[00:00:00] Joe: Welcome everyone to the Live Ultralight podcast, powered by Outdoor Vitals. This podcast is about inspiring you to get Outdoors. Showing you how to lighten your pack and build your confidence. So you can start living your life full of Adventure. I am Joe I am here today with tae-sun. And Brigham. And today we're gonna be talking about
[00:00:20] Tayson: a good way to do that, make you
[00:00:23] Joe: just say taste. And I think that'll work just fine. We have a double launch going on here at Outdoor Vitals. And one of those items we're gonna be going into a deep dive today. And then the other one next week or possibly the week, after, depending on how, like, what the order is, when you get these podcasts. But today, we're gonna be talking about our brand new rain jacket. Touche, rain jacket
[00:00:51] Joe: is a tester or two Sharp.
[00:00:53] Tayson: Well, everyone ask everyone this touch this so far is called it. The two shark jacket. It's we pronounce it here in southern Utah's, the tusher rain jacket. So
[00:01:05] Joe: I guess real quick, if you could tell us about, I guess what, what made you guys decide to do a rain jacket. And first place,
[00:01:17] Tayson: that's a valid question is valid question, I think we know we
[00:01:22] Brigham: have things way more in tune now than we did, when we started working on the rain jacket, like, in terms of probably vision and structure and like, Just a more probably a more defined idea of what we even want to do is like an attack company. You know,
[00:01:39] Brigham: if you think about like all the things we've implemented but like
[00:01:45] Tayson: I feel like I feel like it was kind of twofold. It was Obviously we knew that eventually we wanted to have a layering system that met every part of a layering system, right? From base layer to Mid layers to, you know, outer layers, right? So we knew it was on our radar and I think we had some trips coming up where it was It was interesting to us, but we'd always kind
[00:02:04] Tayson: of thought that there was something else out there, build a finer rain jacket, that might initially that. The idea was to breathe more, I I have historically had a very bad opinion about waterproof, breathable fabrics, and just have been a lot of froze, my butt off and some of them before because I used them improperly. Thinking that they were more breathable than they are. And so on so forth. And so thinking
[00:02:29] Tayson: actually we were thinking all right we want eventually we want to keep building out these layers. What could we do in the Breathable category. So we kind of started to search there but also it's just like getting our feelers out there to see what Fabrics we could Source, what opportunities are out there and if there's anything that we could find that would create a better product for us, so it kind of
[00:02:49] Tayson: started there and we just started to look at Fabrics really and with our existing manufacturers as well as new manufacturers and go through that process.
[00:02:58] Joe: All right. So what makes what tell us about the touch of rain jacket? Like What is it? What's up.
[00:03:05] Tayson: We went through a long process. So I think, I think to kind of bridge from, where we started to where we got, we did initially look for a fabric that you could breathe through it now, that's a big misconception of rain. Jackets, in my opinion, at least, I had it wrong for a lot of years, my life, because so often, they talk about rain, jackets, as being breathable, right? You, you think
[00:03:24] Tayson: you could like breathe air or air could pass through the jacket, which it cannot. But there are a few Fabrics out there that it can. And so, we initially started there. And as we looked at those Fabrics, there were some big cons to them as well, such as weight such as durability and such as, you know, the hydrostatic head, actual waterproofness of the jacket. And so as we kind of looked and
[00:03:46] Tayson: embedded those out, we just we didn't love the options essentially, I think, and we didn't end up feeling like we wanted to actually. And again, these were breathable and air permeable is the technical term, but it was not like a high rate, right? Like if you blow through, Like a cotton shirt. I mean you breathe right through that but blowing through this was like pressurized air to get it to pass through.
[00:04:10] Tayson: And so it was like well I don't know that that's really gonna be that much better. And then looking at the cons of the weights of the jacket of what the jacket would have to be the durability and the hydrostatic head back to waterproofness, we kind of just started to change our our tune of what we were hoping to make. I think
[00:04:28] Brigham: that's the its kind of cool part about you know, the initial phases of any like product development is You you may have like a very, very, very, very general idea. They let's make a rain jacket and you we think we may have an idea of what direction to go. But then as you reach as you research it and you look into materials, it does kind of start to help guide the right
[00:04:53] Brigham: direction and that's it was that's a really good case with the with this range jacket because it helped us like kind of question things that we Early on thought we wanted to do and then with a pretty, I'd say unbiased. You know. In an unbiased way that it just yeah it just kind of guided the direction to say to get us to kind of think more about like what a rain jacket
[00:05:22] Brigham: should be how it should balance things out
