On a brisk weekday in October 2023, three sewing machines hummed while experimental indie pop played quietly inside a warehouse near the airport in Missoula, Montana. Three sewers had their heads down, assembling eggplant-colored jumpsuits, as Mallory Ottariano, the 34-year-old founder of the womenā€™s outdoor clothing brand , squinted into a dizzying spreadsheet. The Youniverseā€”what Ottariano, a queen of puns, calls the factory she opened just eight months earlierā€”smelled like the sugary candle that had been burning that morning, and soon it would be fragrant with garlic.

ā€œWhat kind of pizza do you guys like? Or not like?ā€ Ottariano shouted from the lofted office that a handy friend helped her build. Staring at numbers was making her hungry.

ā€œNo olives!ā€ one of the sewers shouted between stitches.

ā€œAny meat?ā€ Ottariano asked.

ā€œI like pepperoni,ā€ said another.

You couldnā€™t tell from the employeesā€™ nonchalance, but Youer was in the middle of its latest supply-chain crisis. Actually, two. First, it couldnā€™t find a specific purple thread in all of the U.S. to sew together 300 pairs of leggings, 30 of which had already sold to customers eagerly awaiting their arrival. Any other color would look weird, and dyeing was too expensive. Second, inventory slated to be ready in a month for a Black Friday drop wasnā€™t even underway at a contract factory in Los Angeles, California. Unless Ottariano found a fix fast, Youerā€™s customers would be disappointed, if not angry.

Since Ottariano started out back in 2012 with a $100 sewing machine from eBay, her brand has amassed a fanatical following among active women. Signature garments like the best-selling ($179) and stretchy ($94) sell out quickly. The vibrant prints are hand-designed and cheekily named by Ottariano, like a floral pattern called OK Bloomer.

Prodded about her stress levels, Ottariano shrugged as if to say, Whatā€™s new?Ā After all sheā€™s been throughā€”including contemplating bankruptcy following losses in the hundreds of thousands of dollars to unreliable factories in 2020ā€”not many setbacks phase her anymore.

ā€œIā€™ve proven to myself that we can figure it out,ā€ she says. ā€œItā€™s not really fun, but I think thatā€™s just the reality of business. If I want to stay in this industry, thatā€™s going to happen all the damn time.ā€

Itā€™s especially the reality for small outdoor businesses like Youer that have chosen to manufacture domestically despite countless challenges such as higher costs, fewer resources, more regulation, and now potential new tariffs proposed by President Donald Trump on U.S. imports from China, Canada, and Mexico.

These obstacles pose such a threat to small businesses that doubt lingers: Is having more control, greater transparency, and better ethics by manufacturing in the U.S. worth it? And do American consumers care enough about those things to keep the few American-made gear brands alive?

The post Howā€™s a Small, Made-in-the-USA Company to Survive These Days? appeared first on ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶų Online.

I should be wrecked.

Itā€™s my first full day in South Africa after a brutal 33-hour journey from my home in Bend, Oregon. I woke at 3:15 A.M. to catch the first of three flights to Johannesburg, crossed nine time zones in economy class, and finally fell into bed at 9 P.M. Typically, my jet lag for such a long-haul trip lasts for days.

Strangely, though, I feel great. I have no brain fog. Iā€™m not dizzy or cold or getting any odd-hour cravings. And Iā€™m alert; in fact, fighting my way through Jobergā€™s frenetic traffic while driving on the left side of the road in a stick-shift rental isnā€™t even stressful. As a travel writer whoā€™s logged about a million miles flying across every timezone on earth over the past 25 years, this state of normalcy has me dumbstruck. No jet lag? How can this be?

Unlike other globe-trotting trips, this time I used , a $99 jet lagā€“busting system that five years ago was only available to elite military personnel and a few top business executives. Now anyone can buy it online.

FlyKitt had me taking dietary supplements every few hours, drinking caffeinated, sugary beverages at specific times, and wearing blue-light-filtering glasses at others. The supplements, grouped in blister packs, have simplified names like ā€œprotectā€ (instead of vitamin C with tart-cherry powder) and ā€œmellowā€ (instead of magnesium with melatonin). Also key is its app, which queried me about my regular sleep habits and upcoming flights before producing a schedule that told me when to take which pill, when to eat and drink, when to sleep, and when to wear the glasses. The app can detect if flights are delayed and recalculate the schedule instantly.

The regimen began shortly after my alarm went off, when the app told me to eat a high-protein, low-carbohydrate meal and pop two ā€œprotectā€ pills and one ā€œsustainā€ pill (a mix of omega-3 fatty acids and fish oil). ItĀ ended 45 hours and 26 pills later. And because the kit comes with enough supplements and drink mixes for two trips, Iā€™ll follow a similar routine when I fly home.

