From game-changing new materials (like moisture-wicking cotton) to evolutionary leaps in engineering (like a rotating helmet for extreme crashes), the avant-garde of 21st-century gear has just one thing in common: a total disregard for the status quo.

There's the gear you want, and there's the gear you need. After much internal debate, we present the 25 products every guy should own.

Get in gear with these heavy-duty trail runners and barely-there road shoes.

The secret to performing in hot weather? Have a really cold one.

Runner Up: Best for Road Running

Ryan Hall has been touted as the savior of American distance running since 2007. So when's he going to win a race?

Learning Curve

How to see your stomping grounds as a concrete jungle.

Vowing to change the world of endurance running, where Kenyan athletes have been treated like indentured servants, a revolutionary band has established a base in a perfect green valley. And where is this magical place, this Vuleefore? In suburban America. Where George Washington slept. Where an enemy already guards its turf.

Coping with that oh-so-troubling lumbar region