just, you know, if they did, it wasn't very popular. And so Hammock Camping, really pioneered top, quilts it seemed like and then these cottage industry started popping up and making these tops more. So for The Hammocks
Tayson: side but pretty quickly, they realized that they could make them for ground campers as well. And so a lot of these Cottage companies that seemed like we're trying to go for kind of the easiest way to make a top quilt. I would imagine at least factored in because they're trying to efficiently produce them. A lot of them are producing them themselves in their own garages and so they mostly a handful of them, you know, end up taking a very square shape.
Tayson: Straight edges and then they'd sew a zipper on the bottom and put a drawstring. And you know, they'd zip up a foot box essentially and pull the drawstring and try to make a foot box out of it. And that kind of was part of the birth of a top quilt. Then you know they some of them were making fully enclosed foot boxes, going forward, but most of them were very Square going up towards your head and most of them were pretty
Tayson: narrow because in a hammock you didn't need it to really Wrap underneath you a ton. So then when it came time, that people are starting to use them on the ground. A lot of the companies started to just make them wider even when we made our first top quilt, when I designed our first top quilt, it was really like, well this we want this to be a top quilt for a hammock as well as the ground. How are we going to
Tayson: do that? We're gonna make it whiter. And that was the biggest thing that we did to make it ground. Worthy was like, let's just take and make it wider. And that would like I guess, I guess the point here is realistically, we've been using a hammock designed top quilt on the ground for quite a while and it worked. Well, it did work well, obviously, because the popularity, you know, we sold a lot of them. Everyone else has been selling a lot
Tayson: of them. But when it came time for us to look back at this and take, man, we need to do an upgrade, we need to make a better. We have ideas from lots of use of them, we wanted to start with the different perspective and so we did. Really the perspective that we took when we when we started this project was, let's build the top quilt for ground sleepers. And if it works for the ground, it's going to be Overkill. It's
Tayson: going to be more than enough and more than seal enough for any hammock campers. But instead of Designing for hammock first and then the ground would get a much better end result. If we designed for the ground sleepers first, and then the hammock campers more or less second. And that's exactly what we did. And it brought a lot of things to light, and it changed a lot on this quilt. Now, am I missing anything in this brief history lesson, Brigham.
Brigham: Know. I said that that's, that's pretty good. okay, so, when I
Tayson: started to talk to you about doing a redesign here or the topic started to come up, What were some of the objectives that you thought like we were really shooting for in in doing a new model of new redesign? Well,
Brigham: it kind of goes to looking at like, what are some of the what are some of the deterrence? If there are deterrence for people that are typically saving sleeping bag sleepers that Are have looked at or investigated possibly using a top quilt or people that actually are very interested in using the top quilt, but they haven't done it yet. Like what are the what are the things that holds them back? I would say? And you might as well look at people
Brigham: that have say tried at once and they had a bad experience. what are all those things like like if you compile them and and really what the common themes are just like the usability, which everything relates to how well someone sleeps. So what happens is you get somebody that tosses and turns a lot sleeps on their side and when they turn the edge of the top quilt, Isn't. Adequately tucked onto the body. So it lifts up off the pad and it
Brigham: creates a draft, the heat, that was nice and sealed. Now, finds a way out, so you get, we just call that drafts. So that's like one of the biggest ones there is is just getting drafts. Not having the quilt. So it wraps or enough around the user's body to prevent that. And I think that is Significant factor that, like, people just it's hard. They almost can't get over. Like, once you experience it and then then it, like, it's something that you
Brigham: can't get out of your head. You know, you're thinking about it, while you're switching sides in the middle of the night, your consciously, like getting up and feeling back there, to make sure the top quilt is tucking in and you're not getting that draft. And and so it affects sleep because of the temperature of the cold air entering, or the heat escaping. But then all the psychological annoyance of like, having to Check and make sure it's staying tucked and then your
Brigham: resit the the pad straps or whatever.
