Opinions and reviews on the Halcyon Contour sidemount system?

[Jim Lapenta]

The Halcyon is a pig. I've had a couple students show up with one and while they got through the class, we spent an inordinate amount of time making mods, adjusting, and tweaking things.
It still was a pain for them to dive. One student sold his immediately after the class and bought an XDeep.
The X deep on the other hand I find now, after setting up a few of them, is a joy to work with.

It's not easy to do the first time if you have no sidemount experience, but that's why you get with an instructor that does in various rigs to put it together.

It's so easy to get things where they need to be for the diver in a short amount of time. I usually allow 2 hours to build from scratch and do the initial fitting. Then it's an afternoon plus the next day in the pool.
By the end of the last pool session there's nothing left for the diver to do except fine tuning placement of d rings, pouch, etc. The harness fit and bungees/leashes are pretty much done.

It does depend on the skill level of the diver as well. They should have good buoyancy and trim to start with. If not, better to get that down than waste time trying to do it while getting new gear set up.

As for overheads, no matter what configuration you're going to use, get it and do 50 dives or so in open water before taking it into an overhead. Even though I taught all my AN /DP classes in open water, I required every student to have a minimum of 25 dives in the configuration they were going to use.
It's not fair to them or other students to show up for a tech class in a simulated or actual overhead in gear you've never used before.

 

[tbone1004]

shouldn't be on your radar for most sidemount diving, especially not with LP85's. Far better rigs out there and realistically even for big heavy bottles the original Dive Rite Nomad is a lot better of a unit but even that has pretty specific use case.
It wouldn't make my top 5 list personally. I've only dove it twice, but it was with the guy who designed it, and that was enough for me.

 

[JacobAdkins]

The Halcyon is a pig. I've had a couple students show up with one and while they got through the class, we spent an inordinate amount of time making mods, adjusting, and tweaking things.
It still was a pain for them to dive. One student sold his immediately after the class and bought an XDeep.
The X deep on the other hand I find now, after setting up a few of them, is a joy to work with.

It's not easy to do the first time if you have no sidemount experience, but that's why you get with an instructor that does in various rigs to put it together.

It's so easy to get things where they need to be for the diver in a short amount of time. I usually allow 2 hours to build from scratch and do the initial fitting. Then it's an afternoon plus the next day in the pool.
By the end of the last pool session there's nothing left for the diver to do except fine tuning placement of d rings, pouch, etc. The harness fit and bungees/leashes are pretty much done.

It does depend on the skill level of the diver as well. They should have good buoyancy and trim to start with. If not, better to get that down than waste time trying to do it while getting new gear set up.

As for overheads, no matter what configuration you're going to use, get it and do 50 dives or so in open water before taking it into an overhead. Even though I taught all my AN /DP classes in open water, I required every student to have a minimum of 25 dives in the configuration they were going to use.
It's not fair to them or other students to show up for a tech class in a simulated or actual overhead in gear you've never used before.

Thanks ! What’s your opinion on the Razor system it seems pretty close to Xdeep.

 

[JacobAdkins]

shouldn't be on your radar for most sidemount diving, especially not with LP85's. Far better rigs out there and realistically even for big heavy bottles the original Dive Rite Nomad is a lot better of a unit but even that has pretty specific use case.
It wouldn't make my top 5 list personally. I've only dove it twice, but it was with the guy who designed it, and that was enough for me.

Thanks you guys have definitely helped me make a good decision.

 

[tbone1004]

Thanks ! What’s your opinion on the Razor system it seems pretty close to Xdeep.

nowhere near as good as the xDeep, though personally I'd take a serious look at the Katana 2. Some on here will know how much it pains me to recommend something from Hollis, but that is where I would put my money.
Contact @LandonL at Aqui Watersports, he owns both of them and can help you get sorted out

 

[LandonL]

Hi @JacobAdkins,

Many thanks to @tbone1004 for the tag. I will PM you my number, feel free to give me a call and let me see if I can get you sorted out and answer any questions you might have.

Cheers,
Landon

 

[JonG1]

Out of interest what differentiates the more popular SM harnesses such as the Katana, X-Deep and Razor.

I picked up a cheap Diamond a while ago which seems fine but as with anything I have no frame of reference to compare it to and they all seem pretty simple, just wondered what the key points are really.

Apologies if this is a bit OT though.

 

[rjack321]

Thanks ! What’s your opinion on the Razor system it seems pretty close to Xdeep.

The Razor is "ok". The wing could be better. The xdeep wing is in general better. Both the xdeep and the razor wings tend to turn into a balloon on your butt if you dive FL sized steel tanks with air/nitrox. The Katana is a little better about that.

 

[rddvet]

What tanks do you mostly sidemount?

LP 85s almost exclusively except when in MX

Thanks ! What’s your opinion on the Razor system it seems pretty close to Xdeep.

Razor was great back in the day, but the Stealth and Katana 2 have stolen the razor concept and improved upon it significantly. Stealth or Katana 2 are better. There's some pros to the K2 and I like the Stealth better, but you can't go wrong with either.

Side note: I started in BM doubles for cavern and Cave 1. Then sm became very popular and I fell for it and sm'd for about 10 years. Now I'm back to diving mostly bm (doubles and ccr). I don't think I've dove sm in 2.5 years now and I really don't miss it. SM feels amazing in the water. But after i took fundies I realized I can feel just as amazing in bm. The issue was the mentor that taught me to dive bm doubles really didn't teach me well, so I was never really comfortable. Whereas I took a sm from one of the best on the planet (Edd) and that made sm more comfortable for me. Had I taken a doubles primer or fundies from the get go I probably never would have moved to sm. Don't get me wrong, sm is great. But if I were doing it all over again I'd do all the way through full cave in bm, then add sm as a tool or an add-on to my experience.

 

[rjack321]

Don't get me wrong, sm is great. But if I were doing it all over again I'd do all the way through full cave in bm, then add sm as a tool or an add-on to my experience.

Boosting this nugget of wisdom. Start off in backmount, add stages in full cave... Need something new? then sidemount, then sidemount stages, then backmount CCR, then very very last - sidemount CCR.