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FA Design Review

So after 10 years I finally got myself some new outerwear.  Knowing that Freddy Ansara at FA Design is a fellow alpine rider I figured I’d give him my money rather than someone who doesn’t really support our community.  First, the customer service was exactly what it should be.  I talked with Freddy  for help with sizing and he got the clothes to me (from Canada to Cali) in a couple of days.  Based on his recommendation I got the Subsonic Hardshell jacket and Pant in a size large.  Secondly and most important, the quality and performance.  Without a doubt these are the best outwear shells that I’ve ever owned.  Coming from 10 year old clothes to these are like a world of difference.  I have only had them for 13 days of riding in them but I have gone through everything for high 50’s and sunny to snowing with 30+ mph wind and they have performed better than expected.  On the hot days with just a t-shirt I could open up all the vents and stay nice and cool.  While the on the colder days I just used one insulation layer and stayed warm.  Because of the wind and waterproof capablilties of the eVent fabric I stayed either nice and cool on the warm days and nice and warm on the colder days.  One thing that that took me by surprise was the pockets.  When I first looked at the pants and more so the jacket I was wondering if the pocket design was any good??  Although I don’t find the pockets to be a conventional design they worked great for me.  Stored everything I need for a normal day on the hill without missing a beat.  Overall when you combine the quality and performance with the fact they are really dedicated to our niche sport, I think FA Designs hit a homerun.

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  • 4 weeks later...
1 hour ago, slopestar said:

Thanks for the review! Looking forward to making the same/similar purchase for next season. I'm really tired of 1-2 seasons before catastrophic failure. I don't have a disposable income for my disposable outerwear. 

I don't think the FA stuff is going to be a whole lot better than other premium brands in holding up to our particular brand of abuse.  If you drag your hips and arms a lot I'm sure it will take damage.  Freddie is a racer and doesn't ride in that style.

I haven't seen his latest designs but a couple of years ago when I saw them up close they were comparable in quality to ArcTeryx, with high-end closures and a trim design.  Freddie was saying that some of the fine details in production were better than ArcTeryx. He's using eVent whereas ArcTeryx uses GoreTex ProShell.

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  • 11 months later...
On 4/21/2017 at 10:48 PM, slopestar said:

Thanks for the review! Looking forward to making the same/similar purchase for next season. I'm really tired of 1-2 seasons before catastrophic failure. I don't have a disposable income for my disposable outerwear. 

For this reason, I ride exclusively Arc'teryx outerwear. Got a Rush jacket and Alpha SV bibs. ~150 days on the jacket and ~110 days on the pants. They both look and function like brand new. All I do is wash/waterproof them at the start of the season and wash them at the end. Can get them on steepandcheap for 60-70% off if you keep checking. That's what I did anyway.

Arc'teryx Atom LT jacket is my mid layer/wear any time/all the time jacket. 100 days on the snow for that one, plus another 1000 around town. Were on sale 60% off in normal colours on EVO recently. Outdoor Research Mt Baker for mitts as they keep my hands warm, fit over my flexmeter wrist guards and they replace them for free when they break.

From my experience Norrona, Mammut and Westcomb are both extremely high quality stuff, too. I always just try to get the burliest fabric possible. Seems to be working so far. Some high denier, goretex pro shell mammut stuff can be had at > 70% off at the right time of the season.

On the other hand, Patagonia, North Face, Marmot etc... All junk from what I've experienced. For outerwear, where things need to be tough, that is.

If you need the STRONGEST material, then it is Norrona ACE line made from Vectran. But @ $2000 for a jacket and pants combo, wew, deep pocket. But apparently will last forever. I'll stick to Arc'teryx for now...

Edited by daveo
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I don't get that low that much. But I have seen the clothes of other riders, and the kind of abuse getting on the snow a lot inflicts on clothing - and we are talking about Keprotec reinforcements, kangaroo leather and stuff like that. A hardshell pant or jacket will not hold up to EC for long, no matter how good.