Tayson: Every time you roll over in the night like re waking up more than just rolling over.
Brigham: Yeah, it's disruptive sleep. It's just on off on off. And so I feel like that's that's one of the most the biggest factors and just on a broader picture is just the overall warmth. I think people are hesitant because they hear about drafts and that's related to warmth and warmth is related to a good night's sleep and so everything I feel like is just centered around like the keeping the heat in and how easy it is to keep the heat because
Brigham: if you are consciously trying to keep the heat and you can keep the heat in but then how will you sleeping if you're having to put really any effort into like your pads thing in place and all that which you know, we've been using topicals for a long time and a lot of the time, like that's scribes my night of sleep is, you know, just a bunch of times throughout the night. Just readjusting thinking about the pad, the strap feeling a
Brigham: little Gap back there, then re tucking it in and It's not great sleep. So I think basically we wanted to tackle that and just think well let's just make a top quilt. That is going to not have drafts. Make it really easy to not have drafts. Basically, you don't even have to think about it. You set it up. Basically just make it more user friendly and approachable. Yeah.
Tayson: and the thing about that, like that whole scenario you just described is It it's real and it gets more real. The colder, it gets so a draft like like hypothetically. If you were to experience a draft in 30 degree weather, it does not affect you as much as if you're to experience it in single digits because it's harder for your body to reheat up in single digits than it is in 30 or 40 degrees. In fact. you know, a trip, I
Tayson: went on pretty recently somehow I got a hold of a regular linked path top quilt instead of a Long wide and it was our older model and somehow I also didn't get pad straps. And when we got there it was blowing like crazy. Like the wind was just blowing and it was a cold cold wind for what we kind of expected. And it was cold enough that I actually buckled, both of the straps directly behind me and laid like a mummy,
Tayson: like, I could not move. I could not move. At all the whole night but that was worth staying warm. And that's what I essentially had to do but obviously I would have much rather been able to move roll over without these massive fear of drafts and so on, so forth. And so this is exactly what this redesign did is it's going to take things like that. There's like that and eliminate them. because of the way that we've shaped it, and, and
Tayson: So on so forth. So if that's something that is kept, you nervous about a top quilt in the past. The way that we've approached, this has really made a massive massive difference in impacting. That the draft aspect, it's going to keep you warmer. It's going to inspire me even to take it into colder temperatures than I typically take like we just talked to the very first about me, you know often switching to a sleeping bag and the winter time. Well this
Tayson: could inspire me easily inspire me to have confidence now to take it into colder temperatures. So on so forth. So just to kind of second that drafts are something you should worry about but you shouldn't have to and that's what we hope and what we've seen in our own testing of what this newer model is able to do.
Brigham: Yeah. You know what? I was just thinking of like you know when you hear people what I think once people Consistently use a top quilt and they learned that they like it. Something I hear people say. That even our people that like top quilts. when people ask them is, Like yeah, it takes some getting used to. Yeah, once you figure it out or like, you know, once you figure out how to use it. So I guess a good way to sum
Brigham: it up. Is we wanted to like eliminate that that whole thing I just said like we want it to be like Not a
Tayson: learning period, not a learning curve. Like yeah, like shouldn't learn how to sleep when you're 30 years old.
Brigham: Exactly. So we want to kind of eliminate that whole getting used to it and figuring out your way of using it to eliminate the draft. We just want you to be able to get it. Set it up, get in and be warm. Yeah,
Tayson: yeah. That's a really. That's a really good analogy. I have heard that from everyone. That does reviews on top quotes? Yeah, once I got used to it, once I, you know, once I figure out how to seal it and stay on top of, you know, stuff like that. And so, Which you can do. But now I think that this is just going to make it more approachable, more holistic for more people to experience, the savings the way savings, and the bulk
Tayson: Savings of a top quilt. So, All right, so that was kind of our design intent going into. This is, how can we make it warmer? How can we make it less drafty and keep the same weight essentially? So where do we start Brigham? I mean, do we? There's I mean we get a lot.