Iā€™d heard about FlyKitt from an ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶų editor, who thought Iā€™d be a good guinea pig to test its legitimacy, given how much I travel. I was skeptical. Having researched other jet lag remedies beforeā€”like fasting and eating a hearty breakfastā€”I knew most are . Science that light (and avoiding light) and, to a lesser extent, melatonin, are the only things that shift your internal clock.

But in South Africa, feeling great, Iā€™m flabbergasted. FlyKittā€™s results are mind-bending. I want to know why it works, when no verified research out there yet supports key parts of it. My curiosity turns into a monthslong quest for answers.

A Brief History of FlyKitt and Jet-Lag Research

FlyKitt is the flagship product of the Los Angelesā€“based company Ā (which is in the process of rebranding itself as FlyKitt.) A biotech start-up, it has evolved from offering customized coaching and wellness plans for people in high-stress jobsā€”such as CEOs and national security workersā€”to developing health and human-performance products.

The company was founded by Andrew Herr, a former researcher for the Pentagon who holds graduate degrees from Georgetown University in health physics, microbiology and immunology, and national-security policy. The companyā€™s chief technology officer, Clayton Kim, studied neuroscience and economics at Brown, where he conducted sleep research in the lab directed by Mary Carskadon, one of the countryā€™s preeminent sleep researchers. According to Herr and Kim, FlyKitt solves jet lag for 93 percent of their customers.

FlyKittā€™s work builds upon a considerable body of sleep research that dates back to at least , when scientists at the University of Chicago spent six weeks living in a cave in Kentucky and discovered that humans have internal circadian rhythms. (I once spent 82 hours in total darkness during a cave retreat and my own rhythm fell apart). In 1931, American aviator Wiley Post flew around the world in eight days and described what we now call jet lag, though that term didnā€™t appear until around 1966 during the golden age of air travel.

ā€œThereā€™s no such thing as ship lag,ā€ says Steven Lockley, a circadian-rhythm scientist, professor, and creator of the app , a FlyKitt competitor that uses tested scientific research and information from peer-reviewed papersĀ to help travelers overcome jet lag by dictating when you should get light and when you should avoid it. Iā€™ve tried Timeshifter multiple times, too, once while jumping 11 time zones between Oregon and Azerbaijan, and had only slight jet-lag-induced wooziness for a day. It is much cheaper than FlyKittā€”$25 a year for unlimited trips or $10 for a single tripā€”but you must begin the regimen of timed light exposure a few days before your trip.

What Is Jet Lag? And How Do Long-Haul Flights Affect the Body?

Jet lag is easy to explain. Crossing longitudes quickly leaves our internal clockā€”otherwise known as our circadian rhythmā€”and the actual clock at our destination misaligned. Whatā€™s extraordinary is how our bodies naturally adapt. This evolutionary gift lets us adjust to seasonal changes in daylight so we can function our best during the day and rest properly at night. Our internal clock is wired to predict how much daylight we’ll have tomorrow, which, eons ago, was crucial to human survivalā€”it ensured we were awake at the right time and rested enough to find a mate, gather food, and avoid being eaten.

Since weā€™ve only evolved to shift our body clocks by a few minutes each day, however, travel throws that bodily forecast off, and we suffer from jet lag. Itā€™s a delicate system, so delicate that you donā€™t actually have to travel to throw a wrench into the works. Monday doesnā€™t suck just because itā€™s Monday; if you stay out too late on Friday and wake up too late on Saturday, you can suffer from ā€œsocial jet lagā€ come Monday morning, even if you slept well on Sunday and were never hungover. Lockley calls that type of non-traveling jet lag ā€œwobble.ā€

Circadian systems run roughly on 24-hour cycles, but each person is different. People who have shorter circadian rhythms tend to be early birds and generally have an easier time traveling east. People with longer circadian rhythms tend to be night owls and have an easier time traveling west.

Circadian ā€œrhythmā€ is misleading, because itā€™s actually many rhythms. Our lungs, heart, kidneys, immune system, digestive system, brain, skin, and likely every cell have their own cycles of productivity and rest. Thatā€™s one reason why Ā in the morning and why people who and spend long periods of time ā€œdesynchronizedā€ tend to be at a , , and . Our bodies simply donā€™t function as well when our internal clocks arenā€™t in sync with the ones on our wrists. One study suggested that the only organ possibly exempt from this cycle is the testicle. (The boys must always be ready.)

Each organā€™s ā€œperipheral clockā€ follows one central clock, a collection of cells in your brainā€™s hypothalamus called the suprachiasmatic nucleus. ā€œThink of the SCN as the conductor of an orchestra,ā€ Lockley says, ā€œand the peripheral clocks as the players.ā€ The SCN takes its cues from retina cells that contain a special pigment called melanopsin, which can sense changes in light, especially cyanā€”a key color in daylight and the reason why staring at the blue light emitting from your phone before bed can affect your sleep.

