My mates fiancee went to TKMAX and picked up some cheap boardin pants last year. After one day at Glenshee she was cold, wet through and thoroughly miserable = False economy. TKMAX is cheap and good for summer holiday clothes not IMO for technical gear. If its cheap theres a good reason its cheap, it won't necessarily perform when you really need it. Ok for the snowdome, not up a glacier.

If you are going away to the snow then look for bargains at the end of season sales around April/May time and right through the summer. You can easily pick up good technical brands for less than half price if you have a good hunt around the internet board shops and your local high street shops tend to want to get of stock then too.

January sales are also a good time to get stuff, my ACG jacket was half price and got Quicksilver gore-tex pants off ebay brand new for £40 (saved 120) just because they were last years style and stock clearances. If its a good quality tech make then it will last a few years, its doubtful a 30 quid pair of trousers from TKMAX will.

Sorry but your wrong to a certain degree, Tkmaxx is stacked with loads of acg and quicksilver gore tex stuff, in fact 80% of jackets and trousers in fareham and southampton branch were them brands, some are cheap and nasty but others are cheap and good quality, istance i bought a section 10,000/10,000 jacket and a pair of static snowboard pants 10,000/10,000(italian brand rated highly inside italy and by usa).Its like any shop there are low grade clothing as well as hi in most shops,you have to know what your looking for, most clothes stocked in snowboard shops people rant and rave about are not any where near as technical as most tresspass for instance

my local shop is TK-max,
unless you mean 30min drive is local

just remember people not everyone has a local shop or slope on their door step

well iv been buying from tk max and evan tho the stuff may be seassons old that dosnt mater if you like it wear it at the mo im on budget and tk max have saved my but
that dosnt mean im not supporting my locals

and also its not tk max that makes the gear its still the independant companies that make it i got a dare2be jacket from ther for 35 bob and i poo you not its the warmest jacket iv ever owned so good infact i went to got another one for my girl but they
was out of stock so im gunna get her a tresspass one that was in ther and ther stuff is mega warm

me and my bf got some wicked trousers from tk maxx the other day and woz a really gd price. my bf got such a wicked dare2be coat from tk maxx for like £35 wen they retail at quite a lot so we were really pleased with r stuff. and it seems gd quality. we r payin 4 a hol and the gear so we cant really afford 2 pay top prices so tk maxx is a gd place 4 us 2 go.
so i guess we'll b headin dwn there soon agen!!