[00:05:24] Tayson: in terms of priorities. And before maybe we list out kind of what we as we reassess that, I think it is, it is cool. And it's nice that a lot of the way, the ways that these projects start is because of the position, we've built out, revivals into, we can just test. So I don't think we were originally thinking, we would roll a lot of jacket this year, even or last year,
[00:05:48] Tayson: or it was more. So, hey, let's see if we can get jackets build in these Fabrics so that we can just start testing, right? Because we know in five year plan, we want to rain jacket, but we don't know when that's going to be in the five years, it's really dependent on. If we actually come up with something that's unique and better. And so we've got a lot of lines in the
[00:06:06] Tayson: water at all times. So I mean even right now, I won't list them out but there's there's a handful of products that We're wearing and testing. We have no idea when they'll be released or if they'll be released, it's all dependent on on what we continue to develop and then if we feel like, hey, this is, this is something that is truly unique and that we can bring to Market. So that's
[00:06:24] Tayson: kind of where the rain jacket win is initially. It was just, let's just see if we can try it. Let's start the R&D phase of a development process and we started that and after we kind of got through this initial phase, we went back and we reassessed and started to name out a few other priorities that we wanted in the jacket. So I guess with that question in my Brigham as we
[00:06:43] Tayson: got to the stage where We're looking at somebody's different fabrics and assessing, what does a rain jacket need to do? You know what, what do you remember? We really highlighted I guess. And in that, well, one of the
[00:06:59] Brigham: Interesting. Priorities was kind of wanting something to be like as lightweight as possible, but without giving up too much in terms of like durability or just just not one of like the lightest way jacket. We could develop that like we wouldn't hesitate to to use really like this because what good is a rain jacket if it's so fragile that You're worried about brushing up against a tree on a trail. You know
[00:07:30] Brigham: what I mean? Or just like, if you're worried that that your backpack straps are going to eventually be cost too much abrasion and start. Pushing water in through the, through the fabric. And so I think that was like, kind of kind of one of the focal points and then all. So yeah, realizing that like you could perhaps designed a jacket or find the right Fabrics, that would find a good balance of
[00:07:56] Brigham: You know, the ability to technically breathe while also meeting like the weight. Requirements that we had, but that we're all. So, durable enough that we weren't afraid to use it all day. Yeah, I think I think as
[00:08:11] Tayson: we assess the market, it became pretty clear that there's Really, really lightweight rain, jackets out there. And as you assess those though you you have question and for us you know our core values here are performance, not price and part of performance is the weight of it but also has to function of work for the. I don't know missions the backpacking trips that we're going to do and so as you look
[00:08:38] Tayson: at some of these, hey we might be, we might be 80 miles into 100 mile Wilderness through hike and we might have been wearing that piece for two days. Straight, you know, are you starting to develop concerns about that piece being durable enough? And I think that's where, you know, we thought. Yeah, we don't, we don't want to come in as the absolute lightest per se because it needs to perform. And
[00:08:59] Tayson: so it's like, what is that performance mean? And so we started to really vet that out and look at everything for membranes to fabrics and test out a bunch of things. So in the beginning stages, we did test at least three different Fabrics that I can think of off the top of my head. One was like a 30 denier nylon. So a heavier for an Ultra Lite piece and that more or
[00:09:23] Tayson: less was kind of what we determined on that. We tested a seven denure, which might be comparable to some of the pieces out there and we literally ripped a hole in it before we ever left the office accidentally. And we, I mean, we literally zipped up a little piece of the fabric and the zipper and it ripped a hole right through it. And so that piece never even made it to the
[00:09:44] Tayson: field. Before we said no, That's not except I mean, imagine if you did that, like you said, 80 mi into a three back in the back country, it would be catastrophic, right? So Specially where rain jacket. I mean, it's a critical piece for for safety, you know, to keep you dry and keep you warm. Obviously, if you're soaking wet it, you know, hypothermia, those type of conditions can come on you quick,
[00:10:08] Tayson: even in the middle of summer, like we had last year, so we kind of went through those fabrics and we're looking for something a little bit more durable than that. Seven ten year started kind of to test through there. But alongside of that, we had some membrane options and then any rain piece, there is a three-layer system, roughly eighty, three layer system. We've got an outer fabric, that protects the membrane. The
[00:10:30] Tayson: membrane is in the middle and then you've got a backer to that helps. Hold it off the skin and all protect that membrane. So as we're doing that exterior fabric testing, what were we doing with membranes? Bring
[00:10:41] Brigham: them Um, well. In terms of selecting them. Yeah.
[00:10:46] Tayson: I mean what were we kind of I don't know what we were looking at a few different options, right of membranes. And yeah, I mean we wasn't why did we settle?