Brigham: Yeah, I guess we could kind of just go into. What did we do to do that? What did we, what did we do? Yeah.
Tayson: I guess let's start at the very top and work our way down. I'll, I'll let you I guess. The first couple and just kind of talk through them.
Brigham: Sure. So we added at the, at the top, the top edge of the quilt that you would typically kind of wrap around your neck, and your shoulders, we added a draft collar. So it's a downdraft collar that is above Or extends past the the drawcord point. So like when you when you tighten the draw cord around your neck or the you know tighten the truck or to close it in around your neck, it doesn't constrict or compressed the the down that's
Brigham: in the Draft collar. So it's And and we also use like a boxed draft collar, so it doesn't come down to one
Tayson: stitch point, you know what I mean? Yes, you have a cold Stitch line that goes around the draft collar,
Brigham: right? So add a draft collar and that will really help because when you do actually, if you do snug up the court, It kind of just snugs that cozy draft collar around your neck. It feels really nice. I
Tayson: really like it. I've spent some cold nights and older top quilts and you tighten that string basically to your neck, you feel like you're almost sleeping with a rope around your neck. Whereas with this it gives you this nice buffer and seal is seals better and you don't have to feel like it's Strangling, you know what I mean? So it made a significant difference in the way that we construct that baffle. There's not a cold line or a cold seam or
Tayson: anything like that, going through it. So That's that's definitely first and foremost. And then from there, what's the next thing we did?
Brigham: I'm just gonna go down this list. This is, I mean, it's gonna be a quick one. So part of having the quilt just be more usable, less finicky. Typically we had sent our quilts out with one pad strap so every quilt is going to include two straps. Now there's two buckle points on a quilt. So we figure, we might as well include two pad straps with the quilt. For people that don't need to, then you've got an extra one, but I
Brigham: feel like it just makes the quilt again that that much easier to use that much less you have to worry about and it'll, you know, just help prevent the drafts help you sleep better, make it make the quilt stay put when you're tossing and turning or rolling over sleeping on your side. So, I feel like, Let's talk about the cut,
Tayson: really quick of what we changed because the cut is so much better that I personally don't even plan on using the straps. Now I think it's a good idea to have them use That try it with the straps different scenarios. I still might but the cut is so much different that literally just by buttoning up the top. So there's a button that'll go right behind your neck and then there's two different Buckle points. It'll kind of be along your back, but
Tayson: just by buckling, that top one, it, almost anatomically Falls underneath you already. And that's because of the cut of this. So at the top of it now, historically, a lot of these top quilts are included, went straight up to like a 90 degree angle, essentially on the top Edge and then when you went to pull that draw cord and cinch it down, you had something as wide or wider than what your shoulders had to fit through. Now up around your head
Tayson: and so you have cinch it, a long ways to get it all the way in to the tight, around your shoulders and neck. So what we've done is we've actually tapered that in so at your shoulders, it's wider and then It curves and goes towards the top Edge, where the draft collar is, what that ends up doing, is it actually ends up tucking? When in use case, it actually ends up tucking very, very nicely around your shoulders, or around your body
Tayson: and kind of conforms and pulls it. Underneath you from there though. We went whiter through the shoulders and kind of that mid torso area down to roughly kind of your the middle of your body which whiter than than what it was historically. I think our older ones around like 50 inches whereas this I want to say is up to 50%. Does that sound right Brigham or around there about its
Brigham: two Whatever it is two inches wider than it used to be. Yeah. So it flares out wider at the at the widest point where your body is when you turn on your side. Yeah.
