Mountain Laurel Designs is now listing new products on their website.

I have spent most of my morning looking at the new MLD website. The new bivies they are selling have some really cool features. I am curious if the new designs with the eVent foot box will cut down on condensation. Now all I have to do is come up with a reasons to justify puchasing everything I want.

I just dropped the money for a new Revelation and LiteSoul bivy. Everything looks fantastic. Ron has certainly been using his time well!

This is my first post. Hi to everyone at BPL.

Just scoped out the new MLD site.
The Spinntex Revelation looks sweet, for just about the same weight as cuben fiber version, but just curious...
Why no cuben fiber Revelation?
Think its going to make a comeback at a later date?

-Trent

I was wondering the same thing about why Cuben is no longer being used. The Revelation is now 2100 cu. in. and 3.3 oz. with Spinntex in comparison to 1850 cu. in. and 3.2 with Cuben. There has been a few other changes as well: drain holes in the outer pocket, slightly wider and ergonomically curved shoulder straps; it looks to be a nice improvement from an already great looking pack. Maybe the use of Spinntex was a way of keeping the pack from becoming too expensive, but I don't truly know. I can't wait for mine to come in!

We switched from the Cuben to the Spinntex for various reasons. Price was not really a factor as the pack uses a small amount of fabric anyway and non fabric componets are about half the overall weight in a pack this light.

Overall, the 2007 pack is tougher than the previous Revelation and has a larger rear pocket and a bit taller extension collar.

In general, Cuben requires more reinforcements in the stitching areas than a woven (Spinntex .97) fabric and a pack has a lot of stitching. (The sewing needle in wovens tend to go between most of the individual fibers and with the mylar base Cuben it's a hole that weakens the fabric along the stitch line and must be reinforced even more.) By switching to the Spinntex .97, we saved a bit of weight in the needed reinforcement areas and added it back in pack volume and better shoulder straps.

One possbile change in the future. We just got some really tough 1.5oz nylon mesh we will use on the Prophet that looks a lot like noseeum netting but is so tough you can not rip it with bare hands. Using that on the rear pocket of the Revelation may push the weight up .3oz. We might just list it as an option.

I welcome the extra volume in the Revelation. The original was just scary small looking to me. I think I could get my stuff in the new model... maybe :P

The new site is a beauty and the new products are tantalizing. One of the real shining stars in my view is the Alpine Bivy. 2-layer (=UL) eVent in a zippered bivy that's half the weight of ID's zipperless eVent models.

Kudos Mr. Bell; I am saving my pennies so I can send them all to you!

Brian

I agree. Of all the things I'm most interested in purchasing is the alpine bivy, maybe in a wide to fit my -25 sleeping bag for next year's arrowhead 135 race, where our BPL member Alex is running (and hopefully not freezing) right now!

Hi Ron,

I couldn't find any reference or options to having netting for the Alpine Bivy. Am I missing something or is this not included or an option?

Thanks very much.

Rich

Edited by naturephoto1 on 02/05/2007 18:35:05 MST.

Hi,

Sorry, no bug net option for the Alpine Bivy right now. I was thinking the Alpine one more for climbers and so I left it stripped thinking that backpackers might like the light weight and features of the Soul Bivy more. Maybe I'll have to look at that as an option in the future.

Thanks

Nice work, Ron. Very cool stuff. I've got my eye on the Zip pack, and I especially like the straightforward page that talks about the fabrics & other ingredients.
-Mark

I really like the new bivy options, it's making me wish that I had held out on getting a TiGoat one, oh well. The sleeping bags are looking exciting too. All very cool, excellent work!

.. How did you make the text into an active blue hyperlink? Id like to be able to do that. Thanks!

Brett:

I don't know how to type out the format without the system automatically converting it into a hyperlink. I'll email the format to your yahoo address instead.

Edited by ben2world on 02/05/2007 23:06:52 MST.

Type the following text into your post:

<a href="http://www.mountainlaureldesigns.com/fabric.php">Fabric Mojo</a>

and the phrase Fabric Mojo will show up as clickable.

Edited by Otter on 02/05/2007 23:11:42 MST.

Slick, Doug.

Pray tell, how did you type the string without the program turning it into an HTML?

Ron, I am really interested in two of your bivies. The soul bivy looks sweet. I'm curious though about the zipper on the superlight bivy. It ends 3/4 of the way across the chest. I was wondering what the reason was for that? Also I don't see a hang loop on the superlight bivy to keep the netting off your face. Other than that I really love what I am seeing and there is a real good chance you will be getting my birthday money

Psst...Ben,...shhh...i wanna' tell you a l'il secret. But, you've gotta' promise not to tell anyone else on the Forums. It will be Doug's, yours, and mine little secret.

Here's how type a HTML Anchor markup and have the text appear instead of the link:

just type the following characters to replace the < sign

an ampersand, then an 'l', followed by a 't', and finally a semi-colon. Don't put in the ticks (as s/w people call them) aka single-quote characters.

of course, for the >, just use a 'g' instead of an 'l'.


so,...

<a href="http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/index.html">BPL</a>

produces

BPL


one could also insert spaces b/t the < and the 'a', and elsewhere as required, to break-up the HTML markup, and give instructions to remove those spaces.

here's another not-so-secret secret. if anyone is interested to see how Doug did it, just select the text of his post, and then (most Browser's have this capability) select the appropriate Browser pull-down menu choice or context sensitive (aka "right-click" menu - for right handed mouse configurations) choice to view the selection source.

Edited by pj on 02/06/2007 03:27:36 MST.

>just type the following characters to replace the < sign
>
>an ampersand, then an 'l', followed by a 't', and finally a semi-colon. Don't put in the ticks (as s/w people call them) aka single-quote characters.


I.e., just type   &lt;   for   <   ("lt" as in "less than") and   &gt;   for   >   ("gt" as in "greater than").

OK, how did I do _that_? Similar trick. Typing    &amp;    inserts the ampersand in the text, where typing an actual ampersand would signal the start of a special character.

Bonus info: How did I put in extra spaces around some of the words above? I used a non-breaking space, also known as a "hard space." Just insert   &nbsp;   in your text and it will honor those spaces when it is displayed. This is useful for indenting lists, too.


And, on-topic, the new MLD products look great!

Edited by Otter on 02/06/2007 09:44:04 MST.