Alpkit is a mixture of decent stuff at a keen price and let’s just say some quirky kit 😉 While their kit isn’t top end it’s more than good enough to get you going – I’ve the Filo down jacket, it was £80 about five years ago and is more than good enough for what I’ll use it for. I’m not going to Antarctica so don’t need the quality or price of a PHD down jacket.
I’ve got a couple of Alpkit stem cells and a few Airlok dry bags but my main bikepacking bags/harnesses are Wildcat At the time I bought them there were really only Alpkit, Apidura and Wildcat readily available in this country, Revelate might have been available as well. I’m not sure if I’ve seen anyone with an Alpkit bar harness, but haven’t explicitly looked. I’ve also an Alpkit Fuel Pod but it’s a bit unstable and always seems to want to flop over.
As mentioned above they are susceptible to currency fluctuations but they don’t do On-One’s random scatter gun prices, presumably they buy a container load or two of kit and pay whatever price and add their margin then try and get the next container for the same price. Some of the stuff like the cookware is obviously standard stuff with their logo imprinted but it’s no more expensive than the plain versions or those with other “manufacturer’s” marks.
I’ll continue to get stuff from them. Most of the time what I’ll get will work but there’ll be the occasional interesting moment.