[00:10:54] Brigham: Yeah, early on, like It did kind of progressed and evolved a little bit like, early on. We were still looking for like Maybe the highest. the highest level of breathability in, in a membrane itself and we had a jacket made with a laminate that use that, but it was it was a very heavier face Fabric and and and and an interlining fabric that I tasted like the jacket itself was was too
[00:11:29] Brigham: heavy. And yeah, we could have perhaps changed either that face Fabric or the lining a little bit with that membrane but the the numbers like the testing numbers on the waterproof rating with that membrane, where were a lot lower than we would be confident in using like an extended range. So, yeah, that's Um, we had a lot of conversations with suppliers about like the fighting the right membrane that got us, like,
[00:12:00] Brigham: you know, really high waterproof ratings with, you know, maybe a Target window of breathability, in terms of numbers and all that's like in a context of with, with rain gear, the most important thing is like to think of like the composite like laminate fabric because a membrane is just a piece in that laminate fabric. You still have a face Fabric and then an inner layer whether that's like, you know, quote half
[00:12:30] Brigham: layer or a third layer lining. Because those those all then affect the behavior of the entire piece of rain gear. So, in the end like we we basically just learned that, or have the idea of the thought that like, You know, there's there's no reason why we couldn't perhaps Target specific qualities of one membrane in areas that could benefit from those qualities and then use a different type of membrane in the
[00:13:03] Brigham: same range jacket with the same face fabric that had a little bit different performance qualities or functions. How they functioned how they were made that in certain areas of a jacket. You could kind of reap the benefits of that membrane and so Yeah, we see,
[00:13:21] Tayson: I think the kind of put this into layman's terms, a little bit, make this a little more understandable. Most of you guys out there that are familiar with rain jackets. If I heard of like the term wetting out and that's something that's that's tossed around quite a bit and and as we go through this piece, we're really getting this technical because it really will help. You understand things like wedding out, it'll
[00:13:44] Tayson: help you really understand, you know, workings of this that translate to your use in the field and so It's very much was starting to mention there. You can Target specific membranes. That would be more beneficial or less than official to something like wedding out, which wedding out for the, don't know what that is. That's essentially when you're remembering starts to absorb water and once it starts to absorb, the water, water can
[00:14:09] Tayson: no longer pass through the membrane and it'll start to feel cold or clammy and wet and damp. And, you know, that's kind of the opposite of what you're hoping for out of range jacket. That wedding out though. Happens with a hydrophilic membrane, a hydrophilic membrane means it can pull moisture into the membrane versus a hydrophobic membrane, which means it cannot or it's much more difficult per se. And so that's probably something
[00:14:35] Tayson: you haven't heard. I've never seen that listed on anyone's website or people talk about that, but there are differences in membranes such as as that. So knowing what we know about the membranes and having, you know, talked with the manufacturers and work through all these, I believe Brigham came up with the idea of will, could we do two different membranes in a jacket, to get the benefits of both sides?
[00:14:57] Joe: Can I ask the dumb question? Go ahead! Okay, for a rain jacket. Why would you for like, layman's terms? No one knows what you guys are talking about. Right? Why what why? Where a rain jacket, as a trash bag and what's the point of a rain jacket? If it's not only waterproof on the shell, like what, why? Do you need a jacket? That's quote-unquote breathable. Like, what does that? Give the higher. Yeah.
[00:15:26] Brigham: Well, the last word you just said, is like a critical Hiker hiking is a dynamic activity. You're not just sitting still and even when us sitting here in this room, we're emitting heat with moisture. I feel there's no AC in this. And so like just sitting here not active. So
[00:15:45] Tayson: if we were all put a garbage bag over us just sitting here,
[00:15:48] Brigham: it would only take a few minutes before the inside of that garbage bag became wet from. Just the moisture that we're emitting just sitting here, we're radiating heat. So now take a hiker that's hiking. And you have a
[00:16:05] Brigham: plastic bag on in the form of a jacket, let's say in the form of a jacket. So that's you know, it's Generally follows shape of your body. So it's not like just this bellowing sale that's going to collect the bunch of airflow. So now you're you're putting off more heat and moisture that. material isn't going to be, is not going to release any any moisture in the, in the form of vapor
[00:16:31] Brigham: so in a waterproof breathable piece of rain gear, the idea is that we want to be like hiking if it rains, we don't want to have to just stop and halt the trip indefinitely ideally, we'd be able to just keep on moving and so for dynamic activity, like that, like a hiker, we want fabric that will stop water from coming in but allow Vapor so water in the form of vapor to
[00:16:59] Brigham: to push outward outside the So does that answer your question
[00:17:06] Joe: that doesn't answer my question and so the map the map membrane there are parts that are more breathable than
[00:17:13] Brigham: others, right? Yeah, so membrane just think of it as like a think of it as a super thin film or sheet of just plastic or rubber or whatever you want to think of it. As it's laminated to the outside fabric, it has Pores, or voids basically space that Vapor can pass outward or passing where they can pass through it. But the holes or voids are too small for liquid water to, to
[00:17:45] Brigham: pass through. And so, When we're wearing a piece of rain gear and generating heat from our bodies. There's a difference in temperature inside the jacket and outside the jacket and that difference in temperature forces because warm dense air or moisture is attracted to cooler, drier air. So it just, it's a natural occurrence that we put on a jacket. The vapor from our body is going to naturally be attracted to push itself
[00:18:19] Brigham: through the membrane. So there's there's membranes that have think of it as a tighter holes or lose her membranes that allow more to pass through or less to pass through and they allow You know, incredible pressure, they have tolerance as how much water they can withstand before they let water in. And so there's those two numbers. And so, with a mapped as you're referring to it like map, that's meaning. We place
[00:18:48] Brigham: we utilize a membrane in a certain area of a jacket in our case of our jacket, you know, There's areas of the jacket that aren't going to with, like, undergo a ton of pressure, meaning they're vertically facing. So there's nothing really, you know, rain very rarely isn't affected by gravity and just Straight into a vertical surface, right, it's going to collect on shoulders and then, you know, so having a membrane that
[00:19:18] Brigham: perhaps better, and doesn't have quite as high of a waterproof rating in areas where it's not going to have to undergo as much pressure from the outside environment that could possibly push water inward. That made a lot of sense. So we could get more breathability in areas where it's very unlikely for the jacket fabric, to get enough pressure, to overwhelm it and penetrate the jacket, but in other areas of a jacket
[00:19:46] Brigham: for a Backpacker where, it's on a pressure that's always going to be where your backpack comes into contact with with your your body or the jacket and that's on top of the shoulders and on the back, that's the highest pressure and the results of abrasion and so because there's not only pressure, there's also the inability for really heat to escape so that I actually creates a warmer environment where those pressure points
[00:20:13] Brigham: are And so it's possible that if you were to just use the same membrane as you use an other areas of jacket that it's not going to withstand that pressure and that environment as well. So we use a membrane That. Is more suited to handle high pressure, and abrasion, because it doesn't function in quite the same way as another membrane. So, like, taste and talked about hydrophilic and hydrophobic membranes So we
[00:20:46] Brigham: use a hydrophobic membrane in areas of high pressure because they will still function. If the dwr treatment on that high pressure area where is off. That membrane still won't absorb water and potentially give us that wedding out feeling and it will also be because of that, it will continue its ability to
[00:21:08] Brigham: release moisture from the inside to the outside. And if there's things you want to interject here, because we've been going on a while,
[00:21:17] Tayson: I think that's good. I think it to sum it up a little bit more, simply put in the tusher range jacket.
