Ten days of gifts – 1
The first of two gift ideas for yourself or others – for now or for later!
I’ve mentioned the Osprey Farpoint 40 pack (as seen above) and Rohan’s Cool Silver t-shirts (as seen below) a few times on wisepacking (and on Lonely Planet’s Thorn Tree Forum too).
I make no apologies for mentioning them again, because both are useful items to have around whilst travelling.
Relevant postings on wisepacking are listed below – read and enjoy!
https://wisepacking.wordpress.com/2014/10/22/in-praise-of-osprey-farpoint-40-packs/
https://wisepacking.wordpress.com/2014/12/09/portugal-packing/
https://wisepacking.wordpress.com/2014/10/29/packing-order/
And that’s the last of the gift ideas – have a good holiday season, whatever you’re up to!
Keith
Ten days of gifts – 2
Your starter for Tenn – the Ladies Sprint Short Sleeve Cycling Jersey
It’s about twenty years since I first started doing reviews of cycling kit for YHA’s membership magazine Triangle and I also had quite a few years reviewing clothing, bags and camping kit on Cycling Plus magazine too.
So when an opportunity arose to review some cycling kit on wisepacking, it was a case of ‘Yes please!’ and time for Caroline to do her stuff given that she’s getting some miles under her wheels thanks to her commute and leisure rides and that she usually packs some cycling kit when we’re away in the UK and there’s a bike hire shop nearby.
The Ladies Sprint Short Sleeve Cycling Jersey (£27.99) by West Sussex based Tenn uses an advanced 100% polyester fabric. This has enhanced wicking and drying properties, while the sun, wind or water helps to release odours. There’s also high UV protection too.
Caroline’s been racking up the miles recently in fine and not so fine weather, so she’s been using the Sprint Short Sleeve on its own and as part of a layering system with a base layer from either Rohan, Helly Hansen or The North Face underneath and her usual Altura fleece and Altura waterproof jacket on top.
Given the miles done and the speeds recorded on Strava, she’s not been hanging about, yet the Sprint Short Sleeve has performed well. It’s got damp with sweat a few times, but it’s been dried and used again over the following days and there’s been no need to chuck it in the washing machine to get rid of any nasty niffs.
The supplied size 10 top fits well, looks good and it’s easy to get some ventilation going on thanks to the zipped neck fastening. The length is fine and the silicone waist grippers work well, ensuring that the top doesn’t ride up when Caroline’s using the drops on the bike.
There’s also a reflective strip on the back of the shirt and a couple of reflective prints too, but one of these is starting to peel off. Washing the shirt has been with either Lifeventure Travel Wash when it’s been hand washed or Sainsbury’s Non-Bio Powder when it’s been in the machine.
There’s three decently sized elasticated pockets on the back of the shirt and there’s a zipped mobile phone pocket too on the front – a HTC Desire phone can be stashed away.
If you have a bigger phone, you can always put that in a jacket pocket and use the mobile pocket to store loose change for coffee and cake stops (Caroline’s secret is out!).
It’s the first item that either of us have seen from the Tenn range, but if the comprehensive selection of clothing and other kit that’s on their website is as good as the Ladies Sprint Short Sleeve Cycling Jersey then it may be well worth checking out.
Ten days of gifts – 3
Snugpak GeoGrip Gloves: £19.95
After a hat or a Buff, another useful accessory is a decent pair of gloves.
If I’m away in what promises to be cold, wet or wintry conditions, then I take a pair and always pack at least one spare pair.
Why? Because I was very glad that I did a few years ago when I took a pair of performance fleece gloves off in order to take one shot on a motor driven compact camera when I was doing some cross-country skiing in the Lillehammer area.
I’d put my gloves over the top of my ski poles and although the time elapsed between taking the gloves off, taking the shot and going to put the gloves back on again was less than 30 seconds, they’d already frozen up. Spare gloves were dug out of my pack and donned before continuing the day out. Yes, it was that cold!
Now I haven’t had the chance to try these Snugpak GeoGrip Gloves out in total anger yet, because the main rainfall has come overnight around here and we haven’t has yet had any snowfall either, so not even the snowball test has been carried out as yet.
When the snow does arrive (and the Met Office think there could be some in January), I’ll dive back on here and let you know. In the meantime, the gloves are going to go in the car in readiness for such eventualities, largely because when we had the last batch of decent snow, there was about six inches of the stuff appeared overnight.
So, what makes these Snugpak gloves worth £19.95?
