[lagerstarfish]

Plenty of posts asking about pad comparison, but no SCIENCE

Any ideas?

Drop test dummies with average size feet to give energy absorbing performance ratings when new and then every hundred falls after that?

Obviously colour, shape and storage size will be assessed by the Lawrence Llewelyn Bowens of the bouldering world, but when it comes to thump-for-your-quid there must be a way of measuring it, Shirley?

Perhaps we could get Esther Rantzen to champion the cause - possibly after a glamorous hosiery model loses her livelihood after falling victim to foam scammers.

[robertostallioni]

Further criterion.

Will said pad fit the gull-wing of a Diablo? 

oh, and will the outer have a negative effect on moleskin?

[tomtom]

Diablo, Pah! We know how you roll Che Stallioni...

[robertostallioni]

Infidel. Try and fold it in half again and pass it through the window.

[lagerstarfish]

Those are some good spotters hands that the bloke in the hat has

All my climbing partners are loving me. I have never dropped anyone. Come to my crag and see. The bouldering people are all love me. The ones with a broken leg do it to themself and I don't know why they say it is me.

I think he rocked up at Gardoms the other week with a gang of uniformed women to carry his pads

[tomtom]

Excellent would you call his female cohort spotters still?

[roestone]

This post didn't go very far! RE test for crash mats.
The problem will be that most mats will fail TUV criteria, also, passing a test will then involve serious legal liability issues for the mfg. Basically, NO ONE wants to claim their crash mat is a bonfire SAFETY DEVICE. While researching foam technology with Europes leading foam chemists, they laughed, hard, when I showed them a "top" quality mat. Not until some one appears on the market with a serious new take on the problem, will the major brands finally sit up and pay attention to what we need. And stop ripping us off.

Until then, try not to fall off !!

[yorkshireman]

Further criterion.

Will said pad fit the gull-wing of a Diablo? 

diablo's dont have gull wing doors,they have scissor doors 

[robertostallioni]

Who still buys off the shelf?

http://scissor-doors.com/cart/lamborghini/diablo-92-00/diablo-92-00-gull-wing-doors-butterfly-doors

[Paul B]

Didn't alpkit 'devise a rating?' Funny that their pad comes out on top.

http://www.alpkit.com/bouldering/

P Rating - We have devised the Perfoamance Rating 'P' to make it a bit clearer what you get for you money. Foam is expensive and the more you have of it the better. The P rating is simply the thickess in cm x the width x the length divided by the price. We think that anything over 1000 is pretty good.

[Stubbs]

That's amazing! Talk about missing the point of quality of foam. So from that test a 2 cm thick mat would be better than any of the other mats, provided it covered enough area and wasn't too expensive, perhaps a gym mat?

[lagerstarfish]

I've been calculating some P ratings.

My free Pod beer towel that came with the new Peak Bouldering Guide came out top with a P rating of infinity.

I've asked Europe's leading foam chemists to have a word with the physicists at CERN and get some of those faster than light particles. Ideally I would like a pad that can travel backwards in time so that it can always be where I landed.

[tomtom]

I'm not buying your time machine! I'd like a time machine that allows you to peek forwards and allow you to adjust your mat to the ideal spot before you fall off...

Actually, said machine could go into the future and find out if I was ever going to climb 7C and if not, I could give up now and go to the pub and curry house
(if it were open at 7am.. then again if I had the time machine I could go forward to 7pm this evening when the atmosphere in the curry house would be much better than now - where I suspect theres nothing but the smell of stale currys and the sound of a vacum cleaner..).


EDIT: (something I wouldnt have to do if Lagers time machine was working properly). If of course you had said time machine there would be no need to review purchases, as you could buy said mat, then wizz forward in time and feel for yoruself how soggy the foam was after 1 year

TT. 29/4/2093.

[yorkshireman]

Who still buys off the shelf?

http://scissor-doors.com/cart/lamborghini/diablo-92-00/diablo-92-00-gull-wing-doors-butterfly-doors

99.99% of Lamborghini drivers wouldn't be seen dead modifying their cars and its still non standard so my comment stands :-)

[robertostallioni]

(*.*)==i

[miso soup]

...
The problem will be that most mats will fail TUV criteria, also, passing a test will then involve serious legal liability issues for the mfg. Basically, NO ONE wants to claim their crash mat is a bonfire SAFETY DEVICE. While researching foam technology with Europes leading foam chemists, they laughed, hard, when I showed them a "top" quality mat. Not until some one appears on the market with a serious new take on the problem, will the major brands finally sit up and pay attention to what we need. And stop ripping us off.

...

This is interesting.  What are TUV criteria?  And are these chemists interested in foam specifically as a shock absorber or more generally?  And if better foam is available why is no-one using it?  Is it prohibitively expensive?

[erm, sam]

And stop ripping us off.

I doubt you would be prepared to pay the price for the amazing high quality foam you speak of. The pad "with the serious new take on the problem" does exist: The Flashed Ronin pad: air powered super high quality impact protection, but it is not massively sold because people don't want to spend that much on a crash pad.

If you are so upset about being ripped off then why don't you make a sample run of pads using your fantastic foam and sell them. Or just make one for yourself.

[tomtom]

I was privy to a secret visit to the Lagerstarfish (inc) development labs.

There they were testing a new acrapai coated bouldering mat, that injected positively coated nano-rod-ions of lithium platonium goodness into your buttocks when you fell on it. It also featured a countdown timer recording how many falls it had taken and thus how much life was left in the empty crisp packet like foam. Most importantly it had eschewed shoulder straps for a beer cooler.

[Wipey Why]

Did you stick some power inducing holograms on to the fabric too?

[SA Chris]

Don't be daft, holograms only work when in close contact with the skin.

[GCW]

try this Lagers, although I suspect any mat you or Jim were inside would win easily   

[rginns]

bloody students...

[Greg C]

Not until some one appears on the market with a serious new take on the problem, will the major brands finally sit up and pay attention to what we need. And stop ripping us off.

What nonsense. I can assure you no manufacturer or retailer (with the possible exception of Black Diamond) is ripping you off for any crash pads. To be quite honest I'm not really sure why any company that has a number of links in its supply chain would ever bother making pads, other than as a great advertising platform (literally). Foam is very expensive, shipping and storing the damn things is a nightmare and few people want to pay more than 100-120 quid for a pad. As 'erm sam' says, when anyone does try to up the (foam quality) game, this pricing issue is an instant stubbing block.

Incidentally, I recently saw a new crash pad (from Spanish company Trango) which utilizes a 'Thermarest style' technology sandwiched between two standard foam layers. Haven't tried it as yet but it looked interesting.