Is this the FUTURE of sleep systems?

does the perfect Sleep System exist my friend Mike who is the owner of zenbivi thinks that it does exist is this the future of sleep systems Mike is a pretty humble guy and has created some of the most iconic gear ever he's been around for a very long time over 30 years working in the outdoor industry and is probably designed gear that you already own Mike what's going on buddy how are you great thanks for having me man thanks for coming on the man the myth The Legend So for people that don't know you or your backstory tell people what your backstory is and kind of your give us a little bit of your resume Ben I've done you know created outdoor equipment for 20 more I say in the 20s but it might actually be into the 30s now um Years starting at MSR that's where I began in the industry at uh MSR back in 1994. I was responsible for the MSR tent launch and did all the initial MSR tents as well as several other things there and then so there's tents on the market that have your handiwork is what you're telling me right now oh yeah yeah well the hubba hubba everybody knows the hubba hubba yeah um and so that was designed our first season um and there were two designs actually I was against the hubba hubba Jim Giblin designed the hubba hubba before that there were tents that had hubs where they were these big plastic ugly hubs so I was like anti-hub okay this is now going to be MSR we're way cooler than that big ugly Hub thing okay and uh but so we were designing two tents uh I forget there was a name for the project and Giblin came up with the hubba hubba and Jake law at DAC made the hubs aluminum they were the first aluminum do you know are you are you buddies with Jake yeah I've worked with Jake in the past two three four years a couple okay so for those of you that don't know who Jake is and you own let's say a uh like a city Summit Telos or you own a Big Agnes copper spur look on the outside of your tent and you will see his name there am I right right right yeah yeah I worked on the seat of summit tent launch as well that was the most recent I've I've I you know we're talking about Zen Divi which is sleeping bags but um you know I've done a lot of tents okay so tense is kind of the biggest category I've worked so the biggest question and the obvious question is is why aren't you designing tents who says I'm not I mean we are designing tents I've designed I know I'll be transparent right here folks I've been trying to design tents for it my vision was we would have been in the tent category by now and the reality is I just haven't come up with anything yet that's good good enough to be 10 bivvy so we've we've made you know it's been I've have two or three designs and I could come out with they're incremental right and I just feel like at age 55 why come out with incremental when I want to come out with revolutionary like this MW bed okay I I could send you the tent so you might like them but they're to me it's like am I wow is this going to take the world over is this going to create the you know fundamentally change the experience that sounds like a fun test I'm not gonna lie you should send me some so this is essentially just a top quilt though am I right so what is the magic with this system like what is it that makes this different from other quilts well there's there's the quilt itself has three patented differences but the main ones that you're looking at are the are how the quilt interfaces with the mattress and uh um it is essentially a backpacking quilt like any other backpacking quilt and most people would say a backpacking quilt is quote unquote better than a mummy bag until it's not um until the it has some fundamental problems quilts when they get cold will fall off the mattress and create drafts and they also have a problem up at the shoulders and getting around your head and creating graphs and head insulation but isn't the idea of a quilt to make the whole system lighter weight it's never going to be as light as a quilt alone no we do have it's not there as a quilt it's a quilt right and it's as light as any other quilt of similar so you can use this you don't need this part you don't need the sheet you can take this as oh yeah no no I mean it is the the quilt is a backpacking built we sell them separately and in fact one of the reasons we use the attachments that are on there is they're just little cord loops and when you don't use the sheet it's you know there's no difference between our quilt and any other quilt quilts were originally you know designed to kind of be lightweight but one of the biggest advantages of them is that they're more comfortable and they're more comfortable because they're covers just like you have on your bed at home when it gets colder and colder at home you don't tie strings around your face right and get yourself into a tight little bag you just put more quilts on top and leave yourself sort of comfortable or whatever the huge benefit of them is they allow you to sleep in your normal sleep position so when you're in the back country your night mirrors more similarly what you do you in your bed at home okay a lot of us are spending 10 nights or less a year in the back country and so if you're not sleeping every one of those nights you end up spending fewer and fewer and fewer and then you don't go anymore so sure who's your target audience if you could pick out one person to sell this thing to who is it if I was going to pick one person it would be somebody who can't sleep any other way who has a sleep position that can't be accommodated by any of the other Solutions out there there's a lot of people who come to us and say I quit and because I couldn't sleep and are you so I think that's the if that was the Target because those are