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I need a new air mattress, my very old Exped has “unbaffled “ and tried to turn its self in to a ball. That was exciting in the middle of the night.
right back to the point, I’m looking at a Alpkit cloud base, but there’s a few very similar looking options out there for about the same price.
has anyone has any good experiences with the either the cloud base or the cheap versions.
cheers Paul
I've used the Cloud Base and a very similar Sea To Summit equivalent, both are fine in summer conditions, decently light and reasonably comfortable for a baseline, lightweight. I haven't used any cheap versions with the same air cell / TPU welded construction. Not super helpful I guess, but as a lightweight, summer camping mat with decent weight and pack size it's fine. I vaguely remember the Alpkit mat's air valve being at the foot end, which made tweaking air pressure for comfort a bit clunky and there's no pump-sac included, but inflation by mouth is fine, not huge air volume. Alpkit sells a pump sack separately if you want one.
+1 on the Cloud base - I've abused mine and it's still pretty good.
There have a been a couple of kip mat threads I've posted on but its easier to retype that go through the torture of searching...
Ive got a cloudbase and a Numo. The cloudbase is better but has the valve at the foot end which is a faff if you want to adjust pressure in the night. I've recently picked up a Nature Hike FC-10 which can be had for £15-20 and a usb rechargeable inflator that was under a tenner.
I bought mine from these suppliers but the prices jump around.
https://share.temu.com/T3IQphlIrnA
https://share.temu.com/QbPadzE2PcA
Nature Hike FC-10 which can be had for £15-20 and a usb rechargeable inflator
AKA short term future landfill.
Nature Hike FC-10 which can be had for £15-20 and a usb rechargeable inflator
AKA short term future landfill.
- I tend to look after my kit and dispose of it as responsibly as I can when I'm done with it. Seeing as the Alpkit alternatives come from a similar source you could probably tar them with the same snobby brush. 🤣
I tend to look after my kit and dispose of it as responsibly as I can when I'm done with it. Seeing as the Alpkit alternatives come from a similar source you could probably tar them with the same snobby brush.
I think the problem with outdoor and mountain biking gear too, is that brands rarely provide the mechanism for recycling, even when the product is actually billed as 'recyclable' - Patagonia who have collection bins in store are a notable exception. Plus a few brands are now recycling down clothing and sleeping bags for the filling, though most recycled down comes from domestic bedding. Generally the most sutainable thing you can do is get something durable to start with a continue using and repairing it for as long as possible.
With TPU welded air mats - the ones with the 'pockets' mainly - I have no idea if there's a significant quality/durability difference between brands. The ultralight Sea to Summit equivalent of the Cloud Base retails for a cool £115 and is around 100g lighter, but at current price, almost three times more expensive. You'd hope that'd mean a better quality mat, but who knows. There are probably a relatively small number of factories geared up to use TPU welding tech to produce mats in this way, but quite a few brands using the same basic construction, so it's not inconceivable that a fair few some from the same factories. On top of that, I can't imagine there's a huge competitive market for the machinery involved, so it's likely all the same, so at that point you're looking at differences in raw materials. That's all guesswork, but I doubt there are huge discrepancies, though I may be wrong on that.
What the Sea to Summit does have incidentally, is a genius way of connecting a lightweight pillow from the same brand using low profile Velcro-type stickers. What no-one seems to do, is produce a sleeping pad with enough 'tack' to stop you sliding down your tent on anything other than a perfectly flat pitch. I have no idea why.
I've got a cheap vango 'self inflating' one that copes with abuse. And a " AKA short term future landfill" Flextailgear Zero R05 (which oddly has an R value of 6.0?) that was about £60 from ali-express but looks like they've gone up to £80 now.
I had an alpkit self inflating mat but it sprang several leaks after not a lot of use, so ended up in landfill......
Seeing as the Alpkit alternatives come from a similar source you could probably tar them with the same snobby brush.
As someone who's (briefly) used airbeds from Alpkit (and Exped, and POE, and Multimat, and others) - I do. There's a good reason I now use a 1990s self inflating Thermarest topped up with a few breaths.
Anyway, back to the patio to service the rear hub on my commuter bike's Alivio wheelset (bought off the classifieds here six years ago), while chuckling to myself over schoolyard level insults.