I'm trying to do some preliminary research on the various materials and brands available out there for a new uniform for our club (DVOA).
Looking through O-Sport magazine and poking our the web, I see some great looking uniforms, but it's really hard to get a sense for the material; weight, breatheability, resilience to briars are some of the key variables I'd like to get first hand input on.
So, would you be kind enough to post your experience with various brands you've used? Some of the brands we're looking at are Trimtex, Vavrys, Craft, noname, Kampela, Silva, RaidLight, but I'm sure there are others to consider as well and I'd be delighted to learn about them.
Thanks for your input.
JDW
In the recent past, I've used Silva, Trimtex and UltraSport suits. The Silva and Trimtex suits are very nice. I would not recommend the UltraSport suits (thin material rips easy and is clingy).
The US Team suits, as well as the CSU club suits, are all made by Trimtex, and I have no complaints about those. I do tend to rip my pants pretty quickly, but that may be a function of Boris, rather than the suit.
I always am amaized that girls are so nice and are not ripped in pieces after any race :) Boris - you are the man!
Check out Kampela (
www.kampela.se). They're a heavier fabric but it feels great to run in and is very durable. I've trashed Silva/Ultrasport in a run or two, but these last for years - the only way to finish them off is to 'accidentally' put them in the drier ;). A good deal too. When we got our (ORCA) suits we chose a non-custom design and they were less than half the price of anything available in the US, though exchange rates have changed a bit since then ...
Many of Canada's bigger clubs (GHO, GVOC, FWOC, TOC, GGO) have switched away from the Euro nylon orienteering suits and gone with cool-max tops produced in Canada. What makes these tops superior is that they breathe. They are a little cheaper than the Euro stuff but you can wear them doing other sports (MTB, AR, etc.) without getting the strange looks. Good advertising too. We ordered ours from Axis Gear which is based in Toronto (
www.axisgear.ca). GHO will kick off 2005 with our new tighter fitting racer "Golden Jersey".
Check out the draft design here:
www.dontgetlost.ca/gho/ghoracer.jpg
The Trimtex equivalent (Extreme) is over 2 times the price and that doesn't include the duty charges.
And for the legs? We ordered black O pants from Noname (summer) and use black tights from Axis Gear or MEC for the rest of the year. Anyway, I highly recommend contacting Norm at Axis Gear and give Adrian Zissos' "O" fashion article at
www.barebones.ca a read before you order.
So much for my opinion that GHO uniforms had an understated elegance. Not that the new design is inelegant but no way is it understated.
Possessing one Axis Gear shirt, I agree that they're very nice. Regarding other O clothes, I'll join Brian in rubbishing Ultrasport. I've recently worn Silva and Trimtex O suits and I have one pair of SportVogl pants manufactured by Aries, a Finnish company. The Aries pants are made of quite heavy material, heavy enough that I prefer not to wear it though I assume durability will be good if and when I do. Silva polyester seems to me to be somewhat heavier and less breathable than Trimtex polyester with no noticeable difference in durability. The nonamesport clothes I've seen looked to be about as diaphanous (read "verging on see-through in the right light") as Trimtex, maybe even a bit more so but you'll have to ask someone who has a pair about durability.
Now that's a fly top!
I think that your racing prowress stems from evidently astute fashion sense.
I have a somewhat different assessment about Ultrasport than others:
I bought Ultrasport suits for the orienteering team at the University of Washington in 1994, and I got many races out of mine before it became too tattered to wear. The material is light, not as strong as most other O suit materials, stretchier than most O suit materials, somewhat clingy--as Brian said (in a static electricity sense), and very soft and comfortable against the skin. This O suit is the most comfortable I have ever had, and it came the closest of any to providing the feeling that I was wearing nothing while racing. Despite its clinginess, it didn't bind on my legs like other O suits I've had (e.g. Trimtex, which uses more durable but in my opinion less comfortable and stretchy fabric). One interesting thing about the Ultrasport suit that I had is that it had no waist string, just elastic, but I don't remember this ever being a problem (in other words, my pants never fell down). I guess the bottom line is that the Ultrasport suit I had was the most comfortable/unrestricting suit I've ever raced in, was relatively inexpensive, and was somewhat less durable than other suits. By the way, like Boris, I've observed that all O suit pants I've ever owned get ripped up before too long--usually dismayingly quickly.
there are other ways of getting that "feeling i was wearing nothing while racing feeling"; i never knew achieving it was a problem. What Mr Zissos would make of it I wouldn't hazard a guess...
Having said that, in Sweden it is forbidden in forest orienteering and you are liable to end up covered in uncomfortable amounts of sticky tape if you try it at the oringen.
mike, if my new club doesn't get decent o tops soon i'll be in touch :)
Thanks all for your input. There seems to be no clear winner.
Anyone have any 1st hand experience with Vavrys from the Czech Republic? It looks like they use the same material as Craft does.
How about Aries from Finland?
Eric, I appreciate what you said about Ultrasport, but one of the tings we want to accomplish is to "modernize" our look (i.e. get away from the pj-look) and what I've seem of Ultrasport (which is what we currenty use I believe) really doesn't seem to get the job done in that respect.