the people I think have the best benefit from it so why did you choose the material that you've chosen like what is it about this rip stop this is a rip stop nylon is that what this is no to taffeta what's the difference ripstop has bigger Yarns threaded through and little grid patterns to ostensibly make it so that if you start to rip it it'll hit one of those big Yarns and stop um but those Yarns create all of our Fabrics are chosen for their hand you know durability isn't a huge issue on sleeping bags you're generally pulling it out in your tent and putting it away and we choose the fabric for the softness of the hand that's why really we haven't seen like a pure there's a few reasons we haven't made a pure ultra light version of the Zen Divi bed one and one of the reasons is the hand Fabrics of those really ultra light Fabrics we haven't yet found something that's quite good enough to be Zen Divi and his stuff oh wow you know okay 28 28 grand you know it needs to be significantly light enough to make it you know kind of worthwhile um the other the reason we don't do super ultra light stuff is that it's just so expensive so the other reason we've chosen 800 fill power in 20D for our most popular bed is he's there he's answering all the questions I'm about to ask him by the way oh yeah so that it's because if if you were telling if you were my next door neighbor and you were like what would I buy what should I buy I would never tell you to buy 900 filled power down and 10d fabrics you're saving so little weight for so much money that is true that is true it's like it's like really are you I mean how many times you I mean if you're are you are you living in this thing yeah you have other gear to buy right so it's like buy a nice tent right and uh yeah make sure so it's kind of the best value right I mean and and people complain all day long how expensive our products are but you know so it's 800 fill power and 2080 Fabrics aren't cheap but they're not the super ultra lightest but yeah in terms of bang for your buck it's hard to beat this is a minor issue but if I had any issues with this setup I'm I'm and I understand why you did it I'm just not a fan of the class you know they're they're tough for me I felt like in the middle of the night like it's pitch black I got to get up I gotta pee Oh I gotta fiddle with this a zipper is just so much easier and then I understand why their color different colors because you want them to match but in the middle of the night your colors vision's gone which how do you deal with that right unless you put some like little glow Fabric or something on here or whatever but what is the point of these is it's just to make it lighter was it uh the Zipper was too heavy how much weight does the zipper add I mean help me understand these clasps yeah so the originals M50 bed did have zippers there right it had two big zippers on either side and a big zipper in the foot box like traditional convertible quilt zippers do and um the main problem with zippers is that they're heavy right we had the advantage of oh yeah it has a left zipper and a right zipper right in the convenience of that but you also have two 28 inch or whatever they are zippers on either side and the weight of all of them and then also when you're using the quilt alone as just a backpacking quilt it really you're you're carrying like half a zipper sort of down the front of it so it's kind of not as elegant just as a quilt um the zippers really do add like a big you know kind of weighty feel on top of the quilt and really turn it into it um and so you're basically telling you're designed a baby for getting your babies no because there's there's no doubt that the clips are not as easy to use as the zippers right they're um they're it's they're analogous to you know when you use discrete Fasteners which is what we would call these like it's just like attaching a quilt to a mattress with the straps right every four inches or whatever you're having to make these you know sort of attachments it's one of sort of the trade-offs for lightweight the advantage of doing that and now there's a bunch of tricks you don't actually need to unclip those things when you go to bed you can just push it down and slide right now okay of the thing so I agree when you when you get more used to your Zen baby bed you'll figure out how to not use those clips it really more is designed as sort of a set or forget I'm gonna you know a lot of people okay no I could I only attach one side I attach the four on one side and then I just lay on the other side and I never attach the other ones oh interesting so you can generally accommodate your sleep position and not have to go through a bunch of um clipping them in unless it's really cold and then it's you know people are fine because it's really cold and it's like I'm glad to have that sort of security so uh this new foot box this is new all right it is new this foot box this is new is this uh is this like on all all of the quilts towers are just it's not a certain ones or what all of our quilts up to this date have been convertible which means they will close into a semi-rectangular shape um it's actually not a mummy shape we call it a mummy foot box but one of our unique features is a Zen Vivi quilt compared to all other quilts is it's not hourglass it's semi-rectangular and that's a huge that's one of our key differences it'll it helps us fill the little hole at the bottom because we use the natural folding of fabrics in a semi-rectangular way to create a baffle to fill that little hole you get for a convertible quilt but previously all of our quilts were convertible and went to a full flat quilt and uh are you still selling them this is yes they're still our most popular one this one a lot of quilt companies