Bridgedale Endurance Trail Ultra Light Socks
So for this Summer if you go into your favourite gear shop that stocks Bridgedale socks, you will notice a new addition to their range. That addition is the Endurance Trail Ultra Light sock, which apparently is “Bridgedale’s lightest sock ever”. According to the press release they are 45% lighter than the Endurance Trekker, not having a pair of Endurance Trekkers to compare weights with, we will have to take their word for it.
The Endurance Trail Ultra Light sock was designed by Bridgedale for walking and hiking in warm conditions, so ideal for the weather we are currently experiencing in the UK.
And it is in this heat wave that I have been wearing them on my walks.
The sock is made from a wool fusion yarn, and a “form hugging” lycra.
As this photo shows the seem goes across the top of the toes.
Here are some photos showing the inside of the sock. As you can see the brown areas are the cushioned areas, where the foot needs it the most.
In use I have found that these socks have been excellent in the warm weather. My feet haven’t over heated or sweated. Which sometimes I have found with other supposedly warm weather socks. Plus the cushioning seems enough for my feet.
I’d of liked to have tested them out to see how quick they dry out when soaked from a river/stream crossing but I’ve not been able to test that part out yet.
These sell for a SRP of £12.49 a pair.
In the whole openness thing and declaring stuff so I can’t be compared with an MP over this, the shoes were sent to me for trying/testing/playing with etc by Hi Tec. Mind you, you may still want to compare me with an MP but that is your choice.
Hi Tec Viper Trail Ultra WPI: Initial Impressions
I got asked if I wanted to try a pair of Hi Tec Viper Trail Ultra WPI trail shoes. Being a user of trail shoes for hiking I thought why not? So a couple of days later a pair arrived through the post.
First impressions when I opened the box was that I liked the look of them. In a tasteful Black/Grey/Bombay (??? what colour is Bombay?) colouring, they looked rather smart.
For me I have found previous Hi Tec shoes and boots fit me nicely. I have wide-ish feet, and these like the other Hi Tec stuff fitted me. Remember if they don’t fit, no matter what the features of the shoe/boot, they are useless and will cause you problems.
The upper of the shoes is made from nubuck and mesh with a moisture wicking lining. I had no idea what nubuck was so a quick Google told me it “is a type of leather with a soft, velvety surface …. nubuck leather is far more durable” than suede (apparently).
Of course these trail shoes use the ion mask waterproof technology. Sadly since getting the Viper Trail Ultra WPI’s it has been dry, so I have not had much chance to try them out in the wet. There aren’t many paddling streams I know of in the area to test them with. Best I could do was a dew covered long grass on a couple of mornings. Which does soak my shoes if I walk through it in them. But they seemed to handle this situation with no problem, which is what I would expect. I’m not going to use a hose pipe on them to test out the waterproof qualities as I think this is an artificial test that doesn’t test real life usage, like the shoe bending as you walk. Which could be a stress point that let’s water in. So the waterproof qualities will have to wait for a further report when it is wetter (please remind me of that incase I forget). Like all shoes and boots that have these waterproof protection like goretex or this ion mask stuff, the secret is not to get them wet inside, because they take ages to get dry.
However the heat wave has allowed me to try them in the heat. And I did find that with the Bridgedale Endurance Trail Ultra Light Socks (review coming up soon) these have been a delight to use in the hot weather. My feet have stayed cool and not sweated lot at all. So draw your own conclusions from that.
These are a trail shoe that seems robust and not flimsy like some makes give the impression of. And part of this comes from the fact that the sole is thick with an IMEVA midsole. I think the IMEVA midsole is an injection mold midsole (Google once more).
They are comfortable to walk in. Usually I like to replace the insole with my Super Feet insoles. But I do like to give the provided insole a chance first, and at the moment I haven’t felt the need to replace them yet. Which I think seems to back up the claims from Hi Tec that the IMEVA midsole adds comfort.
The sole is an exclusive vibram sole. Why is it exclusive? I have no idea, maybe it’s the pattern used. If some-one knows why I’d love to know.
To complete the image of robustness there is the moulded rubber toe and synthetic heel abrasion for protection.
Below are some photos of the Viper Trail Ultra WPI trail shoes, hopefully showing all the main features of the shoes.
Overall I do like these trail shoes.
Hi Tec Viper Trail Ultra WPI which retail at around £75.
In the whole openness thing and declaring stuff so I can’t be compared with an MP over this, the shoes were sent to me for trying/testing/playing with etc by Hi Tec. Mind you, you may still want to compare me with an MP but that is your choice.
Stove Talk Episode 6: Go System Fly (Ti)
This episode of Stove Talk was filmed entirely on the new iPhone 4.Which I do state in the video. I did the editing in iMovie on the Mac. But still this episode has a raw feel to it as I get to grips with using the iPhone as a video camera. I could of also editted the episode on the iPhone using iMovie For iPhone (which I have done on a private video for a BBQ I went to) but I wanted to add the titles at the end that I can’t do on the iPhone version.
