UKC

Why would you not have the measurements for the harness on your online shop?!?! What use are arbitrary descriptions like XS, S, M etc?! They mean nothing!!

Anyway, I have ordered one now and I did find the measurements. Rant over! 

Because the ever manufactorer has their own sizing charts...

massive pita to really Measure every harness, and people still get it wrong.

don`t rant, but buy from a store you can visit if not certain (or see what every manufacterer means with their sizing).

or if you think that is wrong start ranking about clothing sizes.... or shoe

Why would you buy a harness online without trying it ? I would never dream of buying a harness without first finding out how it feels, a size guide wont tell you about that badly designed buckle or gear loop you can't comfortably reach.

But it can't be that hard for manufacturers to supply sizing charts with the harnesses!

We don't all have the luxury of a good supply of local shops to try them on. I have one local shop which stocks barely any climbing kit. After that, you are driving a long way to try one or two in the next shop, then a long way in the other direction to try another one or two! 

I can generally guess on waist size, but not leg size. Most XS and S will fit my waist, but leg loops have less adjustment and so fit matters more. 

I do regulaly rant about clothing sizes too, they are even more abitrary! I can easily be anything from an 8 to a 12, but that is not today's frustration!

Because I would be driving for hours to try several different ones on. That is the beauty of the internet, all your choices to hand.

I don't often find a harness uncomfortable as long as the sizes are correct. I can't do it with shoes so easily, but seem to be pretty easy to please with harnesses. 

Less of an effort to copy the numbers from the supplier into your web page. I presume you will look up such details anyway before deciding whether to stock an item.

Other than that I agree that even copying the manufacturer's values is still of little use, as apparently a cm in the Berghaus universe* is quite different from a Klättermusen one.

And don't get me started on shoe sizing....

CB

* I have no idea who their reference for 2XL jackets is. A garden gnome?

Thats my point, the sizing will vary even If the values are the same. 
 

hence, If fit is critical then don’t order online. Or If you do, don’t blame anyone else ’cept the Person in the mirror. 

But the min/max length to which the hip belt and leg loops of a harness can be adjusted is something that can be easily and objectively measured.

There is no issues like "slim fit" vs. "regular", where a similar objective description would involve too many parameters. To only give sizes as S/M/L without including the hopefully accurately measured cm values is just plain lazy.

CB

Agreed. Even if I was planning to go to a shop to try them on, I would want to be sure that the ones the stock were at least likely to fit before driving half an hour each way. Of the ones I looked at online, over half of them were nowhere near fitting me, so if I trailed out to a shop to find the 4 models they stocked were from that half which had no chance of fitting me then I would have wasted a lot of time and fuel. By having accurate measurements on their site, I can decide if I do want to try some on.

I just don't get why we ever quote sizes in anything other than measurements! Women's clothes are awful for it, but I don't think men's are always great in this regard either. 

I'm puzzled ... I've not found it hard to get sizing guides on line, either on the retail site or from the manufacturer's site. That's part of the beauty of being online - data is just clicks away.

At least with harnesses the range of fit accommodated by a given size is usually wider than for clothing and often has an overlap into adjacent sizes.

But look at boots...

I guess not all online shops are equal! I just had a quick look at Needlesports, I know they are a good shop having used them over many years and it seems all the harnesses they list have a size guide saying what waist and leg size is in cms for Sm, Med, Large etc. I don't expect that Needlesports is alone in take this obvious step! Do you want to say what shop didn't have that info on their website?

One word of caution though - manufacturer's size charts sometimes don't make sense for your body shape, or perhaps just more generally! It's a long time ago but look at the comments I made at the end of this review of an Arcteryx harness https://www.ukclimbing.com/gear/climbing/harnesses/arc'teryx_m270_harness-5... In fact seven years on, i.e. 7 years further into middle aged spread-ness!, and that harness is still a bit big on me - even though I only wear it for winter climbing over insulation and a shell jacket.

Having been the person who had to trawl through manufacturer's, invariably inconsistent/out of date/entirely fictional websites looking up the size charts and detailed feature sets for ~1000 products a year in the past (as a side to my main job) I can totally understand  why smaller shops would skip it. 

For example: 

https://www.mammut.com/uk/en/p/2020-01351-3437/ophir-fast-adjust-women/?adw...

https://www.tiso.com/tiso-wico-1130993/wild-country-mission-womens-tropical...

To name a couple. There were others where some had sizes and some didn't. Or some would link to a company's general size chart which referred to clothes, no relevance to harnesses.

Yes, some shops have them, but it's a mission trying to find the same harness in several places to see if it is one to keep in consideration

The overlap in sizes doesn't help if you don't know where the overlap starts and ends!! I only have 10cm difference between my waist and thigh circumference, so I am often at the smaller end of a waist belt and the bigger end of the leg loops. There are harnesses which allow for this, but by no means all. By having measurements shown then this allows people to check, doesn't seem like rocket science!

That does sound dull, but if a shop does that for me they are much more likely to get my trade as I can't buy a harness without knowing the measurements! Maybe shops should be putting pressure on manufacturers to mark their product sizing better?