• Hi everyone,

    As you all know, Coffee (Dean) passed away a couple of years ago. I am Dean's ex-wife's husband and happen to have spent my career in tech. Over the years, I occasionally helped Dean with various tech issues.

    When he passed, I worked with his kids to gather the necessary credentials to keep this site running. Since then (and for however long they worked with Coffee), Woodschick and Dirtdame have been maintaining the site and covering the costs. Without their hard work and financial support, CafeHusky would have been lost.

    Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been working to migrate the site to a free cloud compute instance so that Woodschick and Dirtdame no longer have to fund it. At the same time, I’ve updated the site to a current version of XenForo (the discussion software it runs on). The previous version was outdated and no longer supported.

    Unfortunately, the new software version doesn’t support importing the old site’s styles, so for now, you’ll see the XenForo default style. This may change over time.

    Coffee didn’t document the work he did on the site, so I’ve been digging through the old setup to understand how everything was running. There may still be things I’ve missed. One known issue is that email functionality is not yet working on the new site, but I hope to resolve this over time.

    Thanks for your patience and support!

Camp chair? REI Flex Lite VS Big Agnes Helionx Chair One...

Coffee

Coffee

CH Owner
Staff member
I have a helinox. Looks nice sitting in the bag, but I have yet to actually use it beyond putting it together and sitting in it when it arrived a few weeks ago. :lol:


I bought it for bike camping as well but I haven't finished setting up the bike for it yet.

I went for the helinox over the rei as I'm a bigger guy and some reviews said that the helinox was a better fit. Plus I snagged it off amazon with free prime shipping (some one as your link)
 
gots_a_sol said:
I have a helinox. Looks nice sitting in the bag, but I have yet to actually use it beyond putting it together and sitting in it when it arrived a few weeks ago. :lol:


I bought it for bike camping as well but I haven't finished setting up the bike for it yet.

I went for the helinox over the rei as I'm a bigger guy and some reviews said that the helinox was a better fit. Plus I snagged it off amazon with free prime shipping (some one as your link)
Click to expand...

Valid point. The only difference I see in the chairs is more solid material in the Helinox and more mesh material in the Flex lite. So a bigger guy or gal may prefer the Helinox. One advantage of the mesh other than light weight is that the rain doesn't puddle in it. On our last trip this helped a lot. REI also carries a lifetime satisfaction guarantee on everything they sell. I bought my Nemo Morpho1 tent from them and talked with them about returning it just yesterday. They said no problem and helped me pick a tent I would be happier with as well.....all with a smile.

I agree with Coffee on four legged chairs. I tried a two legged chair before my purchase and couldn't relax as I was trying to find the sweet spot for balancing and relaxing. I instantly knew me and that chair would not get along after getting back to camp after a hard day of riding.
 
I did notice the Helinox has a loop at booth ends of the carrying sack which might be useful for holding some personal items off the ground - reasonably sure there is a zipper across the top of the carrying bag in this picture. Not sure about the REI one yet.

Screen Shot 2013-08-11 at 5.23.30 AM.png
 
I have the Flex Lite, I've never seen the Helinox, my REI chair did its job well for our western TAT trip, small, light and comfy. Being 6'1" I bet the Helinox would be a bit more comfy though.
 
This may be another option:

http://alitedesigns.com/

I have had the Alite monarch (two legged design) for a couple of years now, but now they well a couple of different four legged versions. Personally I like the two legged design as it is more versatile. If you shuffle forward and move your feet back you can site more upright which helps if you are cooking on a stove and for relaxing put your feet forward and lean back. The only real problem for me is when you fall asleep in it, you tend to end up falling off it!

They also come with lifetime guarantee, are lighter than the Helinox and pack up fairly small.
 
Yep! Love my Alite Monarch. Took a little getting used to, but I love it now. I like the versatility, too. I can sit on it upright like a stool or lounge back and relax. We use them a lot in hot springs and rivers and stuff. I lost one of the little rubber balls on the bottom when it mored in the silty bottom of a hot springs. I called up Alite to order another one. They sent me 2 of them for free! Didn't even have to pay for shipping.
 
As long as you don't buy your chair from the Sierra Club (anti OHV) supporting REI... get whatever you want.
 
mnb said:
As long as you don't buy your chair from the Sierra Club (anti OHV) supporting REI... get whatever you want.
Click to expand...

You know, I enjoy trail riding, and I also enjoy hiking. I've seen some pretty bad behavior from dirt bikers and other ATV riders while I was hiking. I was riding my bicycle the other day and some idiot in a Dodge Ram diesel pulled along side and floored it leaving a cloud of black soot for me to pedal through. My point is, its the assholes among us that we are tolerating that are ruining it for the rest of us. Perhaps if we organized (like the Sierra Club) and policed our own, we could take away their argument?
 
A good friend of mine works at the local REI....and she is a rider.
There is a lot of overlap between riders, cyclists, campers, canoeists, hikers....
Go Pro, Garmin, MSR.....sell across these communities...
 
I don't have anything against hikers and cyclists. Except for those that think they're the only ones that should be allowed to use public lands. And the Sierra Club has that attitude.

I doubt REI is anti OHV. Especially if any OHV people buy their stuff. But they should be more discerning in the groups they support. You fund my enemy, YOU'RE my enemy.

Every group has it's angels and its devils. Moto, equestrian, hikers, everyone. The Sierra Club is not anti devil moto, they're anti moto.
 
Coffee said:
Interesting. For the record, I rarely buy anything like either of these chairs, and typically buy what suits me best... sort of how I ended up with a Husqvarna in the first place.
View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aeZ_pIpgEY
Click to expand...
This is definitely accurate.

I looked at the REI chair in the store, and my Helinox finally showed up - Helinox is the winner as far as I am concerned. Almost at comfy as my recliner, though obviously not as stable.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top