Byer Penobscot Glider
By Esther Yu

Car camping trips often involve spending at least a few hours of sitting around a warm fire, eating dinner, roasting marshmallows, and relaxing. One of the ingredients to make this possible is a chair, but how about skipping the simple folding chair and going all the way to a rocking chair?

In the Penobscot Glider you can rock back enough to look at the stars without having to tilt your neck back. Then, you can lean way forward and warm your hands before the fire without ever having to shift in your seat. You'll notice the glider's comfort and flexibility after sitting for just a couple of minutes.

This full-size sling chair, from the Byer Manufacturing Company, takes the family room-only rocking chair out camping. The glider, which folds flat for easy packing in the trunk of a car, features a hard wood frame with a polyester cover for comfortable, soft lounging. The cover is soft enough to allow a body to mold into it without being too soft to lack back support.

It sets up as easily as any other simple folding chair. However, it's definitely one of the larger folding chairs around; the smaller size folds down to 44 á" x 20 á" x 5", and 47" x 20 á" x 5" for the standard size.

If the main concern is size, there are camping chairs available that compact to the shape of a folded umbrella and are only about a 1 á' by 5" wide. This chair, though conveniently packable, is not geared for size as much as for lounging comfort. As for the size differences, the company recommends purchasing a small if you are under six feet tall. However, at barely five feet tall, I have found the large glider to be extremely comfortable. The poly-fill pillow attached to the top of the polyester cover still reaches my head. The pillow is actually rather flat, hardly a pillow at all, but this doesn't seem like a flaw as my head is just as comfortable as the rest of my body while relaxing in the chair.

A precaution might be necessary here, though; even though the larger Penobscot Glider could be comfortable on smaller individuals it could be at least mildy disastrous to let a child play around on it because a few misplaced fingers could easily be crunched. I let a hyper child sit on it for a second and though she didn't discover finger-crunching under my nervous supervision, she did manage to collapse the chair on herself by leaning too far forward while trying to test the Penobscot Glider's limits. This didn't cause any harm, but could at least be very messy if the child had a meal in her hands, or worse if sitting to close to the fire.

One question I had was whether the chair's natural rocking motion would pose inconveniences? For instance, if I wanted to lean forward to roast a marshmallow or sit straight up to balance a plate of food on my lap, would the chair's inclination to tilt backward cause a problem? It doesn't seem like it. The chair is designed so that you can enjoy both leaning back and leaning forward. The ability to sit straight up is missing, but not necessarily missed.

Another feature not readily available in all camping chairs is simple aesthetics. This chair isn't limited solely to camping -- it would look good anyplace, even inside the house. Byer also stands behind their products with a warranty so defects can be fixed.

Conclusion:
At Byer's suggested retail price of around $60.00, the Penobscot Glider is an affordable price for a comfortable relaxation.

Esther Yu is a contributor to GearReview.com.

For more information, contact:
The Byer Manufacturing Company
74 Mill Street
Orono, ME 04473
(800) 338-0580