offer it both ways a slightly heavier one that converts completely flat and then a lighter one that's just always in a tight foot box and then a closed foot box all right let's talk about this sleeping pad so obviously you felt like um you know I'm making sleep systems I better make a sleeping pad I don't know just tell me about this one is this um I have not used this sleeping pad at all um I do think it's insulated I can feel the insulation it's got some sort of a like a primaloft or something like that in there or something right what's inside here yeah it's something like that not primaloft but the same basic idea yes okay yeah it's a batted insulation on the inside the the mattresses started because there were just so fionas and bivvy the mattress provide is crucial for the insulation there's no you know crushed even crushed insulation underneath you so the the bottom provides the insulation and there just aren't a lot of mattresses on the market that are providing full r value five So when you buy an En rated sleeping bag from any manufacturer it's tested with a mattress with R5 actually R 4.8 but with an R value of five well when you go to R5 out in the marketplace that's a winter mattress yep sure and they're selling used R3 and R4 is a warm three season mattress but they're not they're so over the last 15 years sleeping bags have gotten warmer and warmer and warmer and warmer and mattresses have gotten colder and colder and colder and colder and um it is so common for right now for people to match a 15 degree en rated um uh with an R3 mattress yeah right oh and it's ridiculous and then they're cold and they're like the sleeping bag is terrible and they want to even more of our sleeping bag right yeah the real problem is underneath so but that was the real impetus it's like we're gonna make all mattresses that match the en standard that everybody's using to match their you know so are these uh are these yes are these ASTM rated they're not not we don't do any of the I used to en rate all of the um sleeping bags and ah it's a whole sort of Side Story but we don't do it anymore uh so we don't support any of those crazy testing protocols there's we do all those I'm testing protocols and our claims are based on all of those testing testing protocols okay but we don't pay the testing so what what is this one rated to then they're all R5 so we built them all to be R5 some of them are over R5 and some of them are rounded for six to you know oh you have different you have different you have different ones okay I didn't realize yeah the one you have there is our lightweight one and it's it's um the lightest actually full R5 mattress except for the Therm-a-Rest Neo air so as far as I know uh at least when we launched it there may be a couple of others that have come out since then but it's just a fully insulated but lightweight mattress I think we have the best inflation and valve system out there that um uh that really makes them easy to use compared to a lot of the now since we came out with it some of the other ones have improved their inflation systems but you know it's a plug it's easy to dump the air out of it the plug has the valve in it so you can replace the valve and it's just a lot of ease of use to using uh our inflation system do you do you have any idea how much this one weighs off the top you got this one's a 25 by 77 one nine 25 ounces okay yeah that's not terrible for uh 25 by 77. do you make them narrower than two yeah we make a 20 inch and we're the only ones who make a 30 inch as well um as far as I know we're the we're the only ones who support like a three and a half three to three and a half inch um ultra light back are lightweight I guess if you want to call it that backpacking sleeping bag pad in 30 bag has sold one too but maybe I'm wrong uh they could they could yeah um if there's a lightweight one I it's possible I don't yeah if they do I don't know about it I think it's pretty unique in that size so we do them in 20 actually we do them in 25 or 72. so here's a here's a here's a fast question for you let's say I want to go you know I just want to hit the cut I know I'm gonna hit the cusp of freezing on my trip right that's the lowest it's gonna get and um I want the lightest weight setup from zenbivi mattress sheet top what's it going to weigh I have that I have that I have to Total it off are you gonna you're gonna sleep you're gonna take it down to freezing what size what size do you want to know in like the regular 20. let's go let's go let's pretend Ed 25 inch you can move okay he's got a B buzzing around his ear literally going in your ear oh my gosh holy cow you okay okay a bee flew it was almost gonna crawl in your ear it flew to the other one and your size which is large 25 by 77 that it including dry sacks and in the pack yeah yeah everything like that yeah let's throw in some dry sides yeah our mattress comes with the inflation dry sack okay okay and then you need and you need a dry sack well you know you heard it here folks it's only two ounces it's in it's okay included in my weight here um okay all right it's um exactly in your size exactly four pounds that's including the pad including the pad wow okay yeah and what would that cost for you my friend for me 664. 