Gear
Archive
Don’t feel like making friends with bears and raccoons? Keep your campsite locked down with these simple tips.
In a time when “enduro” has become a tired epithet, the Nomad virtually reclaims the genre with downhill manners equal to any big bike and a weight that rivals many trail machines
Double Plastic Mountaineering Boot: A highly reliable style of footwear that prevents frostbite in alpine environments.
Jacques Cousteau: A French explorer and arguably the most prolific marine scientist and ocean conservationist of the 20th century.
Tough-ass pants: A term for rugged work trousers that are particularly good at handling abuse.
The raw materials that make up the tools for hiking, running, paddling, skiing, and cycling. These 36 building blocks are indispensable to the design and function of gear, from mankind’s first wool layer to the latest lab-born membranes. (Some things just look better in print. To see this in all…
A tubeless tire tool that will fix holes too big for sealant
SUP: Short for stand-up paddle-board, a stable floating platform that combines the cool of surfing with the practicality of a spin workout.
What do world-famous pilots like Jeb Corliss and Joby Ogwyn have in common? They all wear suits sewn by Tony Uragallo, a garden-loving designer who helps daring men zoom through the sky.
Tech binding: A lightweight binding system that transformed backcountry skiing and put telemarking on the path to obsolescence.
Dropper Post: A mountain-bike component that can be raised or lowered with a button mounted on the handlebars.
Chip timing: The practice of using a small wearable transmitter to track race participants’ times at regular checkpoints along a course.
Utility bike: A bicycle built for hauling children, gear, or grocery bags full of organic quinoa and local honey.
Crowdfunding: A method of raising capital to launch commercial ventures in which small individual donations are made through an online platform.
You can now use clipless pedals with sneakers when you want to ditch your bike shoes
Direct to Consumer: A business model in which a company sells its products via its own website, catalog, or store, reducing retail markup and passing the savings along to the consumer.
Base-Camp Duffel: A large, 155-liter bag often seen loaded on yaks in Nepal’s Khumbu region for a few simple reasons: it can take a beating, it has straps that convert it into a backpack, and mountaineers know that it can carry all their gear.
Bill Bowerman: A legendary Oregon track coach who cofounded the shoe company Blue Ribbon Sports in 1964; 14 years later, it became Nike.
Lifa Shirt: The first commercially available base layer made from polypropylene, released in 1970 by Helly Hansen.
Sports Bra: A groundbreaking invention that lets women participate comfortably in a range of vigorous athletic activities.
Royal Robbins: Climber, businessman, and archetype for the modern clean-climbing ethic, which espouses the use of removable protection instead of pounding pitons into rock.
Camouflage: A varying pattern of earth-colored prints designed to obscure the wearer from view, worn by hunters and members of the U.S. military
Rollerblade: A roller skate with soft, linearly arranged wheels offering fast, smooth glide.
Gear companies know how to make packs lighter, jackets more waterproof, and skis burlier. The only problem: young people couldn’t care less.
Denali Jacket: A popular performance fleece garment made by the North Face and commonly seen on mountaineers and college students.
Double Vacuum: A technology dating back to 1892 that suspends one container inside another, leaving a small amount of air between the two to insulate the inner contents from external temperature changes.
Lifetime Warranty: A company’s promise to repair or replace an item that breaks.
USGS Topographical Map: A detailed representation of a landscape, created by the United States Geological Survey, and a rare example of something every bit as beautiful as it is useful.
Surfboard Fin: A structural element, usually made of wood or fiberglass, attached to the bottom of a surfboard to aid maneuverability.
Jeremy Jones: A pioneering big-mountain snowboarder and snowboard designer.
A rapid sequence of radical innovations, such as appeared in cycling between 1984 and 1987, the sport’s Age of Enlightenment.
Swiss Army Knife: The world’s first consumer multitool, designed by cutler Karl Elsener with two blades, a screwdriver, and a can opener.
Fly rod: A skinny stick, usually 6 to 13 feet long, used in conjunction with a reel, a line, and hand-tied simulations of in-sects to catch fish.
Jack O’Neill: A former commercial fisherman widely credited with inventing the neoprene wetsuit.
A category of gear that came into being in the late 1960s as more and more skiers ventured beyond resort boundaries.
Gone are the days of rangers in fire lookout towers. Now, mountain-top cameras are being used to spot smoke and flames.
Wetsuit: An insulating garment that allows individuals to spend more time in cold water.
Garmin Forerunner 201: The world’s first all-in-one GPS-enabled running watch, released in 2003 by Kansas navigation company Garmin.
Blimp-tired bicycles were developed for one of the most grueling endurance races in the world. But then everyone else realized how much fun they were.
A sturdy, purpose-made fishing boot that has become the gold standard of footwear in the 49th state.
Founders of the Recreational Equipment Co-op (REI), which the couple started in their West Seattle home in 1938 as a way to help climber friends gain access to cheaper ice axes and harnesses by ordering bulk gear from Europe.
The Perfect Size Wheel: An elusive and controversial hoop that allows mountain bikers the ability to optimize progress over rocky terrain.
The brand of zipper that is likely keeping your britches up at this very moment. Headquartered in Tokyo, 81-year-old YKK (short for Yoshida Kogyo Kabushikikaisha, which translates as Yoshida Company Limited) was founded by Tadao Yoshida, who started making custom zippers to take advantage of breaks and…
Telescoping front forks and articulating rear frame triangles that absorb bumps and shocks.
The surprising tendency for technical products and trends from the outdoor world to find their way into mass culture.