Icebreaker is a cheeky brand. It has the temerity to call some of its merino woolen products “Realfleece,” because it argues that somewhere along the way the outdoor-gear buyer got conned into believing that vests and shirts and coats made of miraculously warm polyester were made of something called “fleece.” Actual fleece, of course, is [...]
camping/hiking
Before I was a backpacker, I was a camper. At the age of four. And maybe credit goes to this piece of gear, the Coleman two-burner stove. As a very little kid I can remember the smell of Coleman Fuel (this wasn’t called “white gas,” in my family it was Coleman Fuel, in a red can). [...]
Born in Berkeley in 1968, The North Face at first was a single store selling other brands — no official in-house label existed. Eventually that would change, and by the 1980s The North Face was less of an independent retailer and instead a label of its own, a legendary one at that, becoming an outfitter [...]
Polartec has been on a tear, first with NeoShell, the highly breathable and waterproof fabric, and now with Alpha insulation, which it says is ultralight, compressible, and will breathe better than any synthetic insulation ever. Actually, Alpha sounds a lot like down. Even like new breeds of water-resistent down, except that Polartec is touting Alpha [...]
The annual trek to Vermont’s Kingdom Trails doesn’t happen annually. But eight of the last ten years, a handful of friends has managed the six-hour drive north to one of the best singletrack oases on earth. Kingdom features more than 100 miles of ridiculously manicured singletrack, all purpose-built for riding. On nearby Burke Mountain there’s [...]
Fifteen years. Fifteen years of use, abuse, and mistreatment, and still the Patagonia Black Hole Duffel does me right. The duffel has waterproof zippers, it’s lightweight compared to Cordura duffels, and its minimalist design (haul straps at either end and dual backpack straps) means it doesn’t get as tortured by baggage handlers in first- through [...]
Officially, this is the “Trekkin Insulated Shacket.” Unofficially, that’s a stupid name, but it does tell you something about where Mountain Hardwear is going in its product design. Lately, Mountain Hardwear has hitched its wagon to the likes of speed alpinist Ueli Steck, whose hunger for lightweight performance products has lit a fire under Mountain [...]
It’s a simple story for simple minds: Death Wish Coffee has twice the caffeine for the same amount of beans. That means, well…you know what it means: same buzz at half the weight, double the buzz at the same weight. Ultralight crackpacking, here we come! Lightening your load wasn’t Death Wish founder Mike Brown’s motivation, [...]
When the power went out the other morning I rummaged around with a headlamp to unearth the Jetboil coffee press from my gear bin. I’d acquired it before a recent camping trip and was shocked to find it outperformed my home Bodum. So there I was, at home, but making like a hiker, boiling water [...]
See that? That’s a Bic lighter that has accompanied me on more epic hikes and trips than just about any tool in my arsenal. It’s just about dry of fuel and has been “grandfathered” on my tool bench, next to Mr. Bill. The lighter has a sort of In-Case-of-Emergency, Break-Zip-Tie status, enshrined because it reminds [...]
When it comes to Lodge cookwear, your response is one of two things: Either you know and love it or you’ve never heard of it. If you’re in the former camp…you camp. You camp and you cook real food when you do, not some reconstituted mixture of “vegetable” or “meat.” Most likely you’re as much [...]
Rapha’s Chris DiStefano insisted that I know one thing when he sent me their Touring Shorts to test: “These are not ‘mountain bike’ shorts. We will not make products for mountain biking. Ever.” DiStefano wasn’t being an adamant stick in the mud (or, as it were, in the asphalt), he was stating a fact. Rapha’s [...]
In July, Peter Metcalf, CEO of Holladay, Utah-based Black Diamond Equipment, quit the state’s Ski and Snowboard Industry Working Group. In a March op-ed in the Salt Lake Tribune, Metcalf took Utah governor Gary Herbert to task for backing state legislation that petitions the federal government to cede federal land to the state. Land that, [...]
Whenever a public relations rep says something like, “It’s technical clothing that doesn’t look or feel like it,” you should be suspicious. But then a funny thing happened: I wore it when the temps hit the lower 90s in New York’s Hudson Valley, even though it was still May and too dang early for nine [...]
The Daily Bike, May 24, 2013
Boy Scouts to Allow Gay Members
The Daily Bike: Mountain Bike Enduro World Series Kicks Off
Overlandia: Driving a 1936 Rolls Royce Across India
15 Seconds: Driving Indian Creek, Utah
The Man Who Skied Down Everest Climbs it at 80
National Avalanche Legend Doug Abromeit Passes Away
Smokey Is Fighting Fracking and the Feds Don’t Like It
Prickly, Beloved Mountain Gazette Print Version Shut Down
Historical Badass: Alpinist Alex Lowe
Volunteer Fired at Saguaro National Park for Reporting Graffiti
Sierra Club Joins Lawsuit Against Mountain Bike Park
Driver Busted After Bragging on Twitter About Hitting Cyclist
The Daily Bike: Les Granges du Galibier, Giro d’Italia 2013