They’re made from neoprene, so they’re water resistant and offer warmth too. The neoprene allows the user to wear them when wet and helps in the drying time stakes whilst the rubber palm grips allow the user to grip ski or walking poles, cameras, maps, coffee mugs or a medicinal dose from a hip flask at the end of the day out.
There’s an emphasis on the amount of dexterity available on these gloves. I haven’t had any problems with a lack of dexterity on the usage so far in milder conditions, even though I still have some problems with my left hand.
That’s down to the after effects of that stroke I had ten years ago and whilst I’ve almost got full use of my fingers once more, that usage comes and goes from time time as a few supermarket till operators will testify to after I dropped a load of loose change all over the place when paying for purchases!
As far as the right hand goes though, there’s no worries, which is a good job as I am right handed. Gripping tightly and using cameras or fiddling with keys when I get back home isn’t a problems and neither is opening and closing straps or zips when I need to get something from a pocket in my pack or whatever jacket I’m wearing at the time.
The GeoGrips are easily donned and removed thanks to their stretchy cuffs, they can be clipped together and then onto a jacket when necessary and they’re easily washed too (it’s a hand wash though, not a machine wash).
Other gloves are available and on the usage so far, the GeoGrip Gloves are performing favourably. When the snow or the rain really hits home, then they will be taken out and used in anger along with a select few that I’ve been using for a few years now (I’m a bit fussy when it comes to gloves!).
Ten days of gifts – 4
If you want to keep warm – get a hat!
Hats come in all shapes and sizes – mountain caps, wooly numbers with ear flaps, ones that look like they should be getting stroked whilst the owner says something like ‘We’ve been expecting you Mr. Bond…‘ or pure and simple hats like the Eider Garmish Beanie (£20) that’s pictured above.
Yes, it’s bright and noticeable, but that’s something that I’m never going to be worried about. Yes, my usual choice of hat colour owes a lot to a Henry Ford quote, but there are times when something that’s bright and colourful is preferable to having a whole outfit that wouldn’t be out of place at a gig by The Mission, Sisters Of Mercy or Fields Of The Nephiim (and I have been to gigs by two out for the three bands mentioned there – the middle one is the odd one out!). Not saying that I wear a lot of black, but I just happen to wear a lot of black…
There’s a practicality to wearing a hat. It can be a style statement or a piece that like the Eider Garmish Beanie in that it’s designed to tie in with other Eider clothing. It’s also a practical choice too as around 40% of body heat can be lost through the head. Wear a hat and you should feel warmer in no time.
If it’s cold and crisp and even, then the warmth should help matters. If it’s snowing or raining, then a waterproof hat could come in useful or you could simply put your waterproof jacket’s hood up (unless of course you’re the bloke I served about seven or eight years ago who said he wouldn’t be seen dead using his jacket’s hood! There’s always one…).
There are also times when wearing a hat indoors can be useful. The only times that I’ve worn a hat indoors have coincided with heating breakdowns in shops or at home or the one time when I went away for a couple of days and returned home to find that all of the pipes in my rented house had frozen up – time to get a hair dryer out on the pipes as recommended by the plumber who was working on a similar problem a few doors away from me.
There are alternatives to hats though – such as the ubiquitous Buff.
The Buff is one of the most useful pieces of kit in both Caroline’s and my own outdoor or travel wardrobes. We both have a few variations on a theme by Buff and makers of lookalike items with the standard and Polar Buffs proving to be the most useful and long-lived weapons of choice.
They’ve been used as neck gaiters, pulled over the face in cold weather, used as a balaclava in cold weather or worn as a helmet liner in wintry weather. Buffs have also been used as hand towels, packing for small crockery items bought abroad and as handkerchiefs on occasions as well (and washed soon after because only one of the Buffs I have is a green one!).
I’ve used mine whilst walking, cross-country skiing, climbing and whilst travelling. Caroline uses her examples around town, whilst commuting to work on the bike, whilst out on longer rides and also when she’s travelling. Her sons use Buffs on really long bike rides and travelling (the eldest son) whilst her youngest wears his on his Suzuki 650, for climbing or when jumping out of aeroplanes. During one trip to the States, he took off in a plane 34 times in a fortnight and landed in a plane twice – the other 32 landings were ones made with the help of a parachute…
There will be another gift-related post later on today – missed yesterday as there was a food and drink buying session taking place. Ours was the smallest trolley load in each of the supermarkets we visited – anyone would think the shops were closed more more than one day this week!
wisepacking 
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