I’ve been a fan of Beyond Clothing’s stuff for a while now, and some time back they expanded their offerings to a lineup of less tactically focused clothing. I picked up a couple items recently, and on top of those — Beyond sent over a few more for me to check out and review (I’ll indicate which is which below).
Long story short: I’ve yet to get something from Beyond that I didn’t think was really good, bordering on amazing at times and these items are no exception to that. If you need some new outdoor clothing, or work from home gear, or whatever — be sure to check out what they have. I am a big fan of the brand.
Ventum Ultralight L4 Pant
Beyond sent these for review.
These pants I have been wanting to check out since a friend told me how much they love them. I greatly prefer wearing pants when I am outdoors, but living in Houston means needing lightweight pants. The Ventum Ultralight L4 is designed for just that. The pair I have is the in black and I was worried they would heat me up too much. I wore them hiking in warm weather with no shade and direct sun, and then around town afterwards — no issues with heat at all.
These pants are awesome. They are quickly becoming some of my favorites for their lightweight, but premium feel. Comparing them to my long favored GORUCK Simple Pants they feel softer to the hand, drape softer, are quieter, but a little more bulky when packed away.
The pants are 86% nylon and 14% spandex — so yes, they are stretchy and it’s great. They also have really smart pockets. I am not a fan of cargo pockets, but these are discrete enough that they don’t scream it and the rest of the pockets are oriented to be useable while keeping stuff in the pockets when sitting in a car.
The pockets themselves are lined with a soft mesh, they feel awesome. One small downside is that often something will cling to that material and pull the pocket inside out (like my Ripcord). That’s a small thing, and I find overall that I really like these pockets — they help keep the pocket areas of the pants from overheating — something I’ve seen other pants fail to do.
At the end of the day these were performant for hiking, for exploring cities and still comfortable enough to lounge in around my house. I’ll be wearing them a lot. The black is a great color, but is prone to snagging dust marks and while those do brush off, it is worth pointing out.
Dawa Sherpa Full-Zip L3 Fleece
The Dawa Sherpa Fleece was something I snagged for myself a while back as I wanted a soft and cozy hoodie to lounge around the house in, and dash out to the mailbox. This one looked nice to me, and the price seemed too good to be true at $80 — it’s an insane value.
The best way I can describe this is: cozy. It’s exactly what I wanted from an item like this. Something I would wear on it’s own, both outside, or lounging around the house, which replaced a standard hoodie. It is all that for me.
The cut and fit is spot on, it’s the right length to feel long in the body, but not so long that it feels like a jacket when you are on the couch. The hood is very nice, and the sleeves are very long on it. All of that makes it really effective for staying warm when outside, and comfortable when laying on the couch.
Both front pockets are huge, and work really well. I have come to rely on them as effective places for storing my flashlights when I am wearing this. I grabbed the Coyote color and it looks great, much better than I expected as it has rich undertones to it. All in all this jacket seems to have only gotten better with wear and washing.
Very big fan of this item.
Celeris Midweight L2 Pullover
Beyond sent this for review.
The Celeris is part hoodie, part half-zip and it’s also a grid fleece which is one of my new loves this past winter/cold season. Technically it’s: “94% polyester/6% spandex Verso Weave circular grid fleece”. To me it feels like a Polartec grid-fleece but with dots instead of squares — practically the performance feels the same to me. It’s very thin to wear, with outstanding warmth retention when you need/want it. As a layer it’s great, as something to lounge in it is very comfortable without over heating you, if slightly form fitting for lounging.
This has a much trimmer fit, and almost could be worn as a base layer. Which means if you are layering over the top of something, be prepared for that item to need to be closer fitting as well. This is a system piece for me, something that you would wear under a jacket/shell, or as an active warmth layer when working out.
I’ve worn it on a couple rucks now during the cooler mornings and found that it breathes well. Dries fast, and is very comfortable to wear when being active. It’s a little hard to slide over the top of a merino t-shirt, but not awful. Taking it off though often resulted in my t-shirt wanting to come off as well.
The layout/design of the item is really neat. This has a very high collar, so even with the hood down, you can zip it up and have a lot of neck protection. This is a pet peeve I have with a lot of other hoodies, which only effectively cover your neck when the hood is being worn. Not the case here. There’s only one pocket, on the left wrist, which is, well interesting. I am not sure what to do with that pocket. One neat touch is the lighter fabric used in the armpits to help regulate the heat — without those this would almost be too warm for me when being active. I suspect this will be something I pack anytime I head back north. As it is, it wears quite warm for how thin it is.
