I’ve been on a quest for the perfect belt for probably over a decade. It feels like Ponce de León’s quest for the fountain of youth, in that I haven’t found it yet and I’m about sure by now that it doesn’t exist. If you are active outdoors and wear pants or shorts that require a belt, I’m sure you feel me right now. For about five years of my quest, I rocked two versions of the Patagonia Tech Web Belt. I feel qualified to provide you a thorough review of the belt, so here we go.
The first of these I got was in olive green. At first I felt like it was great. The buckle was hefty and could open beers. The nylon webbing was thick. However after about a year, the teeth in the buckle didn’t do such a good job of grabbing into the nylon webbing and it would keep slipping and become loose. I found myself constantly retightening by belt, which was really annoying. Being a cheapskate, I suffered through this for probably another year before I decided that I should order a new one. I was hopeful that perhaps there was some design or production flaw that caused the belt to falter over time. So this time I ordered a grey one. However, after some time that belt also had the same issue – the teeth stopped gripping the nylon so well and I was once again tightening my belt. I suffered through this for another three years as some sort of self-flagellating stupid tax. Then finally one day I’d had enough and I switched gears and ordered a new belt brand. (In full transparency, I moved over to the Arc’teryx Conveyor Belt. It performs much better than the Patagonia but still isn’t perfect, but I’ll save the details for another post).
So in what is clearly the most important feature of a belt – holding your pants up by staying tight – the Patagonia Tech Web Belt fails. The nylon on both my belts bears wear marks where it is clearly slipping and can’t hold tight anymore. I’ve relegated these belts to be used when I’m doing house or yard work, and don’t want to get paint or dirt on my daily belt.
The belt buckle is also really heavy. By no means is this a belt I would want to bring with me on a backpacking trip or anything. It’s chonky. It feels like a quality piece of metal, and it will surely be inhabiting space on this planet far longer than I, but it’s too big, bulky, and heavy to be a useful piece of outdoor gear. Perhaps if you needed it as a self defense too, you could swing the buckle at an attacker. But otherwise it feels stupidly heavy. I was always afraid I was going to injure someone (kid or dog) when removing the belt.
I also never fully understood how the bottle opener feature of the belt buckle was supposed to work. Maybe I’m an idiot (very likely), but I never successfully opened a bottle of beer with it. I tried once and it kept slipping on the cap, so I gave up and used my Leatherman instead. It also seems kind of absurd to pull off your belt to open a beer. I can imagine being at a social gathering and as I stand there with beer in hand and start removing my belt, the people around me starting to wonder whether I’m planning to instill some 1950s dad discipline or kicking the party up a notch and remove my pants. It’s just a weird way to open a beer.
One final thing I’d like to note – if you use a nylon belt for serious outdoor activity or everyday wear, it’s going to stink after a while. Your sweat is getting all over it. The webbing on the Patagonia is so thick that I found a simple wash in the washing machine wouldn’t fully remove it – I had to scrub it with detergent and even then it wasn’t perfect. By contrast, my Arc’teryx Conveyor Belt cleans up nicely after a single wash in the washing machine because the webbing is much thinner. No one wants a stinky belt, and the Patagonia makes it difficult to clean well.
Pros
- Durable
Cons
- Loses grip and slips after a while
- Buckle is unnecessarily heavy
- Bottle opener is awkward
- Hard to clean
Rating: 1.5 / 5
I would love to give you more perspective on the Patagonia Tech Web Belt, but it’s a belt so there’s only so much to write about. Because it loses its ability to hold tight after a while, it’s not worth your money. I do not recommend anyone buy this belt. It’s not worth any amount of money – avoid at all costs.
As I mentioned, I switched over to the Arc’teryx Conveyor Belt and I like it a lot. It’s been about two years since I got the Arc’teryx and it holds tight still. It’s also much lighter than the Patagonia, and so works well for daily wear around town and in the backcountry.
Do you have another belt that you like for outdoor adventures? Share with our readers in the comments below.
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