As some of you know, Gregory moved to a new ‘hood almost a year ago - Sacramento - from its birthplace in SoCal.
And while Sacramento’s not quite the Bay Area (though we do consider it one of our many backyards), we were still happy to see that a neighbor of sorts - who writes a popular regional hiking blog about the Bay Area and surroundings, Two-Heel Drive - is a fan.
Tom Mangan’s blog is mix of info on places to go hiking, thoughts on hiking and hiking-related topics, and other musings of regional interest. And it’s a great resource if you’re a hiker in central Clifornia. Looks like h
e picked up a Gregory day pack recently, an Icarus, the second Gregory pack he’s owned. What brought him back in part, he says, is fit (if not model name).
It’s always nice to read that someone independently finds your brand living up to its stated goal - in our case, building packs that fit and are comfortable.
Nice also to see that eVent is on Tom’s radar screen, even if he did end up going for the good old poncho (you’re not picking up an eVent jacket for $25, that’s for sure). An up and comer for sure in the waterproof/breathable realm.
Wayne Gregory has arguably more experience than just about anyone designing backpacks. He’s be doing it for 40 years, and for 31 at Gregory Mountain Products, the company that bears his name. So who better to offer up some advice on how to fit a pack?
Among other things, Wayne (and Gregory) was the first to design packs in frame sizes that mimic their wearer’s torso length. That’s a big deal because if you don’t have a pack that’s the right torso length, you won’t be comfortable carrying it. Period.
Here’s a little video clip where Wayne explains how to properly fit a backpack, and some of the ideas that make Gregory packs carry so comfortably.
How does wearing a pack affect your body? At Gregory, that’s always been a key question, because the driving principle has always been ‘if you’re not comfortable, you’re not going to have fun.’
In that vein, longtime outdoor industry writer and observer Clyde Soles blogged about a recent study by the American Physiological Society that concluded
backpack straps can cut off blood flow to your arms, resulting in decreased motor control and more fatigue.
We thought it would be interesting to get some perspective from Gregory’s guru of suspension, company founder Wayne Gregory. Wayne’s been living and breathing backpack suspension for about 40 years. If you want to know how passionate he is about the subject, just get him started … and budget some time. Wayne’s first question on this recent study: “Well, how were they carrying the weight? And were they in the right frame size?”
A pack for carrying bigger loads, according to Wayne, is like a finely-built automobile. You start with the appropriate chassis, and then the various components from there have to make sense with the rest of the car. Only then do you achieve appropriate load transfer so that they load is evenly - and comfortably - distributed to the various points on the body where it should go. But you also have to be able to change the way you carry that weight on the fly. 