[00:21:24] Tayson: If you look at the areas that have color, whether that's the Cherry mahogany or the North Atlantic colors, those are the areas with the more breathable membrane inside of them. But you'll notice they're in areas that are not as indirect, contact with backpacks, or rain hitting them, super directly in the pooling on them, the other areas that are the gray. And those those colors there have the slightly less breathable venting or
[00:21:54] Tayson: vapor moisture transfer rate, right? But a little bit less breathable but will not wet out and won't fail and won't be overwhelmed by, you know, that extra rain. The abrasion the heat that might be coming contact with them so as far as we know this this is the first strange jacket. That utilizes two different membranes. We could be wrong with that so we don't want to make that claim completely but it
[00:22:16] Tayson: is a pretty Unique Piece to be able to utilize those two different pieces membranes and try to optimize the amount of breathability. But all just performance in the field like we mentioned, I do really want to get to the last piece of the of the fabric that composite fabric which is the inside. But before I do that, just because we are been talking so much about the breathability factor of the jacket.
[00:22:41] Tayson: I didn't want to mention one thing and that is that like, we've mentioned waterproof breathable. Really means, you know, Vapor breathable those Vapors can escape. It does not mean you can breathe through the jacket. A lot of people get that confused, even with very high breathability rates out there. You might be giving up certain things. But all that being said, that is a big. Critical reason why we wanted to keep pit
[00:23:06] Tayson: zips on this even though this is an ultra-light piece and we're trying to keep the weight down as low as we can. It's just nothing can really counteract or breathe better than just having a pit sip on the jacket. So, in the field, we've used the six Stanley, which I'm sure we'll talk about, but being able to unzip those pits, especially for someone like me who is a has a high sweat
[00:23:28] Tayson: rate. It's just a non-negotiable thing for me to be able to have that and have the piece of function work for me. So even though that probably added another answer so to the jacket, it the performance and function in the field is so incredibly worth it to avoid sweating from the inside and getting just as wet even though you've got a rain jacket on. So yeah,
[00:23:50] Joe: I think one of the big things I heard you guys talk about was your ability to wear this basically all day if it's raining on and off on
[00:23:59] Joe: a backpacking trip as a New. Put on the rain jacket every time it rains and take it off because, you know, you're going to sweat inside of it. And what's the point of that?
[00:24:08] Brigham: Yeah, right. The thing right? Rain jackets are One, there are very technical piece. There's a lot of just so many Dynamic variables, but there are also like one of the more expensive apparel pieces that are out there. But they're also one of the most frustrating in terms of user experience apparel pieces that is out there. I think, I think they're probably one of the jackets or pieces of outerwear that people have
[00:24:34] Brigham: or find them the most Either frustration or disappointment in which is that's tough because it's very expensive. You want to like be happy with that product and so like one even if the product is totally fine, like they're just it's not something you ever like want to use as your rain jacket. You don't look forward to wearing it for 20 miles but like It is really obnoxious to have to stop and
[00:24:59] Brigham: take it off and put it on like repeatedly throughout a day. And so, if you have a general idea that like, it's And it's probably gonna be like this all day, might rain for two hours and not rain for a half hour. It's really obnoxious to stop and take and take it off. Put that on. So like, that's why, you know, tasting talking about the pit Zips and and just, you know,
[00:25:22] Brigham: if it's not raining but you think it might rain again an hour like just save the time over and over of stopping by just unzipping the jack a little bit and keeping the pits. It's open. And a lot of the time we've been able to get away with like in like moderate to light rain, like just leaving the pits undone because it's very hard for water to actually like get under there
[00:25:45] Brigham: and get into the jackets. So yeah. I mean it's having the pit tips in there is just like in our opinion of mandatory thing. Yeah, pretty reasonably. We had the range jacket out on the Appalachian Trail and it was kind of that scenario where it was raining a little off and on and
[00:26:05] Tayson: Myself and Tyler were on trail with it and we had the, the altitude hoodies which are being released at the same time as this. And then we have the tusher over the top and especially when you've got like long sleeves on, man, you can really get away wearing that. Tusher for a long period of time. Even between rain without getting overwhelmed or getting too hot or you know, developing sweat and whatnot
[00:26:30] Tayson: and so that that was like a really good test because it's high humidity out there. It's been raining off and on, but being able to wear that for over an hour without feeling like we needed to take it off, just really showed showcase how well it does breed and how well you can vent it when you need to and not have to just be constantly, layering up and down, not to mention,
[00:26:50] Tayson: you know, just go back to that durability Factor, you definitely have. There's definitely some rain jackets out there that you Just don't want to wear it any amount of time longer than you need to to keep abrasion and chance of damaging it to a minimum. So something else just to consider with that. Okay. So you started ready? Yeah we've covered. We've covered like some major functions that they of the jacket, right?
