hey guys Justin here everyone loves the deal and I need give you my top picks for gear from a company
that has changed the game when it comes to budget gear and that company's Decathlon the kathlynn is
one of the biggest sporting good retailers in the world and just started expanding into North
America last year and based on some of the recommendations from you guys and from some
extensive searching in their stores and online I found 9 pieces of gear that I think are some of
the best deals that they have I'm using all this gear for months now and I've had great experiences
with it it's also all made it through a couple washing machine cycles and came out just fine
there is an elephant in the room with regards to decathlon's prices and I'm gonna address
that along with my Decathlon customer service experiences at the end of the video I also just
want to mention that this video isn't sponsored in any way by decathlon I just got a lot of requests
from you guys to do another budget gear video and I just think that they have some great deals and
want to share that with you alright so first up we have this foam mat so this is a $10 foam
mat has an r-value of 1.2 way 7.4 ounces is 20 inches wide and 71 inches long and I think this
is a great pad to use in the winter time you can throw it underneath your air mattress and add a
little bit of our value to it as well as using it if you're in the desert and are afraid of pokey
things getting through and poking a hole into your air pad so great little pad really cheap
and is nice and thin and light so easy to take with you on any trips next up we have the infamous
trek 100 down jacket I'm wearing this size extra large right here for winter layering this thing
costs $80 and weighs just over 10 ounces it's a really warm jacket it compares really well
to a lot of other jackets that may cost 2 or 3 times as much and it's great for backpacking
hiking and I'll even just use it around town it's quickly becoming one of my favorite down jackets
that I've ever tried so definitely check this one out I've done a couple reviews on it I'll
post links to those in the video description down below next up I want to talk about fleece fleece
is something that you can usually get some great deals on it's not a super complicated fabric and
it's pretty easy to make first up I have these $3 yeah 3 dollars for some fleece gloves and
these will never be your go-to kind of fleece gloves but they're great liners and are super
ultra light I'll just throw them in my pack throw them into my work pack or hiking pack and they're
great just to kind of have their super light and really warm so for three dollars I picked up a few
pairs of these and just have them all over the place great little set of gloves next up is the
fleece that I have underneath the down jacket and things are gonna get a little risky here so bear
with me but I have here the mh1 20 fleece and this is just your standard fleece full zip has a couple
pockets right here I'm wearing the size large and this cost $20 so really affordable fleece
this thing's quite warm I usually only bring it for car camping or if I'm going on a resort
ski day and I'll sometimes bring it with me for winter trips if I know it's gonna be really cold
I'm going to need a nice thick layer this thing's quite quite toasty and a little bit heavier than
I'd like to bring on most backpacking trips and then underneath this fleece I have another fleece
the MH 500 grid fleece this grid fleece is super breathable really lightweight and I love it for
active activities like if I'm going snowshoeing or hiking or cross-country skiing I like to throw on
this quarter zip here that quarters up is nice just to dump a little bit of heat and you'll be
able to regulate your temperature really well on the trail the next thing I want to talk about is
merino wool marito what can be super expensive but Decathlon somehow has managed to make merino wool
products they're about half the costs of other brands like -33 or smart wool and first up is this
hat this is a merino wool bt cost $15 and is super comfortable one of the best things about merino
wool is that it's not itchy and you'll find some knockoffs on amazon where they say it's merino
wool but it's really not merino wool and those hats are super itchy whereas this hat right here
is not itchy at all and it's really comfortable I use it when I'm going on trips and I'll wear it at
night when sleeping or if it starts being a little chilly at night so really nice merino wool hat
here the calf one has a ton of merino wool so just that I have two items here that I really think are
great but they have a lot of other merino wool products and I have family have been using some
of their long johns and long-sleeve shirts and they say that those are great as well the other
merino wool product that I have is this t-shirt base layer that I have on and this is a great
t-shirt for any sort of activity really I wear it as a base there when sleeping as well as a base
therefore going backcountry skiing or snowshoeing or anything decathlon kind of really nailed it a
surprised at how high of quality the merino wool products were this thing has been through the wash
a whole bunch of times I wash it quite often and it hasn't shown anywhere and is still holding up
really well they've also just paid attention to some of the details you wouldn't expect that from