To shift your central internal clock and beat jet lag, then, all of your clocks must shift, a process that takes about one day per hour of time change. A light-dark cycle registered through your eyes is key to making that shift. You can speed that process up by manipulating that cycle and using melatonin. Says Lockley: ā€œThatā€™s the only thing to have ever been shown to shift the clock.ā€

The FlyKitt Solution to Jet Lag

None of this was new to Herr. ā€œWhenever you look at performance in the military, the circadian rhythm is huge,ā€ he told me. ā€œSoldiers donā€™t get a lot of sleep, and they need to perform well at night.ā€

His research went deeper than that. During his years working with the military, Herr sought ways to help SEALs endure extreme conditionsā€”like riding for hours underwater in exposed submersiblesā€”and emerge ready to fight. He also worked with fighter pilots who felt inexplicably foggy after flying at high elevations. Both led him to understand how changes in pressure and available oxygen levels were causing inflammation throughout the body that hindered performance.

Herrā€™s knowledge came into play later, after founding Fount as a high-end coaching and supplement service. One of his clients, a senior executive, was flying from Washington, D.C., to Seoul to close a business deal, and the South Koreans seemed to have purposely scheduled meetings for a day and time when the executive would be struggling with jet lag. ā€œThey were using jet lag as a negotiating tool,ā€ Herr says. The client asked Herr if there was anything he could do to help him feel rested enough to keep from getting crushed.

Herr had a hunch. What if beating jet lag wasnā€™t just a circadian-rhythm problem but also an inflammation problem? He knew that commercial airlines donā€™t pressurize cabins to sea levelā€”itā€™s too costly and stresses the hullā€”but to 5,000 to 8,000 feet. For a person living in New York or Los Angeles, take-off is like being transported instantly to the elevation of Santa Fe, New Mexico, at 7,200 feet, where each breath yields about 16 percent less oxygen. ā€œDepressurization is stressful on your body,ā€ says Kim.

So Herr created a new plan. He delineatedĀ when and what the executive should eat, and how and when he should manage light by using blue-light-filtering glasses. He also gave his client supplements tailored to tackle inflammation specific to flying. HerrĀ incorporated compounds like tart-cherry powder, vitamin C, and omega-3 fatty acids, as well as methylated B vitaminsĀ to help boost energy and aid neurological functions. He included small doses of melatonin, to offer the bodyā€™s peripheral clocks time cues (called zeitgebers) on whether it was day or night. He asked the client to eat small, protein-rich meals to manage fuel for the brain and toĀ consume caffeine with 13.5 grams of sugar at specified times to create managed spikes in insulin that served as more zeitgebers.

Herr thought, If I could just tamp down the inflammation, tweak the central clock, and wrap it all up in a light-dark routine with enough napping, this client might arrive in South Korea able to function well but also sleepy enough at the right time to getĀ a good nightā€™s rest. He could wake up and have his meeting with little to no issues.

It worked. The client emailed Herr the next day and said, ā€œI slept all night, I feel fantastic! What the hell did you give me?ā€

Over the next five years or so, Herr fine-tuned the regimen, bringing Kim on to create an algorithm and eventually teaming up with a supplement manufacturer to craft custom supplements at scale. The overarching idea has remained the same. ā€œOther methods require you to sort of ā€˜prepayā€™ and begin shifting your clock days before you leave,ā€ Kim says. ā€œWe wanted to create something that you could do entirely while youā€™re in transit.ā€

Why Iā€™m Convinced FlyKitt Is Legit

Fount has raised $14 million in venture-backed capital. And dozens of Olympians and professional sports teams have used FlyKitt, including the U.S. national menā€™s soccer squad during the last World Cup, Herr says. Even so, looking over the supplements before my departure, I wondered how safe the whole system might be. For my trip to South Africa, FlyKitt had me taking more than 800 times the recommended daily allowance of vitamin B12ā€”a move designed, in part, to provide energy and prevent sleep. Curious, I reached out to two doctor friends, both of whom told me that the amount raised no red flags, assuming I didnā€™t consume that quantity every day. Doctors often prescribe that much vitamin B to people with malabsorption issues, one told me.

Dr. Stephan Pasiakos, director of the National Institutes of Healthā€™s Office of Dietary Supplements, also wasnā€™t worried about FlyKittā€™s cocktail of pills. ā€œWhile not commenting on the product per se, and assuming none of the ingredients mentioned exceed recommended intakes, there are no health concerns in taking these together over a relatively short period of time for healthy adults,ā€Ā he wrote me via email.

