If you don't have a regular wooden saddle I'll be bringing a couple of different wooden saddle designs to the Rendy. In fact, I'm teaching a saddle fitting class on Saturday morning and you can bring Blazer and try a few things on him and see what works best. I'm hoping a few folks will bring their own goats and equipment to that class so we can get our hands on things and see what works, what doesn't, and why.
First hike with cuben Sopris Rookie Lite. Replaced the cylinder "stuffing" with my version (only because it was such a pain to get the Sopris version stuffed back in! Will work on that), saddle + pannier weight now down to 4.03 lbs.
It was a hot day and exposed, subjectively I think the new white saddle did better for him in terms of heat - but we weren't working hard either so hard to say for sure. Only had a 20 oz weight in each pannier.
For comparison purposes, Sammy is 36.5" at withers and ~ 215 lbs by weight tape.
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Looks nice! I'm curious why you took the stuffing out of the panels. I'm also curious about what material you replaced it with.
I took the "stuffing" out because I needed to tape the seams inside the cylinders. (due to cuben/DCF material used).
Here is a pic of the Sopris "stuffing" - it consists of:
*foam tube with rigid tubing inside
*foam tube is then rolled in one layer of ?closed? cell foam
*2 ?closed? cell foam end caps, tapered.
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My "stuffing" consists of just:
*larger diameter foam tube, no rigid tubing inside
*1 of the sopris ?closed? cell foam end caps, tapered.
*Foam tube is then rolled in 1 layer of bubble wrap
I'm not liking my stuffing, the foam tube I used is a bit too rigid I think. Will be fussing with this as time allows.
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Just a quick update, the new white cuben/DCF pack is holding up well with 8 more days (3 trips) on the trail so far, last trip just got back from a 4 day backpack up in Slate Peak Pasayten area eastern WA (Fred/Doris lakes). I am now convinced the white color is making a difference, it was very hot the last two days there coming out the valley (and back in town 100F) but Sammy did very well with the heat.
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Absolutely gorgeous photo.
I love that your goat is an ultralight back packer with his high tech-fabric panniers and saddle ;-)
Thanks. I figured if ultralight works for my old bones, it should help him too!