KUHL  Radikl Pants - Men's

These are the rare pants that can lead one to enlightenment. These pants are light for hot weather, with best in category comfort, and well made in every respect except one: The snap is likely to come undone, as it loosens with wear. As we age, we struggle with getting trapped into set ideas. Like a rosary bead, this snap serves as a frequent reminder of this omnipresent danger: Here is a company whose signature snap is central to their brand identity. They cannot acknowledge the contradiction in their inner self. We can do better. Were this a button, we'd sew it back on and not give it a moment's thought. The snap reminds us that we live in a complex world we don't often repair for ourselves. We're surrounded by flawed engineering, where the prototypes worked but the design failed to survive production tolerances. The snap is easy enough to repair, inviting us down a path where we reconnect with the physical world around us. A snap is a malleable pair of metal parts, that can be adjusted with less work than sewing on a button. The internet abounds with instructions for banging metal snaps to fix them, but this too is not a mindful approach. Instead, take a large C-clamp and compress the male part of the snap, tuning it to close securely with exactly the ease one desires. Paying attention to the rotational angle as one tightens the C-clamp, one can apply measured adjustments. One feels a great burden lift from one’s soul, with every part turn of the C-clamp.

I bought these pants from REI for a trip to South America, as an everyday wear - jungle pant, and by my second day in country and third time wearing the pants the backside fabric is stretching apart. Evidently this ground breaking knit with the durability of a woven isn't built to last. Nice design, poor quality. Not worth the money.