Author name: Dan Timmerman

Small companies that make up the outdoor cottage industry are a likely source of innovation, due to the design freedom they have. However, these small companies typically don’t have the means, or it simply isn’t practical to spend $15k to protect their ideas for 9 years. Rather, for the most part, these businesses seem to […]

First, there were sleeping bags with as much insulation on the bottom as there is on the top. When the insulation in those bags became lighter and more delicate, we realized that the weight of a body would compress the insulation, rendering it useless. As a response, along came quilts, which did away with bottom

It’s always been very obvious to me, why using total fill weight, spread into an unknown area, can’t be an effective comparison metric. Over the years, there have been hundreds of examples of people being led astray by it, and this continually backs up my position on it. However, to anyone who isn’t constantly exposed

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

Fill density in sewn through items is a balance between calculated loft and chamber width. As standard, our sweater fill density is optimized for static use, trying to maximize the warmth to weight ratio. There are cases where down garments get flexed into semi-active use where a higher density might be ideal. Examples might be