What percentage of BPL gear posts do you think are “holy grail” related?

less than 10%

75% are just BS.

62% of threads turn into a drift filled chaff fest.

56.3% of statistics are made up on the spot.

What's the cheapest, best, most durable, comfortable rain pants with zips?

I'd say about 75 percent –

of my every day conversations end up with some quote from Monty Python, 57 percent of which are specifically out of The Holy Grail.

Chaff aside, I agree that a large percentage of discussions revolve around "the best", especially when several attributes of a tool are quite mutually exclusive.(like waterproof and breathable being used in the same sentence).

Perhaps it's high time for a new thread category under "Gear"?

It's a lot. I guess that's what drives gear makers to continue improving though. Our constant desire for lighter, cheaper and more durable.

Ryan

> 56.3% of statistics are made up on the spot.

Made me LOL. Thanks Ken.

I want the 48.4 seconds it took to read this thread and reply to it back.

"62% of threads turn into a drift filled chaff fest."

22.836% of those are due to my aimless wandering on the thread, and most of the remainder is Doug's doing. But at least his are usually pretty funny.

Well, lads and lasses, some of us have it figured out (well sort of).

WPB poncho for warmish weather (hard to beat the breathability of that combo). When really warm, just get half nekked and wet (provided you have dry clothes for backup)–feels good and cools you down a bit.

Paramo/Furtech or preferably a separated Pump liner with windjacket for colder weather. None of these are "perfect", but what materially is perfect in this world? Meanwhile, quite good for their respective conditions.

Course, even these could be improved and tweaked. Tis the nature of the left brain and of masculine energy side of us to try to constantly change, improve, figure out, add order or knowns to chaos or the unknown (this btw, is NOT a gender statement as we all have masculine and feminine within and all have and use left and right brain hemispheres). This in large part is what science is all about and fueled by.

Course, it needs some balance from the other side like acceptance, seeing things from the big, holistic, or long term picture, intuition, feeling awareness, getting still or receptive, appreciating beauty, etc. But try talking about these things to gear heads, in a male gender majority, etc, etc…. When the eyes start to glaze over or the mouth starts to twitch, or stones start flying, you quickly realize it's a waste of time.

Yeah! Love it when ardent proponents of whatever WPB membrane start calling all others idiots in so many words. ;0)

Just remember George Carlin's observation on driving:
When someone is going faster than you he's a "maniac".
When someone is driving slower than you he's an "idiot".

Sounds like some of the back-and-forths I've read here.

When someone is going faster than you he's a "maniac".
When someone is driving slower than you he's an "idiot".

Several years ago my youngest sister's SO uttered that line while driving me across the Republic of TX … but he added "Ah don't meet many maniacs"

The actual holy grail is not technically clothing:

I think Umbrellas have their place, but most, if not all, of the UL and lighter ones do tend to not do so well in high winds or wind driven rain–so hard to call them a "holy grail", for something to be a holy grail, it has to check all the desired boxes.

I will be working on a truly UL, truly compact, and hopefully much more wind resistant type, umbrella. But i'm still waiting on parts i had ordered, carbon fiber strips and thread inserts etc. It will be much more flat than the typical umbrella, but with just enough bow/curve to shed and not pool water.

Since it will be mostly be made out of 1 oz cuben and carbon fiber strips, i guesstimate it will weigh in the range of 3 to 4.5 oz (possibly a little less or little more). The first prototype will actually be triangular. Unfortunately, because of the materials being used, it's expensive to make, so bit of a gamble.

Sounds awesome!

Not sure how practical that is since in wind driven rain the umbrella will need to be pointed flat side into the wind, but maybe there's more to the shape than you described.

My experience is that with wind driven rain, a rain jacket works best and the wind will keep you cool. As long as you aren't out of the trees for more than an hour or so, most jackets won't wet out quickly enough. That's usually enough time to either hike into the trees, stop and set up a shelter or for the wind to die down.

And so, the theory is reinforced.

All threads will, given enough time, drift to umbrellas.

I think that should be the new BPL tag line instead of "Pack less, be more."

BACKPACKING LIGHT
All threads, given time, drift to umbrellas.

Umbrellas are the new Nazis.