It's a LeveL ,,,???

To whom it may concern,

Hi, My name is... Sergey -BARH- Kirgintzev from Moscow, Russia. I'm creator and moderator of one of the biggest in-line skating web portals in Russia, www.roller.ru. The skates are my summer life and hobby, and the snowboarding is my winter addiction :)

Why my dog is so sad? :)

I was not sad at all when the life of my old mittens Level Pipe went to it's logical end after 3 years of snowboarding. I would rather say they were just "tired" of their long life… So I went for another pair of Level mittens without any doubt. The new ones had "membratherm+" membrane instead of GorTex. After long years of using sport clothing with different membranes I've been quite sure that there won't be any problems with a non-GorTex membrane.

In the beginning of December I went to Elbrus Mountains to enjoy snowboarding without standing in long queues and other negative sides of high season. But soon I was very disappointed by one but strong feeling of dampness in my mittens. They were completely wet inside! Such a big surprise! How could the snow get in and melt? There was so much water inside so I could hardly find another reason for my mittens to be so wet. When I tried to put in my old mitten's inners instead they also came wet soon. It was - 15 C - 20 C at that time, so it was not possible for water to get from outside, so, I thought, It's coming from inside.

So I decided to reduce amount of water inside my self, to drink less tee and to start using baby's powder on my hands. But it was no use at all. The mittens were still wet. And there was only one way to dry them - to turn them inside out, otherwise they could stay wet forever. I had a feeling that there was an airproof bubble inside the mittens. My old ones would have been dry or would dry up very fast without turning them inside out.

When I came back to Moscow I decided to have a look "inside" my mittens and find out what "membratherm plus" is made of. The old mittens have the GorTex layer glued to the lining which is well weld, so is waterproof absolutely!
The new ones have their liner sewed, so it was easy to undo the stitches, turn the liner inside out… and find a thin transparent mitten-linen made as it seemed to be of polyethylene … Here you are, a membratherm membrane!!! Just an airproof oilcloth between the linen - something really new in membrane's production!

I took the membrane and made a bubble using my hands and teeth. It seemed to me that the bubble was not going to blow off for a long time. So I decided to make a test and see how long it will take the membratherm bubble to blow off.

I took the bubble, put it next to my sports-watch Polar AXN-500, set my camera Canon EOS-30 ready and begun waiting.
So, air pressure is 1059 hPa or 790 mPa, t = 22 C, time 21.32 pm

The Time it's GO!!!

21:32	22:20	23:25


0:21 AM	1:19 AM	4:36 AM


9:44 AM	10:57 AM	11:46 AM

Total:

After fifteen hours of waiting the bubble blew off approximately 15% of its volume only! Which means that the air even under relatively small pressure could not find way out trough the pores of that airproof membrane! That is why my mittens could not dry up even after putting them on a heater. They are completely airproof from inside!!!! Brethable = 0 !!!!!!!

Now I have "membratherm minus" instead of "membratherm plus" because I had to throw the polyethylene layer out of the mittens.

And now I know why my dog is so sad, she is waiting for me to stop messing about the bubbles and mittens and go for a walk with her.

____________

By the way, very many snowboarders note that lately quality of products Level HAS DECREASED. Many of them are looking for other firms, for example, Ziener... even Salomon: ((

Very much it will would be desirable to trust that in the future you to do production of appropriate quality.

barh... (barh@ROLLER.RU)