Sea to Summit X-Series

Occasionally I get asked if I would like to test and review equipment, other times I will see something that interests me and I will contact the supplier/manufacturer to see if it would be possible to have an item to test/review.

Burton McCall were nice enough to send me a set of the Sea to Summit X-Series Mug, Bowl and Plate.

For years I always carried two cook pots; one of meals and the other a small one for doing 'brews'. The main reason for this was that when using homemade dehydrated meals, they needed to soak for an hour or so, and this ment that one pot was not usable in this time.

I did for a time use just one pot and a plastic bowl but it would not always fit into pockets easily and occasionally pressing to hard on the pack would crack the bowl.

I did also for a time try the Orikaso set of mugs and bowls but never got on with these.

So after seeing a x-bowl on this year's TGO Challenge I though this maybe the ideal solution for the way I cook.

The best way to do this review is do the items individually; So I will start with the X-Mug.

X-MUG

Weight: 52 g
Size: 20mm x 110mm (when flat) 85mm x 110mm (when open)


The X-mug is made from food grade silicone material, this means that it won't taint any liquid that is placed into it.

The mug has a nylon rim to help give rigidity to the mug. The mug is calibrated on the inside in ml and cups, so can be used as a measuring cup. The measurements show from 100 ml to 480 ml.

It will hold 480 ml (2 cups) of liquid but this will take it to the top of the mug; Personally I only fill it to about the 350 ml (1 1/3 cups) this is because where you pick the mug up normally i.e by the sides the mug squishes sightly and can cause the liquid to overflow. The mug can be picked up by the rim but you need to have fairly big hands to do this.


Comparing the x-mug to my old mug; the x-mug will hold sightly more liquid but does weigh a few grams more. But it is much easier to pack away inside a pack or even in a trouser pocket.

Old & New

I do have one niggle and one concern with the x-mug; the niggle is that although the mug will take quite high temperatures, it doesn't seem to hold the heat particularly well. I wouldn't expect it to hold heat like a insulated mug but I found that the heat disperses quite quickly; even quicker that the old plastic mug I normally use. Now I don't know the reason for this; it could be the the walls of the x-mug are quite thin or it could be that silicone don't retain heat particularly well.

The concern is how resistant the silicone is to puncture; I like to have my brew kit close to hand which means I carry it in the outside pockets of my pack. Packs can sometimes get snagged on items like gates, stiles and the odd bit of barbed wire and this could puncture the x-mug; I know this may never happen but I think about these things.

Pros: light and compact, holds a good amount of liquid

Cons: Doesn't seen to keep liquid hot for very long, possibly easy to puncture

X-Bowl

Weight: 86 g
Size: 15 mm x 150 mm (flat) 60 mm x 150 (when open)


The X-bowl is made for the same materials as the X-mug the only difference being that there is no nylon rim; the nylon this time is in the base of the bowl.

The base of the bowl can be used as a cutting board, if you are someone who like to cook and prep fresh food out of the trail.

Again the bowl is calibrated to use for measuring, and shows from 100 to 500 ml.

The bowl can hold a maximum of 650 ml; and you can use virtually all of this, as this time as you are more likely to hold the bowl in the palm of your hand.

I used the bowl for a breakfast (Oat So Simple) and a homemade dehydrated meal and neither of these meals came above the 400 ml mark.

X-Bowl & Breakfast

But once again I found the the meals seems to get cooler quicker than in either a traditional bowl or my Vargo ti-lite mug.

Pros: light and compact, small pack size

Cons: Doesn't seen to keep food hot for very long



X-Plate

Weight: 152 g
Size: 15 mm x 220 mm (Flat) 38 mm x 220 (open)


Again the X-plate is made from the same silicone and nylon, as the other two items. Because of it's bigger size, you get a much bigger cutting board and the plate will hold 1170 ml.

Now I have to admit the I can't really find a way of fitting this plate into my backpacking set-up. It has nothing to do with the weight or the size but more to what I would use it for.

Most of my meals on trips are 'heat and eat' so the X-bowl would serve this purpose 99.9% of the time.

I could see the plate being used on 'Glamping' trips with the family; when having 'proper' meals in a tent.

Pros: light and compact, good if you like a large plate

Cons: doesn't really fit in with my type of backpacking


Overall I see the mug & bowl to be a good addition to my backpacking kitchen.

Local Nature Reserve

Popped along to our local nature reserve today; which is about 10 minutes from home.

The reserve has been created within Sutcliffe Park, the river used to run under the road and covered culvert through the park. This was remodelled several years ago to reintroduce a flood area to protect areas further down stream. Also this created a marshy area for wildlife to return. It is now an oasis in the middle of two major roads.


View Larger Map

There are suppose to be dragonflies, damselflies, herons, little egrets, kingfishers and reed warblers there but I only saw a heron today along with the usual suspects of ducks, coots and moorhens.

