Merino vs Polypro thermals

i just headed down town to get a lotto ticket wearing my striped longjohns!, am on call this weekend so if i cant go tramping i might as well dress like i have been!, doesnt bother me wearing them to town, at least i am comfortable!

Didn't do you any good though. I looked at your profile and you aren't from Masterton

Many companies selling outdoor gear started with a couple of enthusiasts wanting to produce practical gear that worked for them. They inevitably move into the clothing market to stay alive and continue growth and nearly all have, after a few years, had to appeal to the fashion element to ensure expansion or even survival. North Face is a classic example. Other forces apply such as those with Fairydown and Macpac, Mont and WE (which are of NZ or Aus origins)whereby manufacturing becomes too expensive and they move off shore to reduce costs. Simultaneously they have to increase sales and stay competitive. Isn't that applicable everywhere whereby an idea or passion gets big enough to no longer be a passion more than it is a business.

Then the opportunity arises for a new enthusiast with passion to start the cycle all over again. I remember when Wilderness Products started in Dunedin in the late 1970s. It was one guy who started making gear at a time when there was a drought of gear available. Wilderness eventually merged with MacPac. I was in a local outdoor store today looking at packs and parkas. There was NOTHING there that I could see that looked suitable. Time for the cycle to begin again.

I believe that explains why there is so many companies in the outdoor market making duplicate products. A few enthusiast start a company which gets a following in a localised area. Given time it grows and turns into another widespread manufacturer making gear almost identical to the other 20-30 brands on the market which probably shared a similar beginning.

I have a Wilderness jacket, very good jacket, if a bit old. I saw pmcke's comment and wanted to know more and found this, kind of sums up what was said about outdoor company's origins and growth. http://www.uabr.auckland.ac.nz/files/articles/Volume14/v14i2-macpac-gears-up-and-gets-out-there.pdf

Yes, Geoff Gabites was the guy. We were all used to traipsing up to Christchurch to buy outdoor gear and then suddenly Geoff opens a branch of Alp Sports in Dunedin. He might as well have opened a candy shop. He parted his way with Alp Sports and became the Wilderness Shop, then he started manufacturing gear. I bought a tent from him and then destroyed it in a gale in the Arrowsmiths. I returned the tent to Geoff and he was facinated, wanted to know the whole story. There was no question about replacing the tent with a resdesigned stronger model. It was customer service par excellence. I think we were the product testing division.

We see in this discussion that thermals keep you warm by moving moisture away from the body. A bi-product of this is that they are also quick drying. But what about wool? Wool keeps you warm but does not have those quick drying properties of the synthetics. What is it about wool that keeps you warm?

Good question. Certainly works for sheep!

Just for trivia purposes, I read a few years ago (an old FMC bulletin I think, probably an Uncle Jacko column) that wool doesn't just retain your warmth when it's wet, it's also very *slightly* exothermic when it reacts with water. Therefore you could theoretically wear wool in the rain and expect it to act as a reactor to generate its own heat. For such a reaction to take place though (and this is my own addendum), it probably means you're wearing out your garment by getting it wet. Either that, or maybe converting it to something that's no longer wool. In practice the effect is small enough to be negligible anyway, though. (Both the extra heat and the wearing out as a consequence of generating heat.)