FlyKitt has never undergone a clinical trial, but Herr hopes the military will fund one before too long. He also acknowledges that the link between jet lag and inflammation is a ā€œnew discoveryā€ that existing science does not yet back. ā€œBut I can rebuke that science with results, which is science,ā€ he says, adding that FlyKittā€™s results are based on thousands of test cases. ā€œItā€™s possible we are right for the wrong reason but we are, nonetheless, right.ā€ The company also offers a money-back guarantee. ā€œWe do not get taken up on that very often.ā€

Late on my second day in South Africa, I begin to feel jet lagā€™s familiar wooziness seep into my head after returning from a short hike. But the symptom disappears as fast as it came on, after about 15 minutes. Following my return trip to Oregon, I experienced no jet lag at all. Still suspicious, I tried FlyKitt on a third trip, this one with 21 hours of travel, also across nine time zones, to Norway. Once again, zero jet lag.

On that return trip, I decide not to use FlyKitt. Huge mistake. Iā€™m crushed for daysā€”foggy-headed, cold, and so sleepy that I struggle to keep my eyes open until 6:45 P.M., only to awake at 2 A.M. A week later, Iā€™m mostly back to normal. I run all of this by Lockley, who is a competitor, yes, but also impeccably qualified to weigh in. Heā€™s unconvinced FlyKitt is a viable solution for jet lag. ā€œMaybe you got lucky,ā€ he says.Ģżā€œMaybe your flights were timed just right for avoiding light and dark. Placebo is also a thing.ā€

Without a clinical trial, Herr himself canā€™t be entirely sure why it works, but heā€™s certain that it does.

ā€œOccasionally, I ask myself, Did we really solve jet lag?ā€ he says. ā€œBut then I look at the results and canā€™t help but conclude that we did for the vast majority of people.ā€

Contributing editor Tim Neville is a night owl who can fall asleep almost anywhere at any time. In fact, he canā€™t remember the last time he was awake for take-off. He recently wrote an Outside story about the bestĀ travel hacksĀ and a feature about the worldā€™s most traveled people.

The post I Had My Doubts About FlyKitt. But Itā€™s Proven Itself Time and Again on My Overseas Trips. appeared first on ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶų Online.

For decades, American alpinist Kitty Calhoun made a name topping out on some of the worldā€™s highest peaks, including the West Pillar of 27,766-foot Makalu in the Himalayas. But what stayed with her more than any summit view were the alarming effects of climate change.

At such elevations, she often noticed melting ice, a hindrance to her ascents. But in the high deserts of Utah, the repercussions were causing real daily struggles for those living on the Navajo Nation, something she became aware of while mentoring an Indigenous climber whoā€™d grown up there.

For over a century, natural resources like oil, coal, and uranium extracted from Navajo land have powered the American West, yet approximately one-third of the Navajo Nation, roughly 13,500 families, live without power. That indignity on its own is hard to fathom, but climate change has also exacerbated the aridity and seasonal heat in this region, forcing families to endure more triple-digit days without respite.

With that in mind, last year Calhoun persuaded Utah-based Lion Energy to donate 35 solar-powered kitsā€”lunch-box-size generators that can be charged in as little as four hoursā€”and raised $32,500 to buy an additional 65 for families in one of the reservationā€™s most disadvantaged areas, remote Navajo Mountain. Equipped with 100-watt solar panels, a single kit can run a mini fridge for 16 hours, charge a laptop 11 times over, and last up to 20 years.

Calhoun then reached out to Norman Lameman, the Native founder of , a nonprofit devoted to preserving tribal values, to lead the distribution efforts. ā€œI didnā€™t want to force kits on people,ā€ Calhoun says. ā€œIf they were interested, Norman could explain how the technology worked in their language.ā€

Angelo Baca, a Navajo-Hopi distance runner and filmmaker, and Sahar Khadjenoury, a Navajo-Persian producer and director, documented the project using a grant Calhoun received from Protect Our Winters for a film called Navajo Solar Sunrise.

ā€œItā€™s important for us to take care of people. From an Indigenous perspective, the people are part of the land,ā€ Baca said. ā€œItā€™s important to step away from extractive resourcesā€”our people are still dealing with the effects of uranium contamination on the reservation. And solar isnā€™t the end-all solution, but itā€™s an important first step.ā€

In October of 2023, the trio traveled with Lameman to oversee installation and document the myriad ways the kits can improve lives. Families were able to run fans when temperatures soared and refrigerate food, medication, and breast milk. They could rely on electric blankets and small space heaters to keep them warm in winter, and access the internet to apply for jobs, government programs, and educational opportunities. They could charge their phones. Before the kits, Calhoun says, many residents relied on car batteries to power such necessities.