[00:27:15] Tayson: The exterior fabric made it up using a 20-day in your nylon.
[00:27:18] Joe: I do have a question about exterior. Fabric is this going to be a piece for those at home? Do we need to treat this with dwr regularly or what is the how do we keep this thing I guess?
[00:27:30] Brigham: Yeah, we can cover that now, since you're asking that. So, it comes dwr treated. So durable water, repellent treatment. It was just a chemical application, that will wear off eventually, but it's job is to Make water bounce off of its job is to make water, not be able to stick to the face fabric at all. The 20D nylon face fabric with a dwr water? Just Hits it and it should run off
[00:27:57] Brigham: and that helps with the breathability of the fabric because it keeps the surface dry and cool. It makes water from our body's want to move out. That'll eventually wear off. So like all
[00:28:10] Joe: rain jackets on the market all rain jackets,
[00:28:12] Brigham: that's that's the reality. But to your question about, like, cleaning or maintenance. One of the probably, the, I would say one of the more frequent like misunderstandings or Miss interpretations, when people do start feeling like their their fabric is starting to absorb water a little bit on the face fabric. I found that more often than not, it's because it's dirty and it could just use a wash and then because dirt dust
[00:28:43] Brigham: any, contaminants from the environment, it will still The face fabric it's not dwr is not for like all physical matter it's just for water, right? So but like dirt if it's on the face fabric dirt water sticks to dirt and so even you know if you're in some dust some windy days on trail dirt and dust will stick to the fast face fabric before water that will absorb water and then you're
[00:29:10] Brigham: going to feel like my face fabric is absorbing water, probably two or three times that you notice that you can just go and watch that. And that that's cycle. Probably is like two or three times before. Actually, the face fabric, the dwr is wearing off, so it's more likely that your jacket is dirty and that's why it's going to be absorbing water before the dwr wears off now. So, in terms of
[00:29:38] Brigham: Maintenance, we definitely recommend. You know, washing it with, was it the tech wash the Nick wax product and that's a specific, you know, compound to use to wash it to Get the dirt and grime off the inside and the outside of the jacket. And then that will Revitalize, that will basically like refresh the dwr that's already there. You don't even need to apply new. But when the dwr does wear off and
[00:30:03] Brigham: you can verify that by washing it and then running it under the water in the sink. You'll see like, hey I just washed it, but it's absorbing water, dwr is worn off. So then just wash it with the other Tech. The other Nick wax product that, you know, reapply the the dwr and then so yeah, like, keeping an eye on it and and, and regular maintenance without a don't don't be afraid
[00:30:27] Brigham: to wash your jacket, you know, because you'll get actually the best performance with a clean jacket every single time. Okay, that's something I just wanted to cover people buy it. I mean, Jack can be like that's not working. Oh there's a lot of other factors there. So yeah and one thing just to note too is we do utilize ADR treatment from our partners, that is incredibly abrasive resistant, it's one of
[00:30:52] Tayson: You are comes off of a piece is just through excessive abrasion. So it does have a much higher resistance to that, not all dwr's are totally equal and we're definitely using a very premium dwr treatment on this piece to help that last longer. But again, the good news is because the membranes were using on the inside. It does not rely on the dwr. There are jackets out there that rely heavily on
[00:31:15] Tayson: dwr. And once that dwr is is uncoated or it gets polished off whatever. Off of the fabric, you'll almost instantly start wetting out those jackets and it will no longer be breathable. So because of the placement of our membranes but not that pretty much won't or should never happen to you. So that's that's one of the things that you can avoid at this piece.
[00:31:36] Joe: Well, sorry you were going through the other features before I. Yeah,
[00:31:39] Tayson: I mean do is and in the interest of time, do we want to touch a whole lot or it all about like just the touring details of like the membrane or not. Okay,
[00:31:52] Tayson: just know that we did select this membrane based off of kind of a durability standard. It was developed for for that. And so it is Expected expect this piece to even though be extremely light to like say be able to wear it for extended period of time. So this part is actually the most one of the most exciting parts for me that I want to talk about in the fabric and that
[00:32:12] Tayson: is the backer of the three layers I guess, essentially in this rain jacket now for brief history. I guess another rain jackets. We have a three-layer fabric, which is going to have an exterior fabric, a membrane and an interior fabric. You have a two and a half layer or something like that, whatever they choose call, but you can have layers essentially going to have an outer fabric, a membrane on the inside,
[00:32:34] Tayson: they use something like a treacle backer, which is kind of like an open weave or mesh type of material that they will then bonded, adhere to the membrane, as well. Yeah, that's
[00:32:45] Brigham: a three layer. That was the three. Yeah, that's three. Go back. Where is a fabric? It's a three layer.
[00:32:51] Tayson: Okay. So that would be like, a way, I guess a trickle back or it's still be trying to lighten up that background on the back of the membrane, you know, to get it as light as you can. So that, it still serves its purpose of slightly protecting the membrane, but more so holding that membrane off of the skin. To help that Viper Vapor transfer, and just Comfort inside the jacket.
