whats good, love the look of the Alpkit ones and they look ideal but they have no stock of anything. what are the alternatives?
depends on what you're prepared to spend.
i just went back to thermarest ( neoair camper) after a few years on an alpkit mat. shopped around for a decent price (75 quid).
it's three inches thick-ish.
have spent 10 nights on it and have never been so comfy in the backcountry as i'm a slide sleeper.
I got some from millets. 5 cm and although I've never slept overnight the seem pretty comfy.
For carrying round on bike/back or car camping?
Carrying - whatever good one has best sale price. Warmest/lightest/smallest I have used was a colleagues Exped Synmat, which was amazingly small, light and comfy.
I still have four cheap Decathlon 2.5cm thick ones, that while a bit heavy (@750g iirc), are really comfy and have a grippy surface that I don't slide off.
For car camping, a massive thick Decathlon one.
For bikepacking, this cheap thermarest copy from decathlon is on my shopping list
http://www.decathlon.co.uk/a100-ultralight-camping-sleeping-mat-blue-id_8029334.html
Again depends what you'll use it for?
If you're looking for bike/back packing jobbies, then the Thermarest NeoAir Xtherm is UNBELIEVABLE.
I've been camping all my life and this mat is just so incredibly commfy, warm and tiny. It's very expensive, but after one night on it you won't give a toss!
what polisherman said.
also factor in how often you will use it ...
our alpkits lasted 2 weeks of daily use before failing. they then blamed us saying we left them inflated our tent all day in the heat causing them to fail. - we did not because our tent was packed up and in our panniers
we replaced them with kilemanjaro mats from nz shop - those lasted the remainder of the 6 months before the seams split in australia... we have replaced with thermarest neoair (when the xtherm was the only one availible) and as polisherman says - they are awesome.
Mine's the silver one, 'cos it's off to the Himalayas next month. But there is lighter yellow one too. Still way warmer than anything else..
Over the years I've had a few makes and models. The gold standard is a genuine Therm-a-rest.
The Alpkit ones (when available) are good, but everyone of ours has been replaced under warranty - that's 4 of them. 2 of the replaced ones now have micro leaks, so if I was staring again it would be a genuine Therm-a-rest.
Buy cheap buy twice and all that.
Hth
Marko
+another for a neoair, awesome bit of kit.
Exped Synmat. Hugely comfy and warm but not as light as a Thermarest.
Having used a T-A-R for 10 days and suffered a very aching back compared to two weeks on the Exped with no problem, I'd never go back.
HTH.
Si
I have this for bikepacking. Bargain!
http://www.gooutdoors.co.uk/hi-gear-ultralite-3-4-style-lightweight-sleeping-mat-p143705
Edit
New one is even lighter
http://www.gooutdoors.co.uk/hi-gear-ultralite-3-4-self-inflating-mat-p287149
Another +1 for the neo air fantastic bits of kit, the insulation from the ground is superb.
I have the exped downmat, bought around 2002 when they were first launched. The new [url= http://www.summittosea.co.uk/exped-synmat-ul.ir?cName=camping-sleeping-mats ]synmat UL[/url] is a very tempting offer, if only my downmat needed replacing.
Best nights camping on these ever, so good even my wife puts up with it.
If for anything other than casual use, get the proper decent branded kit - I've had three cheap thermarest alternatives fail, and all through that my wife was uber comfortable on an Exped synmat which is still going strong after the equivalent of about 5 months solid cycle touring use (i.e. inflated/deflated, packed/unpacked on an almost daily basis). I've since got myself a matching synmat, if I was to go proper lightweight I don't think I could look at anything beyond the neo air.