ā€œLiving simply should not mean living in poverty,ā€ she says.

To donate for more solar generators in the Four Corners region, .Ģż

The post Many in This Navajo Community Didnā€™t Have Electricity. An Unlikely Foursome Collaborated to Make a Difference. appeared first on ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶų Online.

The post You Donā€™t Need Fancy Anti-Theft Tech. You Just Need a Big Olā€™ Bike Lock. appeared first on ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶų Online.

I think of my old car sometimes when I drive by the Walmart Supercenter. The parking lot there was essentially the launch point of my first real long-distance road trip as an adult, spanning ten days and eight states in the late spring of 2004. We drove my 1996 Pontiac Grand Am GT, a car that my friend Nick announced had taught him that he would “never buy a two-door car.”

I didnā€™t keep a journal of the trip, but I believe Nick said that while standing in the Watchman Campground in Zion National Park, on maybe our eighth day of wrangling gear in and out of the car’s back seats. We couldnā€™t use the trunk because it was full of everything I could justify bringing from my grad school apartment in Missoula, Montana, to our terminus in Scottsdale, Arizona, where I was moving in with my then-girlfriend. We tried to keep what we needed in the backseat, and of course to access anything in the backseat, you had to fold the front seat down, lean in, and bend around the corner.

I believe this type of two-door design was, and maybe still is, referred to as a ā€œcoupe,ā€ a word that is almost never paired with the word ā€œadventure,ā€ which is what we were trying to use the Grand Am for, and certainly not the word ā€œdirtbag,ā€ which is the type of adventure we were trying to have.

We left Missoula about 10 days before Memorial Day. Nick bussed in via a Greyhound from somewhere in Iowa, an 18-hour ride heā€™d probably never do again.Ģż So a car, any car, a space heā€™d only have to share with one person, probably felt like an improvement.

I had gotten the car through my college roommate Chris, whose brother, Andy, had bought it at an auction, repaired the one thing that was wrong with it (someone had tried to steal the passenger-side airbag), and then sold it to me. There were a few reasons why it was not the ideal road trip car, some of which were my fault.

I had packed the trunk almost full by the time Nick added his stuff, and then attached a trunk-mount Yakima bike rack to haul an old Schwinn mountain bike all the way to Arizona, so if either of us wanted anything in the trunk, we had to remove the bike, pull off the bike rack, and then open the trunk. The bike and the rack, of course, fell off the back of the car multiple times on bumpy mountain roads, first on our way up and down to the Mt. Pilchuk trailhead outside of Seattle. The summit was in a cloud when we arrived at the end of our short, steep hike.

People sleep in all kinds of adventure vehiclesā€”old vans, new Sprinter vans, RVs, trucks with toppers, trucks with campers, station wagons, even in sedans in which the back seats fold down. The Grand Amā€™s seats did not fold down. And we couldnā€™t recline the front seats very far on account of all our stuff in the backseat. Still, we slept in the car twice, because we were young and durable, and had no other options, once next to the ocean somewhere near Aberdeen, Washington, and once near Barstow, California, where weā€™d driven after hiking up Half Dome and being unable to find a campsite anywhere near the park.

We camped almost all the other nights, except for a couple nights we spent on friendsā€™ floors in Seattle and Bend. The trunk light somehow melted a hole in Nickā€™s Therm-a-Rest on the second-to-last day of the trip, so he slept rather uncomfortably on our last night in Mexican Hat, Utah. Weā€™d walked into the ranger station at Natural Bridges National Monument late that afternoon and asked about campsites, and in an I-swear-this-actually-happened exchange that Iā€™ve written about elsewhereā€”itā€™s so dumb it sounds like I made it upā€”the ranger said, ā€œYou guys donā€™t want to camp here. Youā€™ll be done with this park in an hour. Tell you what: Are you intense?ā€

I looked at Nick, kind of shrugged, and nodded. We were young, fairly fit, and maybe looked pretty intense, I guess. The ranger went on to tell us to head south to Valley of the Gods, the entirety of which was BLM land, and we could just pull off the road and camp anywhere we found a spot. We thanked him for the advice and left, and I was unlocking the car door in the parking lot by the time I realized what heā€™d actually said. Over the roof of the car, I said to Nick,

ā€œOh, he meant ā€˜in tents,ā€™ like are we camping in tents or do we have an RV.ā€

ā€œYeah,ā€ Nick said, not understanding my confusion.

The low clearance of the Grand Am meant we didnā€™t get too far into Valley of the Gods before we chickened out and drove back to the paved highway, and spent the night in a paid campground behind a lodge in Mexican Hat. It was not that intense. The next day we drove through Monument Valley, checked out the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, and gave the car a well-earned rest in a visitor parking spot at my girlfriendā€™s apartment complex in Scottsdale, after the biggest adventure it would ever go on.