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I don't buy very expensive stuff, period. Rip it, patch it, when beyond repair, throw away... But I can offer my 0.02 CAD on FA: 

CASI had them as official uniforms for several years. They get horrible discoloration in the sun/UV and probably washing. All the red jackets turned into some weird shade of pink. Also, most of the evaluators complain about pockets not being enough, in size and number.  

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Last year's outerwear is usually on great discount at this time of the year.  Everything that made it worth full retail 8 months (or 20 months) ago is still there.  

Then add something to wear points that you already know are there from the last jacket/pants/whatever that you ruined.  I'll try Aqua Sure (or similar) urethane next time, as PlastiDip spray wears out a little faster than I like.  

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On 4/6/2018 at 2:22 PM, daveo said:

 

Arc'teryx Atom LT jacket is my mid layer/wear any time/all the time jacket. 100 days on the snow for that one, plus another 1000 around town. Were on sale 60% off in normal colours on EVO recently.

Great Layer. Extremely light in weight. Wear it in warmer temps under a Northface Gortex Shell.  Found a table of them at Sam’s Club for $39. :biggthump

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On 13.4.2018 at 11:59 PM, Corey said:

Then add something to wear points that you already know are there

I have two patches of Keprotec on my pants, on the rear knee and the front hip. I salvaged them from my old pants that simply fell apart at the seams. They hold up fine.

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As I said: salvaged from an old pair of pants (bought in the 90s) that was liberally reinforced in the knees and butt region.

Edit: I just found this German site that sells reinforced fabrics. If you are interested, I can help you out with translating.

https://www.extremtextil.de/100-kevlar-beschichtet-riffelblech-anthrazit-kleinmenge.html

 

Edited by Aracan
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  • 6 months later...
  • 1 month later...
On 4/13/2018 at 3:51 PM, BlueB said:

I don't buy very expensive stuff, period. Rip it, patch it, when beyond repair, throw away... But I can offer my 0.02 CAD on FA: 

CASI had them as official uniforms for several years. They get horrible discoloration in the sun/UV and probably washing. All the red jackets turned into some weird shade of pink. Also, most of the evaluators complain about pockets not being enough, in size and number.  

Any red jacket suffers from this reaction. Red is actually the worst color when it comes to fading regardless of the color fast recipe. 

The 2015 FA design CASI jackets were a custom design.  The red jackets you see are exactly what they wanted and requested at the time. 

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9 minutes ago, daveo said:

My 8 year old red Arc'teryx shell must be made by aliens, then. 

Same with my 3 year old Columbia, as bright as on the day one, but not very waterproof any more. Then I've got a much older Sunice, that lost a bit of intensity... 

17 minutes ago, Speed cat said:

Any red jacket suffers from this reaction. Red is actually the worst color when it comes to fading regardless of the color fast recipe. 

The 2015 FA design CASI jackets were a custom design.  The red jackets you see are exactly what they wanted and requested at the time. 

Is that you Freddy? 

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34 minutes ago, daveo said:

My 8 year old red Arc'teryx shell must be made by aliens, then. My experience with FA has been poor at best.

 

Sorry to hear about your experience.  What year was your gear and what did you have ? 

On a side note regarding the color red, I would encourage some research as this attribute with red is very common across every industry.  Those jackets were actually made at the old ARC factory so its possible they did not have the aliens working that day 😇

Here is some science facts behind it. 

Dyes and pigments work by absorbing certain wavelengths of light and reflecting or transmitting the rest. When a dye molecule absorbs a photon, an electron is excited to a higher energy state. Most of the time (neglecting fluorescence), the molecule de-excites by giving off heat and returns to the ground state intact. However, because the excited state is a high energy state, it has the potential to undergo a chemical reaction, breaking a covalent bond or otherwise irreversibly reacting with another molecule. This changes the electronic structure of the molecule which changes its absorption properties: e.g. many dyes that absorb visible light have large systems of conjugated double bonds and if these are broken, the absorbance can shift to much shorter wavelengths. How likely this kind of destructive chemistry is depends on the nature of the dye. ( our new materials are custom made in Japan so they do perform better then the past material which came from Korea ) 

 Even with cars, red paint can often degrade faster because it absorbs higher energy (shorter wavelength) light. The more energy that is available, the more likely it is that reactions will occur.