a budget brand but even things like perforations and a little bit more breathability in the armpit
here is a really nice feature that they've put into this product and that's awesome it's pretty
warm out so I'm just going to leave my t-shirt on here I'm actually starting to sweat even even
out here in the t-shirt but next up I have a couple more pieces of hand gear first up being
these softshell gloves that only cost $13 and are really nice so these are really breathable pretty
warm but one of the big features that they have is touch capability so you can use the thumb and
forefinger to play around with your phone and not freeze your fingers off when you want to
take a picture or send a message to somebody and that's they're really nice and have held up really
well for me I actually go through gloves quite quickly because I use them pretty aggressively for
multiple activities like backcountry skiing hiking snowshoeing and just all the time whenever I'm
going outdoors so I go through them really quickly and easily held up really well the only thing that
I wish they had was a little bit more padding on the palm I wish this extended down because I'm
using trekking poles I sometimes get a little bit of bunching right in there so if this came down
right into there then that wouldn't be a problem and they'd be just that much more comfortable but
either way I find these gloves glade great and use them quite a bit and they're super affordable so
I got three pairs of them if I know it's gonna be windy or rainy or just really cold I'll also bring
along these Trek 500 over gloves they're really mitts but they call them over gloves for some
reason but these are waterproof tape seams and they're also wind proof so I'll throw them over my
gloves and they'll just add that protection from the weather as well as a little bit of warmth and
these things are only twenty dollars and weigh 40 grams so super ultralight I throw these in my pack
all the time they just scrunch up really nicely and come with me on backpacking trips they are in
my bag that I use to commute to work they're just really awesome little gloves and quite affordable
so another great Buy and that's the final item item number nine if you have a favorite Decathlon
I don't let me know in the comments below I feel like I haven't even scratched the surface with
some of the sweet deals that could be had from them something I also want to mention and it came
up a bunch in my other reviews of the down jacket is customer service I think it's super important
for companies to stand behind their products and I will often choose gear that may cost more money
if I know that the warranty is going to be good and a lot of you have asked about decathlon's
warranty and I have to say that it's great it's a one-year no questions asked warranty and I've
actually used this firsthand I call it my down jacket on a poky thing and pulled a thread and
when I took it into the store they exchanged it on the spot without blinking and I had no questions
asked and most products that they have also have a longer warranty period that covers manufacturing
defects senda like the great warranty and my experience with it definitely makes it
a little bit easier for me to recommend Decathlon products because like I said it's important that
companies stand behind their products and now to address the elephant in the room when I posted
this video the cathlin had just bumped up their prices on a bunch of gear in the US and you guys
noticed this and I received a lot of messages and comments about it so I reached out to a Calphalon
and wanted to see what was up because the prices hadn't increased in Canada or anywhere else that I
looked at and what they told me was that the main reason is that tariffs that have been implemented
on goods coming from China to the US are the reason why we've seen this price bump I had
troubles believing them I have troubles believing any company at their word especially when it comes
to something like price increases so I took a look at the tariffs that have been implemented
and they do line up with the pieces of gear that I specifically looked at and saw price increases
for so I'm not sure if the bump in prices line up exactly with what the tariffs costs are but
it makes sense that some of those costs would need to be passed on a consumer for decathlon to
maintain a profit margin and they probably have lower profit merchants and some other companies
Decathlon did seem genuine when they told me that they'd like to keep prices low in that
they hope that down the road they can lower the prices back to what they were and all the gear I
talked about today and discussed even under the new prices is still great deals in my books and
I still stand behind my recommendations for it after our chat decathlon was was kind enough to
provide me with a discount code that I can share with you guys that provides 10% off to Kathlyn
comm and the US store so sorry folks in the rest of the world but to be fair prices haven't gone
up for us and the US could use a little bit of a discount because the down jacket went
up 23% and that discount code is just no Doris easy to remember and I'll post it in the video
description so you can just copy and paste it I hope you guys enjoyed the video hit that thumbs up
button subscribe to the channel and remember you only catch minnows when fishing in the shallows