Tayson: So we've got additional space and room from kind of your shoulders down to your pelvis area. Just for additional coverage. And then it tapers back into the feet. Now, that cut and the way that those edges curve, really allows it to taper and Tuck underneath you extremely,
Tayson: extremely well, which kind of comes back to what. I was just saying about the pad straps is the pad straps. Are there they work. They'll help it to stay in place when you're rolling over and things like that. So I probably, I will experience very experiment. Excuse me, using the pad straps on and off. I'm sure. Just just for the ability to roll and not have to think about tucking or anything like that because it is a big deal but it
Tayson: just all ready. Just the coverage. It tapering around your neck so much more insulated. It feels like plus, it's easier to to tuck underneath. You gets wider, you have more coverage there and then it tucks back underneath you. Coming down into kind of the knee area, back of the knee area. So that cut right there. significant like it is is a lot like kind of the meat and the potatoes of What changed and the significance of that, the tape, especially up
Tayson: where the head and neck, the shoulders and neck area. Is that that curve right there made a significant difference.
Brigham: Yeah. That's that's the only like the most significant design change or the most significant aspect of the design is the new, the profile of the actual, the body of the quilt. And that's like the most significant factor in eliminating, the drafts and having room to to switch sides to sleep on your side without worrying about a draft. It's the shape of the quilt as it is. Now that accomplishes the majority of that.
Tayson: And that's a handful of samples, to dial that, in to where it didn't squeeze your shoulders, your shoulder stopped, plenty room. But at tapered in enough, that it was significant. And so there was definitely some fine-tuning, their multiple samples multiple attempts to to get it just right. And but the finish the finish product is is it's awesome. Makes a big difference. Yeah. That the
Brigham: Top Edge. You know what? You wrap around your your neck and your shoulders. It's I really think that I could be wrong by a couple inches here but I'm pretty sure it's about 12 inches narrower than it used to be. That's just excess material that you're not having to cinch up to stay warm. So it Just without doing anything, it already conforms around your head neck shoulder area without cinching any chord up. But then now with the draft collar and the
Brigham: way the court is, you can really notice the the difference in preventing heat loss. Yeah.
Tayson: Okay, so kind of covered the draft caller, the cut of the bag now. Let's kind of keep moving down towards the foot box changes that we made in the I guess I'd call it the anatomic shape of the football box in the redesign their, so, To describe a little bit of what we want to improve is on some of our other football boxes. I think, on the top quote specifically, they were more of an oval or a round shape. and they
Tayson: were kind of oversized to compensate for the feet and not not necessarily oversized the average size even
Tayson: and what that did is that creates a lot more space A dead space that you now have to heat with your body to keep your feet warm. And if it's not depending on, you know, the shape, it's hard to explain this. But if your toes are pushing up against the side that can affect the Loft a little bit and there's different things that could affect, you know, either the space that you have to heat or the ability for the down to
Tayson: Loft. And so, with this redesign, we went with a more anatomical shape where,
Tayson: if you're to picture this if you were to lay down on your back and then look down at your toes, you're going to see that your heels often will be pretty close together but your toes will kind of fall away from each other and kind of create this. I don't know what you call that trapezoid kind of an upside down trapezoid.
Brigham: Yeah, I mean your feet kind of make of a V shape so your toes are set wider than your heels.
Tayson: Yeah exactly. And so that's what we tried to mimic with the footballs We actually tucked in the bottom of a little bit tighter and then put more space up at the top where your toes would be so don't think of it as being like tight and restrictive on a foot box. But just way more built to suit the way. The body sits in there and not have extra space that you're trying to heat. And you know therefore trying to, you know,
Tayson: keeping your codes toes colder. Yeah it really just kind of took out
Brigham: like what was the excess space. The old quilt just was very big around and this just kind of like trimmed it up in certain areas. so that the spacing is more consistent, you know, from like your shins to your toes.