[00:33:11] Tayson: So then so that's three there. If we went to two and a half layer, what what are people typically doing for two and a half later on that inner
[00:33:17] Brigham: side? they're basically kind of, like, putting on a disjointed pattern of sometimes it's almost just like a print like, That has very little texture. It's just like an extra little bit of black polyurethane or something that almost is like an extra coating on top of the membrane that I guess technically like you couldn't peel it off and it would be like one whole sheet. It's all it's like a disconnected pattern. So
[00:33:49] Brigham: it's like half covering the membrane but it's oftentimes It's just more of just like, if you're like, putting ink on paper type thing. So what would be similar to? Like if you just
[00:34:02] Tayson: say Hello can of spray paint back with some kind of adhesive and just spray it on the inside of the membrane. It's kind of randomized, pattern of just some kind of substance that it'll adhere to that membrane and stick to create a little bit of texturing. With something like that without affect breathability. Good. Yeah,
[00:34:22] Brigham: good because it's just, you know, that material just on top of another material,
[00:34:27] Tayson: right. So with our piece though, what we actually are debuting, per se is a newer technology that is called. It's a 3D print. So essentially we're printing on the back of that laminate this 3D texturized print that is extremely light and we've from our testing in the field, extensive testing in the field, it's extremely durable, and really serves the purpose of what we need on the inside of the membrane, which is
[00:34:56] Tayson: Some level of protection, but also that texture to hold it off of the skin and enable the membrane to work. So what's really cool about the 3D print is one its durability, right? Extremely durable. And a lot of these times when you're getting into these treacle's or just really light Fabrics, you start to have maybe concerns of durability over time with excessive abrasion so that check that box there. But the other
[00:35:21] Tayson: thing that it really did is it checked the box of being incredibly incredibly light. So as you look at the, you know, essentially the rain jacket fabric, the composite fabric of all these three layers, what's really neat about it? Is it still comes in with an extra fabric of a, 20 down, your ripstop, being extremely light, because of what we've got going on on the inside of the jacket. On the inside
[00:35:46] Tayson: of that jacket. That 3D print is a lot lighter than say, a treat a trickle backer,
[00:35:51] Tayson: or something these other options. And because of that, it allows us to use a slightly heavier fabric, more durable, fabric on the exterior, but still be very comparable. We don't know exactly but very, very comparable on the overall composite fabric weight. So essentially we can offer A jacket that in a size large is 7.4 ounces. With pit Zips, right? And a medium. What do you think? Medium would? Wait, like just
[00:36:18] Tayson: right out of just under 7. So 6.9 ounces in a medium which is what most companies will quote, as there is their Weights. But so, just under seven ounces for this jacket with pit Zips, but still have a 20 denier exterior. Now, that kind of puts it in this category, where many of the pieces in that let's say five and a half to six ounce range or using something like a seven
[00:36:42] Tayson: denier fabric on the exterior which we like I said test it. It didn't even make out of the office before it failed. So that's what's truly remarkable is by having this inner 3D print, it allows us to create an overall more durable piece because it is so light and it's still works so incredibly well. So obviously we're very thankful for for a Partners to be able to date you this piece. We're
[00:37:02] Tayson: also very thankful that for our business model to debut this piece because this is a not a cheap application and to be totally Frank. A lot of retail businesses would not be able to do this and still hit any kind of an affordable price point on shelf. But because we are direct to Consumer, we don't have those middlemen, markups. We are able to release this and bring It to you guys and
[00:37:27] Tayson: it's still makes sense for a price point. Obviously we're not, we're not trying to say that the Tushar in Jack is the cheapest rain jacket out there. It's a very premium piece. You utilizing a ton of technology that goes into it? But hypothetically, if we were retail based business, this piece could be nearly 400 dollars, which is going to be out of the reach of so many people that a lot of
[00:37:46] Joe: retail Brands would never touch it. Just Markups on the way. Yeah, yeah.
[00:37:50] Brigham: And I mean, yeah, there's a lot that goes into it. They're, they have other priorities as a company in a lot of them have to be way more budget conscious and that's not to say that, like, we don't watch our numbers. But we watch our numbers very close, but it's almost like because we watch our numbers that we're able to not be turned away, or turned off at the price of this.
[00:38:17] Brigham: This fabric technology, right? So I think the yeah you know when it comes to like rain gear and our process there you know again think of the jacket is made of a laminate fabric. So there's there's three kind of components that we have to mix and match and come up with the right combination and I think that's
[00:38:37] Brigham: we were able to find a good balance of weight durability and performance of the laminate itself. As tasting was saying like we we made a jacket with a three-layer jacket with a 70 face Fabric and a really good membrane and a third layer on the inside, that's a Treecko and that fabric. So that, that third layer on the inside weighs, as much as the little fabric on the outside, but the outside
[00:39:07] Brigham: is the most likely area of the jacket to undergo, like, the most physical harm. It's the most likely to that. That's what we'll snag in a zipper. That's what a pine. You know, a piece of Deadwood in a forest, is going to catch on. So it's the outer fabric that we want to like get the most durability out of yet. We can. Come up with this composite laminate using a good outer
[00:39:33] Brigham: fabric, a good membrane and then save a bunch of weight on the inside by using this 3D printed backer. Where when, you know, when you when you add it all up, like our
[00:39:45] Brigham: laminate it is is very lightweight. Yet on the outside. It's much more durable than something. If we were to have gone with like a 70 face fabric so yeah, focusing on like the laminate as a whole and and piecing together the components really is what allowed us to do that.
