ViperZ has the best photos, and the largest gear allowance of anyone i know
Bekologist has the most real use experiance of outdoor equipment of anyone on these forums that ive read, so although i butt heads with him many times over some things, he has knowledge from use that beats companies marketing claims 100 fold.
I have purposly not mentioned specific companies, to me the discussion is about materials, not the companies using them. Saying TNF Gore jackets work for you in certain conditions and is not relevent to others is true, but in the concept of evaluating materials has little relevance.
There is basically 2 issues
1- Waterproof hardshell, or Softshell.
2- Which material is best in each catagory.
I use both, and the threshold where i move from one to the other is a personal choice that will be different for everyone. Wearing a waterproof breathable like gore, in cold dry climates, may work fine for you, but is not the best material for the application. No one says it wont work, or that it wont work sufficient enough, just that there are many materials that will work a lot better. And no one was asking what is capable, the discussion was what was BEST. Same as a halogen light owner claiming it works fine for them and that a hid light would work no better because you dont know them. it may suit their expectations, but its still an inferior light in regards to performance.
In the case of a waterproof shell, there is no special circumstances that make one material better for one person than another that i can think of. Unless your a corpse there are 2 areas of performance. Waterproofness, and breathabilty. The rest is fashion or functionality/quality of the end manufacturere, but the material requirements are the same. All waterproofs are pretty much 100%, so the only comparable difference is breathability.
I read a jacket review a while back that mentioned that when made out of eVent, if your cycling or working hard in the cold, steam can be observed coming out of the fabric. Not out the neckhole, but actual steam transmitting thru the material. Thats what I call letting sweat out. I doubt gore does the same. Ive noticed it before but never keyed in on it, but its in old forum threads where i talk about riding in pouring rain in january and coming to a stop and a cloud of steam coming off me.
Thats a true test of a materials performance if you dont believe in results from lab tests. Im also not trying to promote 1 material, as there are several WB's much better than gore, and a multitude of softshell materials that outperform it.
edit: found the link
http://www.outdoorsmagic.com/news/ar...N/3906/v/2/sp/
heres another eVent specific, but Toray has some good materials also.
http://www.prolitegear.com/cgi-bin/p.../xdpy/kb/00029
The prolitegear link has a good explaination on why goretex is not the best in cold dry conditions also.
ok, now back to your scheduled arguing
