Fancy a night in the great outdoors? We’ve put a couple of top choices for insulated mats to the test. How do they compare?
Getting comfortable can be a challenge, especially in the chill of the UK!
Big Agnes Rapide SL
- From: Big Agnes
- Price: £135.00
- Claimed weight: 482g
- Weight on my kitchen scales (with inflator and bag): 604g
- Pack size: 9 x 18cm
- Mat size: 20×72 inches (others available)
- R-value: 4.8
The Big Agnes Rapide SL mat is a rectangular mat with separate in and out valves. It comes with a patch kit and an inflator – a simple lightweight bag with a valve on the end. It takes half a dozen or so puffs of the bag to inflate, and once up provides a 4.8 rated insulated base. It comes in a range of different sizes, the one we have here is the smallest, at 20x72inches.
Exped Ultra 5R Mummy
- From:Lyon
- Price: £185.00
- Claimed weight: 445g
- Weight on my kitchen scales (with inflator and bag): 514g
- Pack size: 23 x 12.5cm
- Mat size: 20×72.5 inches (others available)
- R-value: 4.8
The Exped Ultra 5R Mummy mat is a mummy shaped mat – narrower at the head, wider at the shoulders, tapering down to its narrowest point at your feet. Note that there is a rectangular version available too. It comes with a patch kit and a ‘Schnozzel UL’ inflator. The Schnozzel is a super lightweight drybag, with a stiffened opening with clip fastening, that narrows down to a tube with the valve in the end. The stiffened opening makes it easy to fill with air, and one or two full puffs is enough to fill the Exped Ultra 5R, making for very fast inflation.
Storage
The Big Agnes rolls up neatly to fit into its storage sack, giving a packed size of 9x18cm, however it is a very snug fit. Rolling it up and squeezing it into the bag while in the comfort of your living room is one thing – repeating the process on a cold and damp morning on the side of a hill is quite another. To my mind, the bag is a bit on the stingy side. However, it has the benefit of an outer grab loop on the bottom of the bag, which is helpful for getting it out.
The Exped Ultra 5R rolls up into its storage sack, giving a packed size of 23×12.5cm. The storage bag is snug, but not so stingy as to make storage quite such a precision task as the Big Agnes. It also includes a little flap for keeping the repair kit safe – whereas the Big Agnes repair kit is loose and much easier to lose or blow away.
The Big Agnes does seem to roll up smaller, and the provided storage bag is smaller in volume than the Exped Ultra 5R – especially when you take into account the larger size of the Schnozzel inflator. However, if you roll your mat up inside your bivvy bag (which makes wet weather set up much easier, and takes up loads less space in your bag than two separate items) the difference in pack size it fairly meaningless.
Mummy vs Rectangle
I found that the Mummy shape fitted more easily inside my (Alpkit Hunka XL) bivvy bag and left me feel less constrained inside the bag. It was easier to adjust positions inside the bag with the Exped than the rectangular Big Agnes. However, the Mummy shape left your feet the opportunity to go off the edge of the mat in some positions, leaving your feet uninsulated from the ground.
The rectangular Big Agnes was more comfortable for varied sleeping positions, with more room to accommodate head and feet outside a central line. Inside a bivvy bag, the rectangular shape felt more constraining, although with my XL bivvy bag size it wasn’t uncomfortable. I think a small bivvy bag could be more problematic with the rectangular shape.
Filling
The Exped Schnozzel doubles up as a dry bag, with illustrations suggesting that you might stuff your sleeping bag into it. However, to my mind this just creates a problem of having to unpack your sleeping bag before your bed is ready for it. However, the non-sticky lightweight fabric and stiffened opening were useful in helping to fill the bag with air, and it did fill the Exped Ultra 5R very quickly – great for bad weather fast camp set ups. I don’t really understand what the point of the long snout on the Schnozzel is, and I think it would be better without it – it has a tendency to twist and stop the air flowing through freely.
The Big Agnes inflator had a strangely sticky inside, making it hard to get the bag filled with air. It did do the job however, and takes up less space than the Exped Schnozzel. Since the valves are different sizes, it’s not possible to swap between the two mats to see if the efficiency of the Schnozzel is down to its design, or the internal volume of the mat.
Personally, I’d skip the drybag clips on the Schnozzel in order to make it pack down even smaller – and maybe even skip the stiffened edge too. Perhaps a French seam alone would be enough to make the super light fabric fill with air?
Valves
The valves between the two mats are much of a muchness, although are annoyingly different sizes, meaning you can’t mix and match your inflators across mat brands. The valves are in different positions on each bag, which each come with pros and cons. The Big Agnes valves are on one edge, while the Exped ones are central on the mat. I prefer to have my valves facing upwards, for easy filling. On the Big Agnes, the position means the valves aren’t at the back of your head if you’re sleeping without a pillow. On the Exped, you either have the valves at the back of your head, or facing the ground.
On the other hand, having the valves to one side on the Big Agnes can make rolling the mat up a little trickier, as it’s easier for air to become trapped on one side of a fold, away from the valve. On the Exped, this doesn’t happen, as the Mummy shaped edges fold inwards, and then it is rolled up with the air heading towards the central valve.
Comfort
The Exped is not as thick/deep as the Big Agnes mat. The Exped has a ‘tube’ shaped inflation pattern running the length of the mat, while the Big Agnes has a more quilted effect to its inflation. I am a side sleeper, and I found the Big Agnes more comfortable – it felt more like I was being evenly supported, rather than ridges and grooves effect of the Exped structure.
Both are equally quiet to sleep on, although quiet and comfort are greatly improved by adding a pillow. Neither caused me to feel the cold from the ground, although with the mummy shape of the Exped I did find it easier to move my feet off the insulated mat.
Support
One of the worries with inflatable mats is what happens if you spring a leak. Both mats come with a repair kit, so you can fix things yourself (if you’ve taken the patch kit with you). Note that Big Agnes advises against using duct tape as a temporary repair, saying that this can leave a sticky residue that makes proper repair impossible.
Exped products have a 5-year warranty on defects in materials and manufacturing. Punctures are not covered under warranty however they offer free puncture repairs (customer just pays postage costs), with a professional team in their workshops doing the repairs. The team takes note of the repairs they do and uses that as feedback for future product improvements. UK Distributor Lyon Equipment handles customer service in the UK.
Big Agnes has a ‘limited lifetime warranty’ – no timescale is specified, and wear and tear isn’t covered. They will however repair your mat for a fee plus postage costs, and they’ll contact you in advance if the repair will cost more than $100 (the customer service and repairs team are based in the USA).
Overall
The efficacy and ease of use of the Schnozzel are enough to make me look quite favourably upon the Exped mat – though I think I do prefer the rectangular sleeping platform (which, of course, Exped also offers). For comfort, I prefer the depth and quilted inflation pattern of the Big Agnes. The Exped storage bag with integrated patch kit storage feels like it’s had more design attention spent on it than the Big Agnes, but whether you actually end up taking the bag with you on the trail depends a lot on how you pack your sleep set up.
If speed is your friend, I think the Exped likely just edges the win over the Big Agnes. The UK based support for the Exped is a big plus if you’re in the UK too. However, if comfort is your biggest consideration and you don’t mind the slightly slower inflation time, USA-based side sleepers in particular may prefer the Big Agnes. It’s a close call though, they should both deliver you a decent night’s sleep, wherever you decide to set up camp.