Tayson: Yeah. and something that's like hard to explain super thoroughly, but as I spent many a cold nights on the side of a mountain, the best way I have come to describe when you find that you have empty or extra space in your sleeping bag when you're cold already is imagine the heating bill on a small house versus a big house, they have the same insulation in the walls, have the same R-value insulation or quality of installation in the roof and the
Tayson: walls everywhere, but it's still is going to cost you more or require more energy per se to A bigger house. Think about the same way when you're thinking of a sleeping bag or a top quilt, if there's just dead extra space in there, your body has to supply the energy or whatever to heat that extra space. And so the way that we've done this is by just taking out some of that extra area that there was unusable and unused, it tightened
Tayson: up that foot box just a little bit and creates a warmer footballs for you. So kind of covered all that. I'm trying to think if there's anything related to warmth, we want to cover additional You know, we tinkered maybe a little bit with the baffles and the baffle Heights in it to optimize the down very well. But I think for as far as the cut goes and the sewing of it, that covers the most of it. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, that's
Tayson: so then let's talk just a little bit about the down differences and then we'll talk a little bit about the sizing. so, what are we doing with the down? What are we using for fabrics and down?
Brigham: Fabrics were still using a 10d ripstop nylon on the outside and the inside. There's really no change there. We're using the same Down that we use like in our other in our Summit sleeping bags. So we use a 800, fill power, hyper dry down. We do use a duck down. It's a 90/10 ratio. It's Responsibly sourced. We get our down from Allied feather, and the hyperdrive down is pretty much the best that we can find in terms of the Water resistance.
Brigham: So they use a wax based treatment on the down that just tests really well for longevity and like the durability of the of the treatment. Terms of over like resisting water, it tests like significantly higher than basically anything else out there. So it's really hard to overwhelm the down and even if you delivery do overwhelm the down like we would in a test like in a lab scenario. It recovers. Really, really fast like impressively fast when we did it. We were
Brigham: not expecting it. So we were, like, pretty, pretty shocked. At how quick it did recover because it didn't take long at all. Setting it outside in the open air.
Tayson: Yeah. I think we've been using Allied for. Two or more years. Now, I don't know if you were here, Brigham. When we first made that switch, I don't know. We've been using dwr treated down for a long time, but it wasn't till our buddies, a hike and bike. Let us an Allied know that we had a very similar name in something and we got paired up with them and started doing some research and We made the switch now, we've always used.
Tayson: I said, like, so we've already used the dwr. But in testing Blown Away blown away at the difference that we found and what majority of the industries using for dwr coded now. And this hyper dry wax base. treatments the wax base to me, seems to be much more durable in testing and Longevity, but but more, so is we could still get the other dwr's to complete failure and you could still get this to complete failure, but it is Quite it's extremely
Tayson: impressive. How much harder it is to get this to complete failure? And what I mean by complete failures? When like the down? Totally collapses like zero space, zero Loft. Um, and the big thing is complete, failure means you're down is not going to dry because there's no airflow. There's no way for the water to drain. So in this hyper dry stuff when we were just doing some even recent testing and we're trying to get the down to failure and it only
Tayson: lost, you know, 50 maybe 60% of its Loft. It red dried super fast because it didn't go to complete failure. Still has airflow still has the ability to dry and so just been super super impressed. So Super glad that we got paired up. We have that meeting with Allied, and they've been awesome partners of our sense and pioneering a lot of stuff. So That's the down, we're using the same down but what we increase the down amount in the top quilts
Tayson: by a little bit. So not only did we make the cut and the shape and everything significantly better for warmth we then also added a little bit more down
Brigham: to each of our quilts. Yeah, so every each of the temperature ranges, we added A set amount of down. Yeah, basically, we added 40 grams of down to every temperature rating. So yeah, I like Jason said really in conjunction with like the design of it to be much more efficient for heat retention. We just wanted to back it up with a little bit more down which we were able to do because We trimmed the foot box, the foot box overall just