[00:40:03] Joe: There's a couple of features, I want to get through pretty quickly. The seams are fully, it's fully seemed to, with touring specific seam tape. You want to just mention what that is. Yeah, I mean, really
[00:40:15] Tayson: quickly, we'll just go through that but there's, there's different steam tapes that you can buy out there and so, typically, a lot of times, the industry you will select your membrane, just buy a steam tape to tape up your jacket, whereas, with this particular piece. The taurine specific tape has been created along with the membrane to get maximum adhesive levels. And so we actually do test that through our Tori, actually test
[00:40:42] Tayson: that through what's called a jungle test, we put it in a extremely hot chamber of about 170 degrees, they introduce heat and moisture and even some acidic levels into there and they test this for durability, where a weaken that chamber would equal a year of continuous use. And so we've seen through testing of that that essentially, this this Seam tape is loud lasting every other tape that we've that they've tested essentially,
[00:41:08] Tayson: so it's incredible. Last, that we had seen it was up to 10 weeks. And was still holding strong. So that's a big part of the durability of a piece. Obviously if you're seeing taping starts to come off, the jacket will no longer be waterproof so and we got YKK. Aquaguard zippers. Yep. Throughout the piece along with it on the chest pocket as well. So why don't we have a hand Pockets? Right?
[00:41:31] Joe: Is this the one without the hand Pockets? Correct. Yeah.
[00:41:33] Joe: When I go into that decision.
[00:41:34] Tayson: Yeah, I mean we'll ask their reason for no hand Pockets one is is just wait, right? So there's a factor of weight in there, two, in my, my personal use. If there's hand Pockets, I'll probably try to use them, and if I try to use them, I'm literally opening up a hole right in the center of this piece to introduce moisture. It'll roll. Write down your sleeve, and right into your pocket.
[00:41:58] Tayson: So, that's another good reason. I mean those are the two main reasons in my mind. I don't know if there's anything else. Yeah,
[00:42:05] Brigham: I mean, I'll throw one more in there but just to kind of double up on what you just talked about. You know this is if we're trying to make a you know the end product we want to balance out all these priorities but rain jackets job number one is to keep us dry and the reason for that is because if we're wet We will lose a bunch of heat to convective, heat loss and evaporative cooling.
[00:42:28] Brigham: So Rain jackets job number one is not convenient place to put things. It's not a place to warm your hands, so it doesn't mean that there aren't great rain. Jackets out there that do have pockets or don't have pockets. But in terms of the overall design, every additional pocket you put on, there is a potential weak point and breach point for water like taste and said and it's just not a priority
[00:42:53] Brigham: with this jacket. They also have weight And more Stitch holes that have to be seen, you know, sealed or welded. And so you know with Trying to balance out a really lightweight rain jacket that we can wear all day. It just didn't make any sense to put hand pockets and add and now it's to the jacket that would not add any waterproofness or breathability to the jacket. It would only basically detract
[00:43:19] Brigham: from its performance so I'd say that's
[00:43:22] Tayson: kind of the top process there. Yeah, I mean that being said two we do have the chest pocket on there. It is a quite a large chest pocket so you can still hold quite a bit in there. But I mean when it's actively raining I would never suggest you have your hands in Pocket. Anyways. So
[00:43:36] Joe: all right. That's kind of all the features that I have written down in front of me. What could you tell them about the testing process a little bit? And when you decided that this jacket was good to go and ready and how excited you got about 10 more minutes?
[00:43:50] Tayson: Yeah. Yeah, I think this is good let's I mean just to get into the actual application of what we've tested in the field where we've taken this piece so I guess I'll use start with that brick. I'm just where have you slash we taking this piece and used it and Yeah, finding Reigns kind of hard sometimes.
[00:44:11] Brigham: even when you go to places where it's supposed to rain, but in the end, like we've had this in some very high elevation areas, in severe rainstorms, thunderstorms hail and snow, and sleet, which are all really challenging environments for a rain jacket, fabric to withstand and Yeah, we've had I like like I personally have had it in the shower and that's like that's kind of funny and great but it's like you
[00:44:41] Brigham: know any I would say almost any average or above range jacket should be able to keep your torso dry in the shower. Like that's kind of like it's not really even worth mentioning but You know, I've had it on multiple backpacking trips taking my kids out, backpacking. In like the uintas of Utah, some mountains up in Idaho, and I've worn that in the rain, and nothing really challenging, but it did its
[00:45:08] Brigham: job. But then when we got to the fast path, the test for Skyline fastpack when we ran across the testers with fast packs, that was like the first like really, Social kind of abuse test of the of the rain jackets that I think we had four or five guys all with the jacket that were kind of doing the same thing. Yeah.