664. okay yeah that's that's reasonable I'm not gonna lie because a sleeping bag that would run you that temperature that's going to be two and a half pounds is looking at least 300 probably for most of them and then a sleeping pad is going to run you 150 maybe from yeah and so and you're not going to get good sleep four hundred dollars it's a three hundred dollar quilt and 100 sheet it's probably no it's probably a 280 quilt and a three and I'm I'm yeah I'm people probably have no idea what I'm thinking in my head I'm thinking yeah so and that's 800 Phil that's the light right that's the light yeah yeah so you could do it like if you were like oh man I don't want to spend 664 dollars I could say I know how to get that you know sort of down and still keep the weight down so The Insider scoop if people want to know what really to buy I would get a Core quilt which is actually 650 fill power down and has that super soft liner we talked about and just the quilt difference light quilt to core quilt is not that much it's only I don't know I have to look you know I know you don't do specs so don't worry too much yeah a couple ounces or whatever but you save a hundred bucks on that quilt for like a three or four ounce penalty and it's more comfortable so I feel like that's a great a great intro why is it more combined because it has that 50 d-liner on the inside of the sheet so feel walk over there and feel the liner on that one that's laying on the ground and you'll see it's uh it's it feels different than the gel you can take your socks off and sleep in it it just has a it's not huge because it's just the inside that's why we can get away with like putting 50d in there it's uh it does add some weight right so there's okay but if you want 50d it's gonna if you want 50d it's gonna come with the heavier down right it's gonna come with the heavier down that shell is actually a 30d and it's a little bit heavier in the Shell too but you'll notice the shell also feels a little nicer so is this the one you take do you take this one it is now yeah and I'm and so I take that and I pair it with the fast sheet three ounces okay and and then I wear my down jacket so the the insulated Hood um is if you allows you to put your arms and head up inside and insulate but you it's also there to tuck the quilt into and so you can get the sheets with the uninsulated hood and save a lot of weight and money because it's not down and then you put your down jacket in there you can still tuck the quilt up into the hood and use the hood but you're using the down jacket which let's face it if it's freezing it's going to be 32 degrees in addition to your four pounds and bivvy you're going to have your your down puffy jacket because you're going to be hanging out until it gets down right you know bedtime or whatever and you're going to have that with you so you could just wear it in the bed and use an uninsulated sheet and save some money and wait that way so there's lots of different ways to kind of put it together right okay what um what is the uh temperature uh ratings of the what are your temperatures you gotta is it a is it a 25 and a 10 right it's a 20 those are limit ratings yeah and the Comfort you're limited yeah 100 degrees higher for comfort so so limit okay so you're when it says once when people go to your website and it says 10 degrees you're not going to be warm it you're not going to be comfortable at 10 degrees you're gonna you're gonna be like I'm not gonna die at 10 degrees 20 degrees is what this goes it's analogous to an En limit rating and so okay that's typical yeah so 10 degrees like if you're gonna go the 25 degree is really designed to get people down to freezing okay it's like when we put that 25 degree rating in there it's like okay that's a 35 Comfort but when it's really 35 you're going to have that down jacket right so for most people you can take a 25 degree bed unless you're a really cold sleeper if you're bringing your down jacket and it's going to make get most people probably 95 of people down to freezing or those nights where you open up the tent and you're like oh my God it snowed six inches like or just below okay freezing uh okay and then the the 10 degree is for extended three season right where it's like we're really getting down into cold beds yeah right at night and you know and I don't that other bed is just not warm enough any for most people or a lot of people choose 10 degree if they know they're a cold sleeper and they for just regular three seasons okay I know I'm always cold you know that we've all backpacked with them right I'm cold no matter what you put me in and yeah yeah so then it's like if you're if that's a person they're like I'm always cold I've never slept warm I'm up I always tell them yeah I would get the warmer quilt because your body's telling you that's what you need uh so I have one more question for you um would you be willing to maybe give away one of your sleep system setups to a lucky person watching we would all right which one we would love to we'll do our most popular bed which is our light bed with a which is a light quilt and a light sheet with uh and we'll do the complete bundle which includes a mattress so I don't have to worry about the R value of the mattress it comes with it um uh and we call it the light bed yeah bundle and it's everything they'd need to to um put the whole bed from their backpack into the tent right wow super cool awesome so you heard that so then what you got to do is you got to comment below I want that Zen bivvy you have to follow Dan Becker Outdoors on Instagram you got to follow what's your Instagram ads in bivvy at zimbivi and then you also have to be a subscriber of the channel and then we will follow up with you and you will receive the zenbivi system setup for Mike here directly from them and uh yeah that's awesome thanks for doing that yeah you're welcome all right you guys thanks for watching we appreciate you being here Mike thank you so much for coming on really appreciate you being here sharing all this awesome info about this Zen Vivi bed and we will see you guys on the next one

Channel: Dan Becker

Views: 86,172

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Id: 5J73O85wJNw

Length: 24min 13sec (1453 seconds)

Published: Mon May 15 2023