Hello all:
Norm from Axis Gear here... We are a custom manufacturer of athletic jerseys and I heard our name had come up in this discussion.... We use Coolmax Extreme which is very similar to "Nike Drifit". The big advantage is wicking and quick drying. It has been proven to increase athletic performance by keeping the athlete's core body temp lower on hot days. In general it keeps you more comfortable than cotton or nylons. However, the material is not indestructable. After prolonged use (or a particularly thorny bushwack section), sometimes a few threads may loop out of the knit. These can just be clipped off without adversely affecting the rest of the knit. In our opinion it is the best performance fabric but you have to compromise with the "looping factor"...
We also carry stock of "T-shirts" made from Dri-Release which is a polyester/cotton blend. Not as quick drying as CoolMax but offers better brush resistance and feels just like a light cotton T-shirt.
We can screen club names on to any of these fabrics as well as sublimation.
Thanks for reading this long message! If any club wishes to try the fabrics, we would be glad to send you a sample shirt to test in the woods....Contact me at norm@axisgear.ca
How is this for a "modern" look.
US Champs: The O suit It is a Noname suit I got from the sale bins at the Jukola in June. I always get a reaction when I wear it. On the practical side, it is comfortable and I feel I must run my best when I wear it, although I think that the pants may not hold up as well as some others I have had.
Tim, in the picture it looks like you're wearing a comic book superhero Halloween costume!
JDW, I totally agree about the Ultrasport stuff looking like old school PJs. But aren't the 70s back? (Or are they already done being back? ;-)
Tim - you really look fast in that picture, but I agree with Eric. I think a cape would help.
You know, I though Greg was pretty much unassailable as the top dresser in the forest. But, having seen Tim in action, I'd say the title has changed hands.
Anybody got a picture of me in my Compass Needle overalls?
You guys are scaring me.
(And now that I think about it, don't you *guys* think you should ask some not-guys about this?)
What does John mean when he says "great looking uniforms"? I hope we're not talking gaudy, non-matching colors, with hopeless tailoring and non-existant design sense - and I definitely pray we're not talking nylon or anything similar. JDW please tell me you are among the enlightened :-)
Be sure to read
http://www.barebones.ca/Orienteering%20Fashion%20-... before making any decisions. Though I was trying to be funny in that article, pay particular attention to the (real) quotes in Rant #2 - lots of people honestly think the traditional uniforms are horrid.
Also read the final rant and the point about using local suppliers to increase the profile of our sport with these potential sponsors.
One final plug - I'm sure there are many alternatives in North America, but Axis Gear has been really good. Their customer support is excellent, they have provided some small sponsorship for the Canadian national team, and their products have stood up (at FWOC we have used their shirts for an entire year and I know of no rips at all). And they are reasonably priced (under $40 Canadian) and very easy to deal with (compared to ordering from Europe for example).
az
We will have a prize at the US Champs next year for the best o-suit. This is where the competition gets especially fierce!
I also like the Axis Gear shirts - very comfortable and a lot better looking than the pyjama-style suits - but I'd be a bit wary about claims they're more durable than the traditional o-suits. I confess only to having used the free shirt we were given at GLOF 2003, which ripped badly when stuck on a branch the wrong way. But my Trimtex and other O suits do this too, often as rapidly. I'm still voting for out new CSU suits to be from Axis not, say, noname or Trimtex, but not because of durability.
So to summarize this thread:
(aka one more plug for Axis Gear)
Euro nylon vs. Axis Coolmax
The two are similar in durability. But the Axis gear is superior in athletic performance, customer support, and looks. The Euro nylon is more expensive and has duty charges. So on a scale of 1 to 5 with 5 being highest, it looks like Euro (0.5) and Axis (4.5).
As a representative of the "not guys" contigent... (ie the fairer sex ;) I would like to add my support for less colourful (read: ugly) O-suits. I very much enjoy our GVOC axis gear tops, and paired with some black O-pants (slightly see through, but wearable) they look downright respectable. The new trimtex top is also very spiffy, but alot more expensive. Over the years I have seen some interesting o-suits, but I still think mark daubeny tops it all with his homemade ones!
I know that some of you guys like the shock factor of your o-suits...
By "daubeny" presumeably you mean Dominie - definitely the most outrageous of colorful outfits.
I think this "thread" has been beat to death, but I was surprised that nobody brought up the standard Adventure Racing getup. OK, I know all you pure O guys look down your noses at us, but we also need to get through the woods quickly and aren't carrying 20 years of fashion impaired baggage.
Dri-fit or coolmax tops are very good and at least as durable as all but the most tightly woven (and therefore hot) O jerseys. On the bottom I wear lycra tights if it's not too thorny or nylon pants (yes, real pants) in carnivorous vegetation. My personal preference are the
REI Convertible Pants but there are many other options. Although slightly heavier than standard O-pants, they are very tough so you don't need gators. I haven't found them any hotter than O-pants. They certainly last a lot longer.
This discussion thread is closed.