David Kitano sent us the following –a love letter followed by several suggestions on improving RailRiders: “I just returned from trekking for 6 weeks in the Himalayas. I am 60 years old. I took only two pants and two shirts for the entire trek. X-Treme Adventure Pants and the Expedition Shirt. I had read about your adventure clothes and I bought these items and took them on my trek exclusively. I had only tried them on for size and fit before my trek. I had never used your adventure clothing before (I’m sure glad that my wife got your catalog in the mail one day). I must say that they were the best clothes that I have ever worn on an outdoor excursion. I washed each shirt and each pants only once each during the entire six weeks. They stood up very very well to everything that they were exposed to. I was even knocked over by a load-carrying yak on my way to the Everest Base Camp in Nepal and the the RailRiders adventure clothing stood up better than I did to that experience.
I do have a few suggestions for improvements. Although you must get thousands of recommendations for improvements. I’m pretty sure that you feel your clothing is about as close to perfect as you can get it. Nonetheless, here is what I would improve.
1. add 2 addtional small, quarter inch wide, belt loops nearer to the front pant zipper. As I lost weight while trekking the front of the pants sagged down more than I would have liked. Two additional belt loops would have prevented that. 2. Add buttons for braces to hold up the pants. Again, as I lost weight trekking the pants became looser and looser and braces (suspenders) would have helped tremendously. Plus supply the braces as an accessory like The North Face does on some of their pants. 3. Add a second button to the front pant closure to make the front double button secure. A button on each side of the flap (fairly common on some adventure pants like Ex Officio. Again, it was a weight loss issue, as the front of the pants sagged as I lost weight the button would sometimes come undone as the extra material in the pants sagged as I lost weight. 4. Add a front zipper pocket to the left side of the pants just as you have on the right side. I traveled between 3 countries and having separate secure pockets for different monies would be extremely helpful. Many children tried to stick their hands into your pockets to see what you had in your pockets and having one more zippered pocket in front would help prevent any theft. 5. the back pocket zippers are maybe a half inch less wide than the pocket itself is. I’m sure this is because of the zipper handle itself as well as the metal stops on either end of the zipper. Make the zipper a half inch wider. $600 in Nepal Rupees is about an inch and a half thick and this makes your wallet too big to fit in the pocket easily getting past the zipper. The actual pocket size is fine, it’s just getting a bulging wallet past the zipper that becomes an issue. 6. Make the belt loops 2 inches wide instead of 1 and 3/4 inches wide. Most money belt web belts are 1 and 3/4 inches wide and a little extra space, i.e another quarter of an inch would help make getting the belt through the loops much easier. Plus the inside fold at the ends of the extended belt loops would snag the belt and trying to push a web belt past a snag on the fold is like pushing a wet noodle uphill, it just won’t go easily. For the shirt : 1. Make the shirt zipper pockets both zippered from the top, underneath the flap.Do not have a side zipper Napoleon type zipper pocket on the left pocket. 2. Add gray to the color offering for the shirt, similar to the slate/gray of the pants.
I hope these suggestions help. They are not criticisms of the clothing at all. I am planning on going to climb Kilimanjaro next February. I would even inquire of you as to whether or not these changes might be available to try out on a custom basis from you.”
#1 by UGG Boots on February 10th, 2010 - 5:43 am
I found this article useful in a paper I am writing at university. Hopefully, I get an A+ now!
Thanks
Bernice Franklin
UGG Boots