It’s hard to beat the price on this item as well, it performs really well and looks sharp. I have the coyote color again here, and it’s just as great, perhaps better than the coyote in the Sherpa given the subtle heather pattern in the fabric.
Velox Light Softshell L5 Pant
Beyond sent these for review.
There’s a chance that these Velox Light Softshell pants are the most comfortable pants I own. These were sent in the Khaki color and overall look great. They do have many pockets, like a lot of pockets and zippers going on. On the one hand, that made them perfect for hiking in sand — I was confident everything in my pockets would stay in my pockets. But, it also means visually there are a lot of zippers and zipper pulls, and you need to manage all of that.
The built in gaiter didn’t quite work for me, I think I would need them a touch longer to really make that work — which would be longer than I normally wear my pants. That said I think the cut on these is great. They are a fairly normal (read: not hiking only) silhouette and are very comfortable to move in — aided by the 4-way stretch.
They are a light softshell fabric and if you have never had pants made in softshell then you are missing out. They are among the most comfortable you can get. The pockets (all of them) are also a soft fuzzy mesh which feel luxurious to your hand, keep your gear nicely cared for, but can be a bit ‘sticky’ when you pull stuff out of your pockets.
I hiked in these in 70°F weather with the sun reflecting off the sand and was comfortable all day, running slightly warm at times. I would say that’s about the limit I would want to wear these in temperature wise, but they were awesome to hike in. More than that though, these are the pants I keep grabbing when I need something to wear which is comfortable and can take me from the couch to the garage, to the yard and back inside. I can’t oversell how comfortable these are.
Often pants like these will drape weird, but these drape well, and the only thing giving them away is the zippers across the thighs. I am a big fan, and hold out hope to see this in the Ventum L4 pant style/layout to better hide the zippers away — I’d instantly buy a pair. As it is, these are quickly becoming a favorite for me to wear.
Avid Ultralight L4 Pant
I have had these for a while now, and they are also awesome, but different. These are what I often wear in place of Joggers, and the Avid’s are awesome to kick around in during the weekend. They are very thin, not at all fuzzy feeling — they feel like a jogger styled wind pant. That’s generally how I think about them: if the ambient temp is warm, but you could be chilled by wind, or blowing AC, then these pants work really well.
They are “86% nylon/14% spandex shell combines ultralightweight with 4-way stretch”. Again, they feel like thin nylon, and they do stretch very well. The waistband is a very aggressive hunk of elastic, with a drawstring if you need it. I have never needed it, I find that if anything they were a bit too tight at times. That said, the body of the pants offer exceptional mobility, and the ankle cuffs aren’t tight elastic, which allows the pants to fall naturally.
They are light, but not warm. They are comfortable, but I don’t think they quite hit the lounge mark for me compared to the other pants on this list. They have a slight nylon noise as you move about in them, but they are trim enough that it’s not annoying.
What they do well though is two small, but big things: pockets and zipped fly. The pockets are deep enough that stuff doesn’t easily fall out, without being bulky at all. They have a neat bit of elastic webbing at the bottom edge of the opening, which I’ve found to be great for clipping a knife or flashlight to. Even though the waist band is elastic, there’s still a zipper opening fly which is a huge win for convenience.
I like these pants, but they are not as good as the other two on this list — those both set a high bar for comfort. These pants are more and more my pants for cleaning/washing cars, and any other odds and ends where I want something to cover my legs, without heating me up.
Todra L1 S.S. Crew
I love my Todra shirts, and they are my preferred shirts for rucking and working out in. They are also very cozy. I’ve written about these before, so I’ll touch only on the bullet points:
- Very soft, cotton like feel.
- They don’t smell at the end of a workout like nylon shirts.
- Fast drying.
- Excellent cut: trim but long.
- Amazing price.
Summing This All Up
So far, everything I have tried from Beyond has been very performant and really good. Some of it looks better for casual wear than others, while some is clearly intended to be used in the woods where function trumps fashion. But what’s clear from all these items is the value proposition: these items perform as well as a lot of clothing I have which costs 2-3x more than Beyond’s offering. This is a big reason I keep grabbing stuff from Beyond.