Brigham: is less material. We widened it out where it needs to be wide, but then we drastically tapered it at the top, so it really pretty much just balanced out. Except we had a massive gain in usable warmth. Yeah, so
Tayson: yeah. By trimming kind of the excess fat. You could say. It takes the Installation. We already had puts it in a better location of a utilized and then on top of that by adding a little bit more, it made a big difference and I would almost say the best way that I would describe it. Is. I would feel just as comfortable and confident, taking our newer 15 degree model in scenarios where I used to take the zero degree model from our
Tayson: last previous version. Like it's like that significant of a jump in warmth and usable warmth specifically to buy the lack of the drafts, the, the new location of where all the down is at and then the slightly added amount of down. So between all those three you're going to see a significant usable warmth difference in the field like significant and kind of brings us back to our initial goal, too. Of just making it more approachable. Bringing out a lot of fear
Tayson: that people have with top quilts. And I think that a lot of people, you know, like I also talked about the beginning where people are kind of switching back and forth between sleeping bags. That's going to happen so much less because they're going to just be so much more happy consistently with the top quilt. Now the one thing, the maybe the last thing that we haven't covered yet is we did change up the sizing just a little bit on this where
Tayson: historically we offered a regular and then a long wide model. Because this because both models essentially are as wide as the older wide model. In fact, they're actually wider than the older wide model. We actually went with just a regular and a long model. Which is still like I say better than our previous model. So those of you that are like oh man I have had the long wide model before or I need the long wide model. Before what I'm trying
Tayson: to tell you is you don't need the wide model anymore because it's So much more easy to keep on. You, it's got the width and the areas you need it. Etc. Etc. So and our wide models only two inches wider. Anyways, before it's just not needed. And so we're able to trim some weight and make it in a regular and a long And not necessarily a regular in a long wide model. So those are from familiar with some of our size
Tayson: and beforehand, I just want to touch on that. Okay. Yeah, that's that's mainly the design. So what else do we need? And want to cover in related to to the redesign?
Brigham: We can just quickly kind of go through so people know like we're offering the quilt is available in a 30 degree, regular long. Degree regular long and 0 degree, regular long. As far as the sizing goes, I would, I would recommend in terms of the size of a person like their height up six feet and under for sure as a size regular. If you're over six one, I'd say go with the long.
Tayson: So if you are six foot you're saying go with the regular. If you are six one go with the long. Yeah okay.
Brigham: Yeah that'd be that'd be our recommendation.
Tayson: It's going to accommodate people from 61 up to 6465 ish,
Brigham: right? Yep. Yep. Okay. Yeah, we kind of covered the the width aspect it really. Like I think we'll probably talk more about it in a few minutes, but yeah, the whip is Just kind of covers everybody. Mm-hmm.
Tayson: So again with all with with everything that we do, there were encouraging people to add about five degrees for a Comfort Range. Your sleeping pad is a very important aspect with the top quilt because if you have a bad sleeping pad or an R value, that does not reflect the temperature going into, You just it's you're not gonna be able to stay warm in a sleeping bag but it's but even more so a little bit in the top quilt. So be
Tayson: aware of that if you have a bad experience in a top quilt, the first question we're going to ask you when you write into us. Is definitely going to be what pattern you want. What's the R value of the pad? So we can kind of cross-reference that so be aware of that. But yeah, that 30 degree bag, I'm using a ton of Summer it's going to be a bag that is going to go on a few trips. For sure with me,
Tayson: 15 degree bag for us is kind of that all around bag. Where if you're getting into the 20s, you're going to be more than happy with it. But because it's a top quilt, you can vented in the 30s and even in the 40s and then we are gonna offer it in that zero, as well, for which maybe a little bit of overkill for the summer months. But again, it's going to have a lot of Versatility because it is a quilt, and,
Tayson: because you've just got the ability to go into those colder temperatures. Again just massive gains for side sleepers, or anyone that is interested in a quote, but it's been nervous about the drafts before. And I think that's that's the bulk of it. I think it It's gonna be a piece that you're going to want to jump over to the website and view to try to conceptualize what we're trying to explain what the cuts and the different and the footballs and the