In the whole openness thing and declaring stuff so I can’t be compared with an MP over this, the Go System Fly (Ti) and the X-Mug,X-Bowl were sent to me for trying/testing/playing with etc by Burton McCall. Mind you, you may still want to compare me with an MP but that is your choice.
Stove Talk Episode 5
The latest Stove Talk which is episode 5 is now available. This episode looks at the Vargo Titanium Woodburner.
Don’t forget you can leave comments here or on YouTube.
Review: Supadog Beef Casserole
One thing I can’t understand is those folks that feed their dogs ‘wet’ dog food. You know the stuff the cans of Pedigree Chum and it’s like. I mean it smells (or so I am told, having no sense of smell myself), especially on a hot day when left in the bowl. You have to add mixer biscuits to it as well, so that the food the dog is eating is balanced and giving the dog everything they need to be healthy.
When it comes to hiking and camping with the four legged friend it becomes even more of a hassle. You have to carry both the tinned food and the dry mixer. There is then the extra hassle of having an open can with some food in your pack, smelling everything out (even with a lid on). Then when the can is empty you have that to carry around with you as well. If I had to do this the mutts would never go camping with me. It just wouldn’t be a pleasurable experience.
The above is why I feed my dogs the dry complete dog food, which they have plenty of water around to have with it.
It has the advantage of being able to measure out the exact quantities of food required for the duration of a trip. It is easier to store and carry, and also can be rebagged in to nice day portions for the mutts. Plus if they don’t it it all, no problem as it is easy to restore ready for the next meal. And a lot cleaner.
Now I was contacted by Chris (a marketing guy) and asked if I wanted to try Supadog Beef Casserole Dog Food with my “wolf pack”. I don’t think that the dogs would of forgiven me if I had passed up a product test that they could do.
Generally my dogs eat most things (what dog doesn’t?) But sometimes they can be funny when I give them certain brands of dry food. You can tell when they like the dog food, come meal time, they eat it. Otherwise if they are not keen on it they sniff it and wait until they are really hungry and realise nothing else will be forth coming in the food department. So they will eat it begrudgingly. With the Supadog Beef Casserole Dog Food the dogs loved it, they started eating it from the bowl straight away.
Now I gave the Supadog Beef Casserole Dog Food to the dogs dry and also after adding hot water to make a gravy. Yep it is one of those dog foods. Which is handy because if you are in a hurry they can slum it and have it dry with just water. But if there is no hurry, they can have the luxury of a meal with gravy. Let’s face it what dog doesn’t like gravy? I know my three definitely love it on any food they have. My three were definitely licking the bowl out to get every last drop of the gravy. Which tells me it was good gravy.
Looking at the food itself, it is mainly made of round,smooth biscuits. But mixed in with it are what looks like larger chunks of pork scratching. Which they can’t be as this is a beef flavoured product. Whatever these chunks where the dogs loved them and picked them out first. So those bits must of been extra tasty.
The extra large bag for my three dogs has lasted about 2 weeks. Which is about right for my mutts.
As I pointed out earlier I was provided with the Supadog Beef Casserole, however to buy it, it is £25.53 for the 12.5kg (Extra Large) bag and £6.12 for the 2kg (Medium) bag. On their site they compare their products with the competition, and give a price comparison per kilo. They do claim there is no competition for this product, but it could be argued that any where you add water to make a gravy is a competing product. It does seem pricey, there is no getting away from that fact. Which given how long the extra large bag of dog food lasted me, works out around £12.77 a week to feed my dogs.
Over all this is a really nice dog food, the dogs like it a lot. But it is pricey.
STove talk Episode 4 – long overdue
Well the show title says it all really doesn’t it. Hope you like it. In this show is part 1 of the Look At What We Found and a look at the Jetboil Flash from last years OTS at Stoneleigh.
If you have any comments or suggestions please leave them in the comments for this post below.
WordPress v2.2 on the iphone an update
I thought I would give folks an update on one of the apps I use a lot on the iPhone for blogging. It may be of interest to others out there who have an iPhone. I suppose it’s kind of a long term test review. Or more an update on an update!
As some of the more observant readers out there will of noticed that on some posts the photos appear much much larger than normal. Yesterdays post was a good example of that.
Well that post is an example of one that was written on my iPhone using the WordPress v2.2 app. Those larger images only started appearing once the v2.2 came out. It appears this is the correct behaviour for the app. The old behaviour was a BUG! A bug that a few users of the app liked, as we prefer the smaller images in the post.
There is some hope they may sort this out so that we can chose the behaviour we want, but there are no details of if and when this will happen. I’m not holding my breathe as they have been promising another feature I’ve wanted in the app for bloody ages and there are no signs of it yet.
What is more worrying is a new bug they introduced in this version which was updating a saved local draft will lose any new content added to it when you save it. I experienced this twice yesterday while writing the post, and Steve Horner experienced this while on his hike of the West Highland Way last week. It was Steve that alerted me to this problem.
