Knee pads - How would you improve them?

[SamT]

So why do so many oversuits have velcro at the neck? I'm fed up with disentangling my hair from odd bits of velcro.

And why do so many over suits *not* fasten at the neck when they get muddy.

Actually - to be fair - the velcro zip cover on my warmbac does still fasten most of the time (although a good pressure wash from time to time does help), however - the neoprene neck cuff hardly ever fastens. :?

sorry - off topic.

 

[Johnny]

I love my cheapo neoprenes. They aren't that brilliant for crawling - I bruise VERY easily and get black and blue after every trip, but they make climbing so much easier.

Going off on a tangent, does anyone know of any very thick well padded elbow pads? My daughter wears elbow pads for kneepads (might work for batgirl too?) but they aren't half as thick.

The Neoprene kneepads were, at one time, available with velcro straps.
You could adjust these to suit and they stayed in place very well. The velcro used to get thick with mud though so they had to be cleaned more often.

The older Warmback furrys were thicker and had excellent sewn in knee pads that were nice and thick, sewing your own bits of fleece onto the undersuit may help, the same goes for elbows.

 

[Dave H]

How about - all oversuits have inbuilt knee-pads. Then they can't slip. And you don't have to fight with exhausted frozen fingers to get them off before you can get out of your oversuit.

Have to get the design right so the kneepads wear out at about the same time as the rest of the suit.

That's what we used to do in the 70's and 80's with our wet-suits - just slap another layer of neoprene over the knees when the old one wore through. ldgit:

 

[hoehlenforscher]

Still got my original Warmbacs (15 years old) with the latex covering. Really don't think I will ever wear them out. Excellent bits of kit and sad to hear they are no longer made. One thing though they were crap when used on slippery/greasy chimneys or rising crawls with a muddy base. As slick as an otters back....

 

[andymorgan]

I think having adjustable knee pads is a good idea, as long as they stay in position. I have pull on Warmtex coated Warmbac knee pads and getting them on is the hardest part of the trip usually! I think Inglesport sell adjustable warmbac ones if I recall correctly.
Other improvement to the Warmbac ones can include:
(1) making them longer so if they slip down a little when crawling the top of your knee is still protected
(2) making them a bit thicker
(3) make them more resistant to cuts from sharp rocks: I trashed one on a single trip!