To be fair, I had not bought the car under any pretense of it being a ā€œroad trip vehicleā€ or ā€œadventure vehicle.ā€ I bought it because it was a pretty good deal, from a trusted friend, and I was not very picky about cars. And I didnā€™t treat it that wellā€”I bought it in 1999, if memory serves, and I have been sober since March 2002, but the period of time between was a bit rough on the car. The inoperable driverā€™s-side window was my fault (rolling it down when it was iced over), as was whatever went wrong with the front right wheel (hit a curb at high velocity). The windshield had been shattered once (a friend tried to jump over the car as we were leaving a party; I eventually got it repaired), and the trunk-mount CD player had been smashed by a full beer keg that rolled into it (on the drive back to our party).

Still, it was what I had, and entering the job market in 2004 with a graduate degree in journalism, I wasnā€™t exactly ready for a down payment on a new BMW. Or any car, really. I worked for a year in the Phoenix area, and then moved to Denver, where the Grand Am was even less useful, because, you know, snow.

Luckily, Nick, who lived in Denver, had bought a 2004 Toyota Tacoma, and was willing to drive to Summit County ski resorts in the winter and mountain trailheads all summer. One winter day, though, I drove up to Rocky Mountain National Park to snowshoe, and met a guy my age who also happened to be from the Midwest. We chatted all the way back to the parking lot, and when I stopped behind the Grand Am, he asked, ā€œIs this your car?ā€

I said, ā€œYeah. Itā€™s kind of a Midwest car.ā€

He said, ā€œItā€™s kind of a meth car.ā€

I wasnā€™t about to defend the Grand Amā€™s honor. I mean, its overall aesthetic didnā€™t exactly scream ā€œNOT a meth car,ā€ but it also had never really let me down, at least not in a big way. And although we never drove my car to a trailhead if there was any sort of questionable dirt road involved, I thought of the day the previous summer that we had taken Nickā€™s Tacoma to climb Grays and Torreys peaks. The road to the trailhead was rough with bumps, holes, and big exposed rocks, and I was glad Nick had volunteered to drive his truck.

But then, about a half-mile from the trailhead, the Jeep in front of us slowed, and in front of the Jeep was someone in a Honda Civic negotiating a very tricky-for-a-sedan spot in the road, backing up, re-orienting, pulling forward, backing up again, and then sending it, with nary a scrape. The Civic made it to the trailhead just fine. I lived in Colorado off and on for 15 years, and I learned that whenever you think that a Forest Service road is impassable by anyone without high clearance and 4-wheel-drive, youā€™ll always see that someone made it up to the parking area in a goddamn Honda Civic.

The Grand Am survived our 10-day, eight-state road trip, and saw its share of national parks and quite a few Forest Service roads, but it was never my first choice if anyone else was willing to drive their vehicle for a day of hiking or skiing. One night in February 2006, I was cruising up Josephine Street in Denver with my then-girlfriend, and a guy floored it from a stop sign on 5th Avenue, not seeing us until his car bulldozed into the front passenger side of the Grand Am at full speed. We rammed into a light pole on the street corner, hard enough to bend it, but not hard enough to knock it over. Just after we came to a stop, I looked over to my girlfriend and asked, ā€œAre you OK?ā€ She answered yes, she thought she was OK. A few seconds later, I quietly but excitedly said, ā€œI think the carā€™s totaled.ā€ The carā€™s destruction, of course, being the only way I would be able to replace it, with my $25,000/year salary at the newspaper. As soon as the insurance money came, I found an all-wheel-drive 1996 Subaru Impreza Outback on Craigslist. I figured it could take me anywhere I wanted to go, and it did.

The Grand Am was a bad fit for the lifestyle I wanted at the timeā€”I was chomping at the bit to see the world, and the world I wanted to see didnā€™t have smooth roads leading to it. It was a piece of gear that didnā€™t work that well. But when I was first starting out, none of the stuff I had was very goodā€”cotton pants, clunky hiking boots, bargain backpacks that didnā€™t fit, a heavy sleeping bag, the cheapest climbing shoes I could find, thrift-store snowboard pants.

Would some better gear have been nice? Sure. But Iā€™m glad I didnā€™t let it keep me from getting out there.

The post An Ode to the Worst ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶų Carā€”and All the Places It Took Me appeared first on ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶų Online.

