Name: David Conrad
Review Date: 4/16/2012 10:25 pm
Rating:

I have the Kotatat Tropos Bibs, not the Goretex. The Goretex comes with Goretex socks and is breathable. The Tropos model does not. I believe neither pair has a relief zipper. I'll speak toward the that and the overall experience of the Bibs.

My Tropos model, again, doesn't breathe. I usually think that most of the moisture I find in my underlayers is sweat. For example, I did some tree limb sawing and wasn't hardly in the water and was soaked. To partially remedy that and to remedy the problem of having to completely remove the bibs just do "go", I had Kotatat add a relief zipper. Now I can open it up while on land and let it breath. Plus, I had latex socks installed.

Once the bibs and the drytop are rolled tightly six times (with the interior layer of a drytop), and then cinched blah blah blah, they promise to be fairly watertight. Although a long swim welcomes some leakage as it permeates the loosening rolls caused by activity.

The instructions for the bibs advises you to roll 5-6 times, then pull up your hopefully tight skirt tunnel to cover the rolls, then pull down the outter layer of the drytop and cinch. Well, I found that having a normal Snapdragon tunnel next to the rolls is like constantly holding a wet sponge to the rolls, so I got a velcro backbrace band and cinch that around the rolls first, maybe pull up the tunnel and pull down the outter drytop and cinch, or pull up the tunnel last (so I can take it off if I don't need a skirt for a while). Anyway, removing the skirt's contact with the rolls helps a little. In any event, you may get a little leakage. Situations where that might happen are extended swims, getting trashed in a hole (where there is a lot of waist movement), and so forth. I wish I had a goretex drysuit but I don't. But for now, this works and I'm stickin to that story.

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