All articles filed in jamesmackeddie

I like being warm, I mean who doesn’t? And Rab® have built a reputation over the years for their use of down in sleeping bags and jackets. Micro baffled down jackets are popping up everywhere, what was once a high priced item now see’s high street stores producing cut priced variants. Of course, their quality of…

Few waterproofs have had such an effect on the UK trail scene as the Minimus range from Montane®. Based around being as light and compact as possible, for stuffing in your pack or wearing when tearing down the fell side. The Minimus Smock is the epitome of stripping everything back to the bare essentials. Gone…

The running pack/vest market has been booming in the last couple of years. Whereas previously there ware a handful of fell and adventure racing backpack producers, now every budget has a brand, feature set and following. Inov8 first moved into the vest market with the Race Ultra Vest, launched at OutDoor in 2013, taking the…

I was lucky to get my hands on the Element’s before general release earlier this year and they offer something different from the Trail T1 we previously reviewed. An aggressive outsole. The Trail T1 were comfortable, but were like ice skates when the going got sloppy, full of mud. However it comes down to having…

The Arc’teryx Norvan is the archetypal fast and light product; 200g of waterproofing with the iconic Arc’teryx build quality and design. Using GoreTex C-Knit the Norvan keeps rain out while wicking internal moisture away from the body and does it with style. Soft and light it packs away easily into the smallest of spaces and it’s…

Stepping things up from the Kanadia Range of trail shoes, the TERREX Boost is the first to include Adidas’ Boost technology which has received much acclaim and praise on the road scene. With an aggressive outsole, constructed from a sticky Continental rubber compound, these are truly aimed at going off trail on the mountain. Sometimes…

At one time a phone was a simple tool. It made calls and that was it. There was no such things as texts, web browsing, inbuilt cameras and geo-tagging. The same can be said about watches. When the analogue era made way to the new realm of digital, the most watches could do was include…

Back in 2008 when I tentatively started fell running, Inov-8’s were all I wanted. After running in walking boots, I drove to Pete Bland’s in Keswick, eager to get a pair. Being young and impatient, on hearing they were out of stock, I bought a pair of PB Walsh. Fast forward a couple of years…