[00:45:29] Joe: If you don't follow us on YouTube, please check us out after vitals. And there's this called the skyline I think is what the video is called. And yeah, it's like 60 miles. You guys do like 60 miles and it just, it was raining pretty hard on him and they were driving the amount of running you guys were doing and everything like that. It's It's
[00:45:49] Joe: pretty terrible situation for a rain jacket so
[00:45:51] Tayson: it's definitely one of those times when you get off the trailers like you have the moment like man this really performed because like you said, we're running. So not only are we developing heat on the outside of the membrane which right can can start to actually make that member in work last or in Reverse. But we were all taking a lot of abrasion on it, right? Because when you're running versus hiking
[00:46:16] Tayson: that pack, And rubbing on that fabric the whole time we were in the jackets for massive chunks of the day, all of the days. And so, just just a really, really good test environment. And can honestly say it was, it was that trip where we came off and we're just like, man, we really have something here, it, it is really incredible because in a Fastback, too. A lot of us had sub
[00:46:40] Tayson: 30 liter fast packs. Meaning space is at a premium, so you got a really light piece, but they can still do that. It's just not that common to have. I mean, a lot of jackets, I would say they're in the same durability category. This are going to
[00:46:53] Tayson: be, you know, 40% heavier or more right. Get up to even a pound or something. So, it was just, it was definitely that trip. I think where you came where we all came off and we're just super impressed with that. We really knew we had something. And then we rolled that into more and more trips essentially such as The High Line, where we went and You know, got rained on extensively, the
[00:47:16] Tayson: next morning. Woke up to sloshing and hail, or started the snow on us. And we hiked all day, and in rain, and in slush, and inhale, and you know, That, I mean, they had a full day of just living in that range jacket. I think I took mine off for like an hour, but there were guys in the group that never took it off the whole day. I think, Derek never removed
[00:47:38] Tayson: his Tyler, might have never moved his butt. You know, just multiple case scenarios where that piece actually really protect us from hypothermia. We were in the middle of August in, you know, 11,000 foot basins and just getting smashed by his weather system. And, you know, we're in trouble Runners and shorts because we're doing 25 miles a day on the trail. And when, you know, when that situation comes up, you need that
[00:48:05] Tayson: that line of defense to regulate or to keep heat in, right?
[00:48:12] Brigham: That was, yeah, I'd say. You know, like I said before it's like you know I never like want to wear rain gear man on both those trips. The where we were in was a lot of the time above the tree lines. So just massive exposure to win with the rain, which is just suck the heat right out of you. And, and, but man, those trips was, it was the situation where like
[00:48:40] Brigham: I was. So I didn't want to get out of the rain jacket. You know what I mean? It was like, it was like it was just like a security piece, almost it really did give like a sense of mental confidence that you know, and there's things like you know, we have like lab testing results of all kinds of numbers and things that like, frankly, I couldn't tell you. I couldn't put one
[00:49:03] Brigham: on over the other and be like, oh yeah, that's x y. Z number rating, for sure. I can feel that difference. What I can tell you is Here in like basically the worst case scenario for a rain jacket, I for all the many hours dozens of hours that I wore that jacket in the Rain Over the those trips. I was never wanting to take the rain jacket off. When it when I
[00:49:29] Brigham: was wearing it, I was it was just a confidence piece and a comfort, a comfort item really of just knowing that like hey I'm I'm able to keep going. I don't feel horrible inside and when I took it off, I was never ever feeling like, it feels so good to get that clammy soaking wet thing off my body. It was almost like I expected it to be a lot wetter inside. Yeah.
[00:49:54] Brigham: And and so it was just a huge confidence, inspiring experience of testing that jacket in the field. Yeah,
[00:50:01] Tayson: I mean the testing went on, and on and on right, we've took it all through the winter season, took it all through the spring season ticket out to the at just a lot of a lot of additional time and Miles. I took it and the High Country Colorado for a week and we've just developed a massive level of confidence in the piece. And again, just at the spect weights and functions of
[00:50:24] Tayson: the jacket. It's we really think we have something that that's unique. And, you know, I might just say two to guys that have never purchased a rain jacket. There's there's a lot to consider or any jackets are quite pricey and it's kind of a it's a tougher decision to make, right? Because you can go out there and buy something like a like a Frogg togg that's gonna be like 40 bucks or
[00:50:47] Tayson: something like that, and it technically could keep the rain off of you. But definitely, when you're ready for a rain jacket, that's going to perform. I just don't think there's there's really anything that that's in this category currently out there. So it's really cool piece. Obviously, we could have been doing R&D and testing on this for another couple of years but we were so pleased and excited. I think by the results
[00:51:10] Tayson: that we did generate and and the use cases that we were able to perform it in and that it just made sense. We were, we were very confident. I mean, I actually remember as last fall. So this fabric takes nine to ten months to produce just the fabric, right? It's it's so it won. I mean it's it's a very new Fabric and sew takes extra time for the Mills, but it's all
[00:51:30] Tayson: so technical fabric coming out of Japan. and, But I remember in the fall of last year basically just was like we have no reason not to order this. We're so happy with it. I think Brigham just kind of asked me and I said, I have no nothing to add more to this, you know what I mean? So
[00:51:46] Joe: let's let's go ahead and place that PO. So yeah, I mean before it was all one color now it looks really cool.
[00:51:50] Tayson: Yeah, you'll see, you'll see all those videos like a blue looking solid piece. It did have different membranes in it, but they were the same color. Now. It's also very sharp looking jacket. Yeah, it's it's a few people