30 minutes ago, BlueB said:

Same with my 3 year old Columbia, as bright as on the day one, but not very waterproof any more. Then I've got a much older Sunice, that lost a bit of intensity... 

Is that you Freddy? 

🙃 You guys start the season yet ? 

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On 11/21/2018 at 4:20 PM, Speed cat said:

 

Sorry to hear about your experience.  What year was your gear and what did you have ? 

On a side note regarding the color red, I would encourage some research as this attribute with red is very common across every industry.  Those jackets were actually made at the old ARC factory so its possible they did not have the aliens working that day 😇

Here is some science facts behind it. 

Dyes and pigments work by absorbing certain wavelengths of light and reflecting or transmitting the rest. When a dye molecule absorbs a photon, an electron is excited to a higher energy state. Most of the time (neglecting fluorescence), the molecule de-excites by giving off heat and returns to the ground state intact. However, because the excited state is a high energy state, it has the potential to undergo a chemical reaction, breaking a covalent bond or otherwise irreversibly reacting with another molecule. This changes the electronic structure of the molecule which changes its absorption properties: e.g. many dyes that absorb visible light have large systems of conjugated double bonds and if these are broken, the absorbance can shift to much shorter wavelengths. How likely this kind of destructive chemistry is depends on the nature of the dye. ( our new materials are custom made in Japan so they do perform better then the past material which came from Korea ) 

 Even with cars, red paint can often degrade faster because it absorbs higher energy (shorter wavelength) light. The more energy that is available, the more likely it is that reactions will occur.

🙃 You guys start the season yet ? 

No harsh feelings and I don't want to bash FA, but my experience was- let's say less than ideal. I don't think I could bring myself to purchase from the brand again, unless for some reason I get a deal so unreasonably good deal that when it breaks, I won't care and I'll throw it in the bin and still consider it good value. But, chances are that FA have the quality/durability issues sorted, so I think everyone should at least consider FA if they're in the market for outerwear.

My gear was from a while back. Actually many years ago now. Had multiple garments. Had problems on all, even the RMAd ones, the same issues were persistent, which in my humble opinion showed lack of testing and quality control. In the end I didn't bother following anything up repeatedly as I don't have the time (or money) to worry about quality/durability issues, when I'm in another country for an extended period of time and have 1 shell jacket and 1 shell pants. Need them to perform day in and day out, year in and year out.

I switched to Arc'teryx after that, which we can all get between 50-70% off depending on whether you're willing to check steepandcheap.com frequently and wait a bit for your preferred size/colour. I am happy to do that and I admit that my jacket is in a less than ideal colour. In Arc'teryx, I found the quality I need. The stuff I have is the top of the line, durable as hell, hasn't let me down, made in Canada (my pant and jacket shells, only), keeps me dry and it's cheaper than what I can get FA for, to boot. Just as a guess, my Arc jacket is on 150 days and my pants are on 100 days. And they're as good as new. I waterproof them once a year and boom I'm off.

The stellar quality of the shells then encouraged me to buy a few more of their garments, which I love just as much. They sent me, free of charge, replacement parts when I've asked for them because I wanted to make Mammut/Arc'teryx frankenpantbibs, just for the hell of it. Didn't work, though.

And yep, I'm aware of the issues with red. That blue light will kill us all one day.

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  • 3 years later...
On 10/10/2022 at 1:00 AM, charliechocolate said:

I was doing some pre-season window shopping for outerwear and methinks this brand has gone under. The site is gone and the domain is unregistered.

The search for a cheap made-in-canuckistan jacket with great waterproofing continues.

Taiga Works looks like they're still around. Looks like they're not doing full Goretex any more, but might be worth a look.

https://www.taigaworks.com/collections/shell-garments

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