Big Agnes Rapide SL Insulated Review

There are other products in our best sleeping pads for camping round up that beat the Big Agnes Rapide SL Insulated in terms of weight, R-Value (eg. Insulation) and cost, but the balance big Agnes strikes between these factors with this product is very compelling and for this reason, I think that this is going to be a very attractive choice for a lot of hikers.

I was also very interested to see the wide range of size options this pad is offered in – six in total. This is great to see, especially in a product that is marketed as a light weight option – as it means you can pick a size that best suits you and not have to carry more sleeping pad than you need. All this coupled with Big Agnes’ well-respected name and reputation for making top-notch gear just adds to the appeal of this pad in my opinion.

Performance Comparison

Type and Shape

The Big Agnes Rapide SL Insulated is the company’s warmest ultralight sleeping pad. It’s a rectangular inflatable design and I’m focusing on the regular sized version that unfolds to 183x51cm/72x20in in this review. This pad is offered in an extensive range of six sizes which include, aside from the Regular version, Petite, Tall, Regular Wide, Tall Wide and Double.

That range of sizes is particularly noteworthy, I think, because this pad is marketed as ultra-light, so you can buy the size that best suits your height and body shape and doesn’t leave you carrying more pad than you actually need.

Comfort

Inflatable sleeping pads are essentially thin air mattresses and they are, I think it’s fair to say, always going to improve your sleeping comfort relative to a thin foam sleeping pad, or just setting up your sleeping bag straight on your tent’s floor. As we’ll expand on more elsewhere in this review, this pad has a high R Value and part of the way it achieves this by being thicker than average – it’s 11cm/4.25in thick when inflated.

By contrast, most of the other sleeping pads we’ve assessed – even those with high R Values comparable to the Rapide SL – inflate to around 7.5-9cm/3-3.5in thick. That extra thickness equates to extra cushioning, so the Rapide SL scores well in terms of comfort. In use, I found the extra air volume that comes from the extra thick design means that you are less likely to feel the ground through the pad when you roll over or prop yourself up. 

Warmth

The Big Agnes Rapide SL Insulated has an R Value of 4.8 – putting it at the better insulated end of the products we’ve assessed. The R Value is an industry standard way of measuring the heat insulation provided by a sleeping pad. Higher values equate to better insulation, though you should keep in mind that having a well-insulated pad alone won’t be enough to keep you warm on a cold night.

You’ll need to pair the pad with a sleeping bag with an appropriate temperature rating for the ambient temperature, and these ratings in turn often assume that you’ll be wearing a certain amount of clothing in the bag. The flip side of this is that a well-insulated pad won’t make you overheat in warm weather provided the rest of your sleeping system is appropriately rated. 

The upshot of all this is that if you sleep outdoors in a range of different temperatures and only want to own one sleeping pad, then one with a higher R Value makes more sense.

Big Agnes say this bag is suited for three season use, but this pad will do well in milder winter conditions and, as R values are culminative, it can always be combined with a relatively cheap and light closed-cell foam pad like the Nemo Switchback to boost its insulation if you want to sleep out in more extreme cold conditions.

Ease of Use

Inflatable sleeping pads like this Big Agnes Rapide SL Insulated are always going to be more involved to set up than closed-cell foam pads which can typically be unrolled or unfolded in a matter of seconds. By contrast, an inflatable pad takes minutes to set up, though with practice, it can be unpacked and ready to go in well under five minutes without you needing to break a sweat doing so.

This sleeping pad comes with an inflation tool – Big Agnes call this the ‘Pumphouse High Volume Inflation Sack’ – and this is basically a variant on the inflation tools I’ve seen with every other inflatable pad I’ve reviewed. The inflation tool looks a bit like a roll-top dry bag with a valve at the non-open end that connects to the pad. You connect the bag to the pad, breath lightly into the open end to expand the bag and then start rolling it shut.

This compresses the air in the bag and forces it into the pad as you continue to roll. The process sounds involved – and it’s worth practicing a few times before you head out onto the trail if you’ve never done it before – but once you’ve got your head around it, it’s easy enough and doesn’t require much physical exertion. 

Of course, you can also inflate the pad using your breath alone – though this is much more laborious and, having done this myself a few times in the past, I’d say that the inflation tool is well-worth the small amount of weight it’ll add to your pack for the effort and time it will save!

Weight

As I mentioned at the outset, the Big Agness Rapide SL Insulated comes in a number of different sizes and, as you’d expect, the different sizes all have different weights. Given that this product is targeted at the superlight backpacking crowd, I think this wide range of sizes is a great thing: you can buy the pad that’s most appropriate for your height and body shape, potentially saving some unnecessary weight in the process.

The regular sized Rapide SL weighs in at 510g/1lb 2oz. Compared to the other premium ultra lightweight pads in our round up, that’s the same weight as the regular version of the Nemo Tensor All Season, and slightly heavier than the Therm-a-Rest NeoAir XTherm NXT, which weighs in at an impressive 453g/1lb for the Regular version. Both these pads have a higher R Value than the Rapide SL. Taking things to the extreme, the Therm-a-Rest NeoAir X Lite has the same R Value as the Big Agnes and weighs in at 368g/13oz. All these pads are more expensive than the Rapide SL.

If you always hike with your partner, you might be tempted by the double version of this pad as it offers the same sleeping area as two of the regular sized pads. Whilst the double does work out lighter than two regulars, the weight saving is modest at only 50g/1.76oz and it actually has a slightly higher packed volume than two regular pads too.