As we head towards autumn here in the NEUS, the first few cool nights are often a bit of a shock. After our bodies spent the hot summer adapting to staying cool in warm weather, they are ill equipped to conserve warmth in cool weather. It always highlights, to me, how much the perception of comfort is variable. The 60 degree day in the spring feels like a heat wave and our winter adapted bodies want to strip layers and bask in the sun. A 60 degree night in the fall has our heat adapted bodies wanting to bundle up. Every fall, I think about how absurd it is that I’m grabbing a jacket in 60 degrees. When I put this into the context of temperature ratings for outdoor gear, it just doesn’t make any sense. I am both “blessed” and “cursed” by the need to question everything, but why would we ever just simply state that an items is good for 30 degrees? Every person has much different needs and even that one individual has different needs at different times.
I have backpacked and bikepacked with people all over the spectrum. I’ve spent time with some who can easily be comfortable in a drafty, 30 degree rated quilt, well down into single digits. I’ve spent time with some who aren’t comfortable in that same system at 50 degrees. Instead, these folks are often carrying a system that is over-insulated and still not totally comfortable. I think the worst I’ve seen is someone needing to over-insulate by 30 degrees. Needing a 0f for freezing. Then, add in that each of those individuals could need different amounts for different times of the year and you have to question why we do things the way we do.
With all that variability, why would you ever state what temperature a system is good for? Why are we not simply talking about how much insulation there is and then applying that as needed? If there is a transparent communication about how much insulation there is, then each individual can simply determine how much of it they need for a temperature. I mean, this is how we do it in other fields. Housing uses R-value to communicate how much resistance to heat-flow a wall / roof / floor system will have. It wouldn’t be reasonable to expect every gear manufacturer to do R-value testing, but we could, pretty easily, communicate metrics that point directly at R-value and give you a reliable insulation level for any given area. If we know the measured loft space and the calculated loft, we are as close as we can get to having R-value without running the test. It’s the amount of loft space and the amount of fill in that space and it applies to any given area throughout the item.