Crua Graphene Sleeping Bag Review

This Crua Graphene Sleeping Bag review is about my new outdoor sleeping item, lightweight, compact, and with a unique insulation.

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Key features & benefits

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What is in the name

Crua Outdoors is a brand that continues surprising us with their new and unique outdoor items. This time it is about a sleeping bag which is on the market under the name given in the title above.

As of the moment of writing this text, it is available only on the Crua site, but my guess is this will change soon. Formally, this is just a rectangular sleeping bag, but it is with a removable hood shown in the picture below, equipped with a cinch cord to prevent heat losses.

There is also a separate cinch cord on the top of the bag itself. The bag is equipped with an inner pocket close to the chest, see the picture below, and a draft collar which is also seen in the picture. I wonder why they did not make the pocket larger.

There is also a set of 3 toggles and 3 loops on the sides, one shown below. This you can use to fold the bag width-wise and fix it with these elements before rolling it up. This makes it easier to keep its form when rolled up. 

Zippers

This sleeping bag has zippers on two sides, and you can unzip it from both ends. But as mentioned above, the hood can also be unzipped. This means the following:

• You can have ventilation in the feet area.
• You can also walk while keeping the bag on your body. This can be useful if nature calls during the cold night.
• The bag can be open completely and used as a blanket, see the picture below.
• By unzipping the hood, you can make it lighter. You certainly would not use it in a mild climate, so this is a useful feature.
• From their specifications, it appears also that you can zip two sleeping bags together and create a double sleeping bag. I do not have them two so could not test it, but they give pictures showing the feature.

The main zipper on the side has a Velcro tab on the top close to your neck, and this prevents it from unzipping. Pity they did not add the same feature on the hood’s zipper, it tends to unzip when you turn around during the night. This is my only objection to this sleeping bag.

Materials & insulation

The shell is a 20D ripstop nylon, quite thin I would say. But note that this is not a noisy material. The inner liner is a 300T poly pongee, and it is quite pleasant to touch.

But the big deal here is the insulation. They write that this is graphene, and there is 180 grams of it in the bag.

Graphene insulation

I am not completely sure why Crua Outdoors decided to use it in this sleeping bag. From what I have seen on the Internet, as of the moment of writing this text, there is no other sleeping bag with the same insulation. So my sleeping bag is indeed unique on the market.

There are sleeping bags with graphene elements inside, but those are related to the heating that such bags have, nothing to do with insulation itself.

So what is graphene? In short, this is a new and very advanced nano-material fabricated not so long ago. I still remember the day when two physicists from the UK presented this material to the public. Later, they received the Nobel Prize for it.

I am not even sure in what shape this graphene is here in the sleeping bag, I would have to destroy it to see how it looks inside.

The bag weighs 1.3 kg, and the shell fabric is thin, so there must be some other stuff inside together with graphene. Namely, 180 grams is not much for its area which is more than 3 square meters in total.

So I submitted a question to the brand. They replied, but the answer was far from detailed enough. Apparently, graphene is lighter than other synthetic insulating materials and this should be the reason for using it.

But there is a bit more information in their another product which they call the Crua Sleep. This is a set that includes a pad and a zip-on quilt with the same graphene insulation.

So this is about a graphene-infused fibers, though it is not clear what type of fibers. But according to them, the point is the following:

In a traditional sleeping bag, the fibers underneath your body are crushed by the weight and they do not insulate you. But these here, infused by graphene (features below), are not crushed and apparently they do insulate you.

Temperature rating

Officially, the the lowest temperature limit is 23 F (-5° C). There is no information about some independent testing, and they do not give the comfort limit.

When you check some other sleeping bags, you typically see that the comfort rating is 5-6 degrees Celsius higher. For the Crua bag this would probably mean around 0 to 1° C. But see more below in my testing.

My testing

First, I tested this sleeping bag in very mild conditions, the night temperature was above 13-14 degrees Celsius. I was almost naked in the bag and I was warm.

Later, I went into the mountains and I used this sleeping bag. On my tour to Bivacco Val Loga in the Italian Alps, it was in my backpack, and I used it to sleep there at an elevation of close to 2800 meters.

It was perfectly suitable for the place. The outside temperature was below zero degrees Celsius, but I did not have information about the temperature inside. You can see it in the picture on one of the bunk beds which are there in the Bivacco:

I also used it for sleeping in the car on the Spluga Pass. The elevation at the Pass is above 2000 meters, and I was comfortable with the bag used that way. 

In my recent February camping tour I used this bag. The temperature in the tent was in the range 5-6 degrees Celsius, and I did not feel really warm, so I added a thin liner. But humidity was up to 93% or so.

Please see more in this video:

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Who is it for

Regarding best use, you have seen its temperature rating, and in view of this the bag should be a true 3-season item. My own testing also confirms this.

The bag is all-synthetic, so its performance regarding thermal properties should remain the same no matter in what environment you use it. 

Regarding the size, the dimensions are 192 x 75 cm, so it is almost wide enough even for me, namely I feel claustrophobic in every sleeping bag. There are much wider sleeping bags around but those are not light enough for the trail.

The mentioned length is what you have for the body, but the hood adds extra for your head, so it should be long enough even for very tall users.

Regarding the weight, this sleeping bag weighs 2.8 lb (1.3 kg). So this is quite impressive even when you compare it with down-fill sleeping bags. See this Kelty Galactic 30 Sleeping Bag as an example and compare the parameters.

This sleeping bag is not really fluffy, so it looks thin, and its dimensions when compressed with the straps that are on its carry bag are very good for a synthetic sleeping bag. You can see how this looks, it is only around 35 cm long:

Regarding the price, in my view it is more than fair for such a unique bag and with all its features.

Here is my another video where you can see some details:

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Specifications

• Type: rectangular hooded synthetic sleeping bag.
• Weight: 2.8 lb (1.3 kg).
• Dimensions (L x W): 75.6 x 29.5 in (192 x 75 cm).
• Temperature rating: 23F (-5°C).
• Packed size (L x D): 16.1 x 7.8 in (41 x 20 cm).
• Compressed size (L x D): 13.8 x 7.8 in (35 x 20 cm).
• Warranty: 2 years.

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Final thoughts & rating

Below you can see how I rate it against my usual rating criteria so that you can easily compare it with other items of this type:

 

BEST PLACEs TO BUY

Crua Outdoors

Note that I use this sleeping bag together with my Forclaz MT500 Inflatable Backpacking Travel Pillow.

If you still need more options, please check under the category Sleeping Bags.

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