This bug really does make the app unusable for those who want to blog from the trail, or start a post and add to it through out the day (a bit like Paddy Dillion uses his Psion Series 3 to write guide notes while he is walking).
It’s a shame as this update has ruined a really good app. Until they fix these bugs in the next release I’m going to have to look at alternatives (preferably free) to this. And that is what I recommend others to do as well.
PS I’m sorry to those out there that don’t have iPhones or no interesting in knowing about the tech used behind this blog, these sort of posts must be really boring for you.
Cicerone App vs GridPoint App
Been trying to get my head round the new Cicerone iPhone app and why I would use it over say the GridPoint GB app for getting my location as an OS Grid Reference.
Both apps are pretty fast at loading up. Any difference in speed isn’t really noticable.
With the GridPoint GB app I like the fact it gives the grid letters as well, which the Cicerone app doesn’t. Which I think is kind of important to know especially if you have to give the grid reference out to another person in an emergency.
However I do like the fact the Cicerone app gives more info on accuracy and the number of satellites that it is using than the GridPoint GB app.
Price isn’t an issue because both apps are free.
There is extra functionality with the Cicerone app but most of the time I think most users will becreturning to it regularly to use the location function. I will talk about a couple of the functions in more depth at a later date, because I think they deserve a deeper look or a rant anyway.
I imagine most users will have both on their iPhone and which they use will be down to their personal preference (isn’t it always?)
So what do other iPhone users think? Have you tried both?
The Little Photo Lab On Your Phone
Roger in the comments on the post “The Best Camera” asked me what iPhone apps I used to generate the photo that I posted. I thought that this would be easier to answer with a blog post than with a comment. Well I wanted to break up the OTS coverage, and to post a couple of screen shots from the iPhone. Any ol’ excuse to be geeky really.
The iPhone I have is the 3G which has a 2 mega pixel 
camera, unlike the 3GS which has a 3 mega pixel camera that also shoots video. The other difference is that the camera on the 3GS also has an auto focus, plus you can also select the area to focus on by touching the point on the screen. So those with the 3GS should be getting better results than I can with my 3G.
The iPhone has some great apps to allow you to manipulate photos while away from your pc/Mac. Which makes it really useful when out on the hills or doing a multi-day hike to live blog and attach images to the post.
After taking the photo using the camera on my iPhone I then load the photo into
Photogene. Photogene costs £1.79 from the App Store, but is a very handy power packed tool. For starters it allows you to crop and straighten a photo. Plus enhance photos with multiple colour adjustment options and a sharpen filter. You can also add effects like text balloons, frames or special filters.
So using Photogene I cropped the photo, used the auto colour correct, and applied a frame to the picture (in this case the sticky tape on the corners).
The resulting picture I saved and loaded in to Collage Lite. Collage Lite is the 
free limited version of Collage. Lite versions are the way you get to try before you buy in the iPhone App Store world. In Collage Lite the limitations are that you are limited to four photos and that you don’t get the crop functionality. At the moment the Lite meets my needs, but the full blown version is only 59p so like a lot of iPhone apps not going to break the bank. So using Collage Lite I assembled the photos to make the simple collage that you saw.
As I commented on the blog posting I just thought that it would be a fun way to present the photos that I had taken on the iPhone. We need to have fun sometimes.
So there you have the two apps that I used for the picture I posted. However I have a couple of other apps that I use as well. The first app is Pano. This app allows you to take panoramic photos using the iPhone and costs £1.79 on the App Store.
So as you can see on this post I have screen shots of the iPhone. How did I do them and get them on my netbook so I can use them in this post?
To take a screen shot on the iPhone quickly press and release the Sleep/Wake and Home buttons at the same time. A white flash of the screen lets you know the screenshot was taken, you will also hear an audible queue as well. The screenshot just taken is then added to the Camera Roll on your iPhone. Simple and very handy.
I then had to get this onto my netbook. Sadly my netbook does not have iTunes on it, and I only sync my iPhone with my Macbook anyway. So how to transfer files? Dropbox that’s how. Dropbox gives you 2GB of free online storage, and they have just released a free iPhone app. So with a small install of the Dropbox software on my netbook and creating a free account I was able to sync the photos quickly across from the iPhone to the netbook to be used in this post.
CropForFree is a free app that allows you to crop an image. It is a new one that I have recently downloaded to have a look at. But with cropping already in Photogene and in Collage (if I buy full version) unless this adds something really special I can see this one being deleted from my iPhone. But still a handy one to know about if you want to crop without splashing out any cash.
Another app I have just downloaded is NoiseBlaster at 59p. It’s by the same author as Photogene, so it has a good pedigree. As the author describes it “NoiseBlaster implements an advanced algorithm, specifically designed to remove the noise created by the iPhone camera”.
So I hope that answered your question, and I haven’t bored you.
Stove Talk Episode 2: Squeeze Box And Mini Trangia Is Up
Well the title says it all really. Would of been yesterday but it took a while to get uploaded last night.
I hope you enjoy this episode and if you have any comments on this episode please leave them good or bad in the comment section below.
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