(Karma) Chameleon Wrap Slam

At the end of last year Stef from BG! put my name forward to Fitness Footwear to test and review some TNF Hedgehog walking shoes; At the time I had just bought a pair of these shoes, so declined the offer.

Adam Smith from Fitness Footwear has been back in touch with some new shoes to test and review and this time I have taken up the offer.

This month's offer was on Merrell Trainers. I had the choice of a few different shoes and opted for the Merrell Chameleon Wrap Slam (yeah I think the name is a bit of a mouthful too).

Chameleon Wrap Slam

Sole Detail

I asked Adam to send me a size 12; I usually take a 11 or 11.5 but when ordering shoes unseen I tend to go a half size bigger. Adam actully sent me a size 12.5 which was lucky as I think the 12 would of been a bit tight.

Initial thoughts on the shoes are that, they are fairly comfortable: I've only tried them on two short walks so far. They are a lot heavier than I would expect from a shoe made with neoprene but I think this is partly to do with the rubber rand and the rather chunky Vibram sole.

The weight is around 548g per shoe, this is in comparison to Inov8 Terrocs=408g, TNF Hedgehog=478g, and New Balance S70=419g

A selection of hiking shoes
New Balance S70, TNF Hedgehogs, Inov8 Terrocs, Merrell Chameleon Wrap Slam

I'll be wearing the Merrell's as my main shoes for the next couple of months and with have a fullier report then.

Fitness Footwear has a selection of Merrells on sale at present.

Power to the people

There have been a couple of posts on charging mobile phones, mp3 players and possibly other equipment while out on a trip.

In the past I have always used a mp3 player that would take AA/AAA batteries and just carry a spare, this usually worked quite well; as for mobile phones, well I never really worried about it because they would be switched off most of the time as they were only a phone.

Nowadays mp3 players have internal batteries that have to be charged through a USB port on the computer and mobile phones are more than just a phone.

There seems to be quite a few different types of chargers out there; from one's that can be picked up in a pound shop to in excess of £30

For my TGOC trip I had picked up one from the pound shop; as I wasn't sure how good these things were and didn't want to pay a lot for something that may not work.



The picture above is of the £1 one; which is very basic, it takes 4 AAA batteries and comes with one lead the connects to the unit and has a female USB on the other end.

Using standard Energizer batteries the unit gave me enough charge to re-charge the mp3 two to three times off one set of batteries.

For the phone is was pretty useless as it only even seemed to add one bar into the phone and I also believed the it was draining the phone but have no proof of that.

Since being back I've looked into them a bit more and if you have an iphone there seems to be plenty of choices, other phones are a bit limited because of the adaptors you need for them. Yes you could use the USB lead that connects to the computer but this means bring along a lead that is at least 3 feet in length.

One company that does seem to make a charger with a variety of adaptors is Powertraveller; they do a whole range of charger but I went for the PowerChimp mainly because is was still fairly cheap and had the tip adaptor I need for my phone.



The PowerChimp comes with 9 tips, a lead to connect the unit to your equipment, a re-trackable USB to unit cable, 2 1800 mAh AA batteries and something I found quite clever; 2 plastic sleeves so you can use AAA batteries in the AA unit. It also has a LED light build into it and also has an on/off button.

Although the unit comes with re-chargeable batteries; normal batteries can be used in it.

The unit takes about 5 hours to fully charge its batteries; and again charging the mp3 player I can get a about 3 full charges.

The website quotes the following about the charger:-

There are two rechargeable AA 1800mAh batteries in the powerchimp, but the voltage is 1.2v. Mobile phones require 4.5 ~ 5.5 v, so the powerchimp needs to convert from 1.2v to 5.5v. The battery capacity is almost divided by 5, 2 x 1800mAh NI-MH batteries are equal to 1x 1000mAh Li-ion battery, powerchimp is a typical emergency charger and therefore will give you up to one full charge of your mobile phone

To test this out I allowed my phone to go completely flat and has a full 5 hour charge in the PowerChimp. The PowerChimp did recharge the phone but not to a full charge; 3 bars did appear but even in standby the phone dropped to 2 bars with in an hour.

Another test was done but this time using Energizer Lithium batteries, again the phone charged to 3 bars but this time it stayed at 3 bars for a day but as usual started to drop as I used the phone.



The unit with the AA rechargeable batteries weights in at about 50 grams and a bit less with Lithium batteries.

The on/off button is recessed on the unit so makes the chances of being switched on by accident less, but I also reverse one of the batteries when not in use, just in case.

The first press of the button will start the charging procedure and this is accompanied by a flashing green light to tell you that that the charging is working. A flashing red light tell you that the batteries are nearly exhausted.

The second press of the button switches on the LED light and a third press will switch the unit off again.

The overall size of the unit in roughly 9x4x3 cm and it come with a small pouch case to store a couple of adaptors and the unit in.



As yet I haven't tried it with Alkaline batteries but would imagine that I will get something between the rechargeables and the Lithiums in performance.

Overall I think the unit works well for mp3 players, and is a good emergency back up for the phone.