The winners of this yearā€™s sport earbuds test came from brands that range from three-year-old startups to longtime audio stalwarts, a testament to how dialed the technology has become. Each year we see more and more bargain models (under $70) on the market that, if you didnā€™t check the price tag, you might think went for $100, or twice that. And every year brings more new and clever features, like in-ear detection and sound profiles to suit your taste for bass vs. treble. Then thereā€™s active noise cancellation (ANC), which first came to earbuds some five years ago but has become commonplace, perhaps an indicator that the world around us really needs to shut the hell up, and that we allā€”whether running, doing yoga, or commutingā€”can best find our sweet spot when alone in our particular sound cave.

One thing ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶų readers can appreciate is the increasing ruggedness and water resistance in almost any pair of buds you might acquireā€”even those that donā€™t have high are likely able to survive a walk in the rain or a drop into a puddle and still keep doing what they do. With less and less to separate high-end products from low-end, the differentiators are becoming more a question of how much care and attention to detail are put into the product.

Updated October 2024: Weā€™ve added three new picks from Denon, Suunto, and Treblab, and updated the retailers and pricing of all the earbuds.

At a Glance

• Best All-Around:
• Best High-Fidelity:
• Best Open-Ear:
• Best for Long Hours:
• Best for Runners:
• Best for Smaller Ears:
• Killer Value:
• How to Choose Earbuds
• How We Test
• Meet Our Lead Tester

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Best All-Around

Marshall Motif II ANC

Pros and Cons
āŠ• Top-notch, dynamic sound
āŠ• Rockinā€™ design
āŠ• Highly grippable stems
āŠ— Shorter-than-average battery life

The Motif II ANCs have the same popular stem design as Appleā€™s beloved AirPods Pro but cling to your ears even better. Like the AirPods Pro, they sound fantastic, with faithful, crystal-clear highs, mids, and lows (and no artificial, random bass boosting), and come with a versatile app that includes a custom equalizer (where, yes, you can add more bass). But unlike the AirPods Pro, the Motif II ANC earbuds carry Marshallā€™s pedigree classic rock aesthetic, which is actually very useful: the grippy metal stems make them much easier to handle, and the textured vinyl case feels indestructible. They even come in at $50 less than Appleā€™s counterpart.

In testing, connectivity proved flawless, and their active noise cancellation (ANC) was very effective, though a step below Appleā€™s model. One tester did find that their robust design meant they needed occasional fit adjustment during runs, and their IPX5 protection means theyā€™re not rated to keep out dust and solids, but they will do fine with heavy rain, sweat, or sea spray. Battery life is the only real downside: They play for just 6 hours with ANC engaged or 9 hours without (similar to the AirPods Pro but 2ā€“3 hours less than competitors like Sony, Sennheiser, and JLabs) and the case holds four extra charges. But with the ā€œbest sound quality of all the buds in this test,ā€ according to one tester, and a design that made everyone take notice, the Motif II ANCs take home our top prize for their character and quality.

Read our full review of the Marshall Motif II ANC.

Best High-Fidelity

Denon PerL True Wireless Earbuds

Pros and Cons
āŠ• Rich, dynamic sound
āŠ• Impressive app
āŠ• Customizable sound profile
āŠ— Chunky size

ā€œEach product is hand-tuned by our sound master,ā€ Denon says of the PerLs, and while we donā€™t know exactly what that means, it speaks to the Japanese DNA in these premium-sounding buds. Take the accompanying software, for instance: The first thing you do with these wireless buds is download an app that streams a series of sounds and frequencies into your ears to measure how you hear, then creates a personalized profile that transforms how good music sounds. Itā€™s one of the best uses of a headphone app weā€™ve seen.

The PerLs came across as lively but not piercing on the high end, with realism and verve. Thereā€™s even a high-gain option on the app that boosts volume for quiet recordings, which one tester called ā€œa welcome feature that I would love to see in a lot of sometimes anemic Bluetooth earbuds.ā€ These capabilities are made possible by a series of ultra-sensitive microphones, which probably explains their rather enormous sizeā€”one reviewer called them ā€œsharp-edged Alka-Seltzer tablet earbud bodiesā€ and noted, ā€œI had to remove the supplied fin attachment before these felt okay.ā€

Others liked the fit and found them great for running, where they kept the adrenaline flowing with some of the best full-on rocking-out sound in the test. ā€œSt. Vincent and Spoon sounded like I was listening to vinyl,ā€ one tester said. The active noise cancellation is decent, the six hours of battery is average (with two more charges from the case), and an IPX4 rating means they can handle a light rain. Given the quality and attention to detail, we consider these a true bargain at $139 or less.

Best Open-Ear

Suunto Sonic

Pros and Cons
āŠ• Safe in traffic
āŠ• Secure fit
āŠ— Limited, soundwise
āŠ— No portable power bank

This year Suunto entered the ā€œopen-earā€ category that was pioneered by Shokz and has continually improved with brands like H2O Audio. The design uses bone conduction technology to feed music directly to your inner ear, leaving your ear canal wide open to take in the sounds around you. It seems pretty advanced, but for music lovers the tech has severe limitations. And Suunto hasnā€™t exactly overcome them: The Sonic doesnā€™t have the power to produce vibrant bassā€”or even to play loud. If it did, it would vibrate to the point of tickling you to death.

