Thank you. I plan on visiting SG in a couple of weeks myself, but would love to hear yours, or anyone else's experiences.
Update on first impressions. The EVO frame was unbelievabley light. Also, I usually couldn't care less for color, but the EVO shade of coloring is awful slick. Unfortunately it didn't fit my back nearly as nice as the other frames. Additionally, one needs to take extra care when strapping down the pack to ensure it doesn't barrel. If it fits your back though, then I think it's an ounce counters dream pack.
The Xcurve is the one I'm keeping for now. It simply fit my back the best out of the two SG's and really seems to lock in place. Additionally, it doesn't barrel quite as easy.
I really like the Exo as well, and I'll compare the Xcurve and Exo some more this spring during bear season as they both seems to feel real nice and comfortable with 50lbs. We'll see what works best with some heavy loads.
A couple more initial observations:
- I really like the size of the SG lumbar pads. They seems to nestle nicely in my back. (All testing has been down with 50lbs so far).
- Build quality seems to be fairly high across SG/Kifaru/Exo. I do have one issue/concern with the sewing QC on the SG belt though. I'll reach out and see what they say though.
- The Exo/Kifaru style of belt power pulls is far better to me than the SG style. The belt is much easier to adjust on the fly with them compared to the SG style.
- The Kifaru belt really is at another level in terms of comfort and fit for me. We'll see if the SG/Exo grow more on me.
- The Kifaru is in fact probably the most comfortable of all to me currently. But again, we'll see if more time to dial in and make fine adjustments changes anything.
- One knock on the SG Xcurve is the back of my head hits the top of the frame when I lean my head back. I had a similar problem with a 26" Kifaru frame, but don't have the issue with the 24" frame or the Exo. I'm 5'9" with about a 30" inseam.
Really they're all great packs, and as much as eating the shipping costs sucks, it's pretty excellent to be able to get them all in hand to compare.