See here.

Kraig Coomber, when he was here for the Flytec Championship, had brought with him a semi cast off harness that had previously gone through Curt Warren and Dustin Martin, as had the Matrix harness that I already owned. When I had a problem with the zipper on my harness he generously offered to swap harnesses (they can recover the carbon fiber back plate) and see if the Matrix Race harness would go better for me then the standard Matrix version.

I didn't think anything about how there might in fact be significant differences as the Matrix Race harness was an almost exact copy of my previous harness (at least it looked that way), but I found out differently. One thing it took two landings to find out is that I really had to push up on the base bar and arch my back to get the slider in the back plate up to the top so that I could get upright for landing. On the previous Matrix harness the slider just slid to the top with a lot less focused effort.

After that fix, I started landing with a little more relaxed attitude (a few days into the Santa Cruz Flats meet), but I noticed other differences. For one thing the harness was really warm. Especially around the legs. I had to keep the zipper open to keep my less cool. Only when I got to over 10,000' did I want to completely close up the harness. No need for me to have long pants (I normally fly in shorts) not matter where I fly.

The zipper worked a lot better than on the previous Matrix harness, but getting the last little bit closed was still somewhat difficult, but now I've put a zipper pull on the lower zipper and that should help. To get the zipper pulled tight it helped to have an additional piece of foam in the boot, but that made the harness too short (fit is everything with a harness). Now without the extra foam my shoulders don't hurt, and my feet are relaxed.

I had no problem putting in a glider cross country bag in the bag against the back of the harness, and the rest of the glider bags in a side pocket next to my legs (after I took out the stuffing). It is a little tight on the legs, but not too bad.

My hips are comfortable (a key criteria) and the harness is tight enough in the chest (Curt has a smaller chest than me). I can easily get a liter and a half in a "camel back" and into the neoprene holder in the harness.

It is no problem to change my head up or down position (arch your back). I might be hanging a little high as there is a new hang strap on the harness, and that strap may be a little different than the length of the previous one. I'll have to look into that a bit more.

I like this "new" harness, but it took a while to get used to it. It seems like it will be comfortable enough for ten hour flights, which I look forward to in Texas (and perhaps earlier in Michigan).

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