Tayson: cuts around the shoulders and neck area. He'll be very helpful to jump over there and take a look at that. to just a fully grasp it, but Um, yeah, this this is the launch podcast. So we're just pushing this out the door right now, we've had an incredible amount of stockouts on top quilts lately. We've been stalked out this entire month, actually, and, which is kind of been good, I guess, because now we can launch this one with a clean slate,
Tayson: but we've had tons of demand for top quilts. We're super excited for this. There's back on top with all over. So if this is something you're interested in, just a recommendation to look at it, a little sooner than later, we'll do our best to keep them in stock through the summer. But definitely excited to to hit up some of these these trails and things that we've got plan. We've been doing a lot of training
Tayson: here around the office. We've got a lot of, we've got a 70 mile hike on the books and 100 mile hike on the books for the team through with the end more, a little bit more towards the end of the summer. And so we've been doing a lot of training and just really analyzing our gear and everyone I think has this top quilt in their Gear set right now or wanting to take it on some of these bigger hikes. Because of
Tayson: what we're trying to pull off on the mileage per day and just being super weight. Conscious and so Anyways, super stoked to have the new top quilt. Brigham did an awesome job. Putting it together, bringing it into the market and very excited to get this into your guys's hands and start letting the feedback roll back in on on what you think of it. It's always fun for us to see that feedback roll in. So
Tayson: We think, Brigham anything else you want to cover? You want to talk about any of the stuff you're training for or Yeah. Anything else that? Just top of mind. It's we can bring these guys along with hope. You guys are getting some things in the books. Do this summer too.
Brigham: I mean Like typically. So people, you know? We don't, we don't want to let too much out before we, you know, do some of these trips. But like, there'll be, I think there'll be some refreshing new things that we're doing that. we're excited about, I think a lot of people will Kind of recognize a lot of the the crossover and some of the trips that we're going to be doing. So like when, you know, with a lot of us in the
Brigham: office kind of increasing our training, like it's not necessarily because we need to train to walk more, you know what I mean? So, it's been, it's been fun to train in a different way because I'd say, you know, I don't I don't need to really. Do a lot to go. Backpacking, like we normally do.
Tayson: Well, you, you stay on top of your Fitness. Every day of the year. So going backpacking isn't like crazy, strenuous, right,
Brigham: right, but, but what's exciting is like, we're adding a new dimension to, you know, some of the trips that we're doing. And so for me, that is going to require a new style or type of Fitness training, you know, I'm, I've got a be doing more running focused training so I don't know it's It's fun seasonality of it. Summer is always fun to look forward to for you know, more extended backpacking trips. Whether it's you know, for work or for my
Brigham: own you know, taking my family out like I've got a lot of a lot of fun stuff coming this summer, and I think, A lot of it, people are going to be able to come along, you know, on YouTube and podcasts. So,
Tayson: yeah, make sure you follow us on YouTube, so you can kind of come along with this. I'm gonna be doing some Kind of training related stuff taking you along our my journey as well as other people in the office's Journey on trying to prep for some of the stuff and really what Brigham's kind of teasing and being very vague about is just some big days. We got some big days. Basically, we've got some big goals, and look, we've all got families.
Tayson: We've got jobs, we've got things that we've got to do. And so, you know, how can we pull these off? Well, big days essentially is, is
Brigham: yeah, big days with little time.
Tayson: Big days, little time and lots of elevation, you know, it's this time of year when I start looking at those Peaks and just being like, oh man, I cannot wait to be standing on that Peak and take a big old lung full of air and get no oxygen. But no, I it is it's it's fun and we're still about us. Hopefully you guys are able to follow along our journey. Hopefully it's inspiring to you guys to maybe get out and do
Tayson: some training, but also just get some get some big trips planned, get some things in the books. We got lots of gear that we've got to test for the summer, which is, you know, I mean, breakup talked about being out of the office a lot. A lot of that is on our company Trip's. Just Simply for testing gear. Not, not even personal family trips and stuff like that. But I'm, let's at least throw this one out there. Bring him because this
