This was everything I wanted it to be, Lightweight (!), good strap system easily adjustable for a comfortable fit, and it provides plenty of ventilation. It's pricey, but I'm glad I upgraded to this from a lower-end Giro. The improved ventilation was worth it. Don't pay full price, wait for a sale!

Was pleased to sit down and begin to read The Best American Travel Writing on New Year's Eve because I really love inspired travel writing----the kind that illuminates the wonder of exploring other cultures. Right off the bat I was completely turned off by the introduction by Jason Wilson, the series editor. For some reason he makes his introduction a self-centered rant on two critics who didn't fully appreciate a Cartier-Bresson retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art. What has that to do with this book? I see that he admits his defensiveness when he writes, "compared to Cartier-Bresson, I am a very tiny talent, just like all the critics who write about him." And it seems that the crux of the criticism is the line between journalism and art. He admits that he "harbored deep fears" that he passed the line from art to journalism in his own work. "But that, of course, is about me," he writes. What a sour introduction to these travel stories, especially because I know the writing of Holland Cotter well. Holland Cotter is the most generous critic I know; every article of his invites the reader to deeply experience and enjoy the art about which he writes, often Asian art, his specialty---he always includes information about history, culture, and aesthetics and adds his own enthusiasm for seeing and experiencing soul-changing art. Cotter won a Pulitzer Prize for his criticism in 2009, and he is far from a hack. Calling someone a hack seems here to mean that Wilson doesn't agree with his views. Wilson's last book was introduced on his web page with this sentence: "While some may wonder, “Does the world really need another flavored vodka?” no one answers this question quite so memorably as spirits writer and raconteur Jason Wilson does in Boozehound." Still, I would not call him a hack. I am not familiar with his writing, and I assume that he writes about what interests him and what earns a living wage (he certainly piles on the praise of Elizabeth Gilbert, with whom he was hoping to work for "many, many years," and I'm not a big fan of hers). He may be a good writer, for all I know, but he is using this series as a sounding board for his personal rants and personal hurts.