As I have previously indicated I am going to try to post more here at the HikeLighter.Com website instead of only at my facebook page.
Doing this is likely going to result in posts that are not gear, safety, or educational, specific, so I am going to categorize these posts as “Ramblings” :: “A meandering talk with no specific topic or direction” – and I have no idea where they are going to lead too over the course of the 2016 year! Drop me a comment if you feel like these type of ramblings have no place within the confines of what you feel hikelighter.com stands for and represents itself as to you.
Over the last two weeks I had four very interesting conversations with different folks within the hiking industry. All of the conversations involved, at some point, cuben fiber pricing, supply, and other issues related to CT/DSM.
Some may remember that earlier this year the demand for cuben fiber was so great that Cubic Tech was having serious problems keeping up with S&D. Backorders after backorders. Just turned into one huge log jam. Than there was the CTC->DSM buy out: https://hikelighter.com/2015/06/20/cubic-tech-corp-buyout/
For two years I have been saying that cuben fiber material was going to increase and not decrease. Nobody believed me. Many even laughed and called me out on this. I have stood by my prediction. After DSM buying out CTC I continued to predict CF was going up in price and not down, and people thought I was even more crazy and wrong to be claiming that. That is fine, I can take it.
Having talked with a few people that buy large volumes of cuben fiber, they are all saying that DSM is significantly increasing the costs required to buy cuben fiber.
I will continue to say it: even though more and more cuben fiber is being manufactured/purchased/used year on end, I really do feel that hikers need to expect products made with cuben fiber to go up in price, not down. I really do not expect to be proven wrong in this matter.
Secondly, I really am left wondering how long it will be before the small cottage companies are no longer able to manufacture cuben fiber products, specifically because of the cost of cuben fiber going up. I do not mean ZPacks (which I believe is the largest global buyer of cuben fiber, behind Hyperlite Mountain Gear??) because at 60+ employees it is hard for me to consider ZPacks a cottage company anymore, but rather the folks like MLD, SMD, Kifaru, and the other handful of companies making only a few products within their catalog that are cuben fiber. I really am left wondering if they will be forced to either purchase from competitors like zpacks/hmg and not direct from CT/DSM, and/or (b) if that does happen if these small cottage companies will either choose to, or be forced too, stop selling CF products. This will be something to watch over the course of 2016. No predictions from me on this one, but it is one of those issues that has been on my mind the last few months.
I welcome thoughts and comments when it comes to those issues as well.
Let’s see, moving on…
In other news, in addition to yesterday’s ZPacks price increases, today ZPacks updated the quilt page of their website to specifically indicate that they are using “European goose down” and that “Our down is ethically sourced straight from the producer.”
ZPacks is not providing any down source tracking to backup that claim though. In this, the Tundra line of sleeping bags are, I feel, still leading the industry when it comes to ethical sourcing of animal down – they claim that all of their animal down is “collected from nests and ponds“, not from a living – or dead – animal. THAT is what I call responsible animal down sourcing! ref: https://www.tundrasleepingbags.com/ethical-down/compassionately-collected-down
ZPacks has also updated their website to reflect new prices for their quilts. It looks like there is small and very reasonable $20 increase on all of the quilts… except for the 10-degree extra-wide, which has seen a rather steep increase (that IS, after all, a lot of animal down to have to stuff into those things!)… I cannot remember the last time ZPacks updated their quilt pricing… been a long long time, it seems like.
Lastly, towards the end of last year Mountain Laurel Designs teased us by adding a “FKT” set of categories to their website. I know I am amongst the group of folks really really waiting to see what MLD has planned for their FKT lineup of products. I have seen a few folks out there trying to predict what they will be. Anybody up for sharing what you think MLD has planned?
(oh, btw, if you are on facebook and do not follow me, do so here – and, be sure to join the facebook “sul/xul gear swap” group and the brand new “sul/xul” group that I have started for discussion of {most things} sub 5 pounds!)
[ps: if you feel like taking the time to comment regarding any of the above topics, please also let me know if you like this freestyle type of “pondering” posts]