As a runner, however, Iā€™ve thoroughly enjoyed this unit for listening to podcasts, which they do admirably while allowing me to hear when someone is passing me on the trail (an increasingly frequent occurrence). For those who want to optimize safety, like runners who need to contend with traffic, and for sports that require hearing other people (skiers, climbers, skaters, cyclists …) theyā€™re a very smart option.

The 10-hour battery life (with no charging case for backup) lets you get your miles in, and a five-minute recharge provides three additional hours. The behind-the-neck band is comfortable and keeps them firmly in place. IP55 sweat and water resistance allows you to wear them through a downpour, and if youā€™re like me youā€™ll also love using them indoors: Theyā€™re perfect for watching Netflix on my laptop while working in the kitchen, without taking away my wifeā€™s ability to walk in and bug me.

Best for Long Hours

Treblab X3 Pro True Wireless Earbuds

Pros and Cons
āŠ• Crazy-long battery life
āŠ• Secure fit
āŠ• Good sound for the price
āŠ— Oversize carrying case

If you are especially averse to earbuds that lose power quickly or slowly start to slide their way out of your ears as you move about, these are the solution for you. With a whopping 145 hours of available playtime (nine hours per charge plus 15 more in the charging case), the X3 Pros are designed for those folks who would rather plug in once a week and not have to think about the battery. The trade-off is a bulky case that doesnā€™t slide readily into your shorts pocket but does have a handy battery-life readout built into the side.

The IPX5 sweat- and water-resistant buds also come with ear hooks, a basic approach to a secure fit that has stuck around because it works. The sound quality is good if not at the level of the premium models here, and the build seems flimsy but held up throughout testing. Another nice touch is ENC (environmental noise cancellation), which enhances the sound quality, not for you but for the person on the other end of a call. They donā€™t, however, come with ANC. While the X3 Pros are no-frills, one reviewer found these workhorses ā€œmy hands-down favorite for trail running.ā€

Best for Runners

Beats Studio Buds +

Pros and Cons
āŠ• Easy to use
āŠ• Secure fit
āŠ• Consistently good sound
āŠ— Limited grip area makes them easy to drop

The well-engineered Studio Buds + are our top pick for runners because of their light weight and small profile, staying in place well while you bob about. One tester, who even used them while paddleboarding, found that they ā€œfit really well immediately out of the box and never fell out or needed adjusting.ā€ They didnā€™t, however, boast the lockdown security of the ā€œwingtipsā€ that came built-in on the earlier (and still available) . The Studio Buds + are an improvement over their predecessors (same name sans the +), with upgrades that include better ANC and longer battery life (6 hours with ANC on, 9 hours without). With an IPX4 protection rating, they held up against sweat and light rain. This model put extra oomph in our strides with bassier but nice ā€˜nā€™ clear sound, similar to that of the Apple AirPods Pro. ANC on the Studio Buds + is only middle of the pack but did a decent job blocking out the chatter in a crowded coffeehouse, and Beats tripled the size of the microphones for a call quality that impressed testers.

We also liked the push controls on the outside of each bud, which never accidentally paused tracks the way touch controls sometimes do. Similarly, they donā€™t have in-ear detection, a feature some of our testers find aggravating. Forgot to charge them? A five-minute plug-in adds a quick hour of playback time. While their diminutive size can make them hard to grasp when plucking them out of the magnetic case, we nevertheless found ourselves reaching for them routinely, especially when heading to the trail. And as youā€™d expect from the brand, the Studio Buds + look sleek and wholly of the momentā€”we especially approved of the transparent option, but the ivory and black/gold opaque models are also appropriately sporty.

Best for Smaller Ears

Raycon Fitness Earbuds

Pros and Cons
āŠ• Extreme portability
āŠ• Surprisingly bold sound
āŠ— A bit on the fragile side
āŠ— More likely to be lost

The magic in the straightforwardly named Fitness Earbuds lies in their barely-there size. Both the lightweight buds and the caseā€”which fits in the palm of your hand and slips discreetly into any pocketā€”are tiny. This makes it all the more impressive that they can pump out rich, deep sound for 12 hours on a charge (with ANC off) and hold 44 more hours of recharging in the case. One of our testers, a runner with several ear piercings, said ā€œthese felt the most comfortable and secure in my ears,ā€ a fact that is helped by the soft stabilizing fins that cleverly slip on and off depending on your preference. Folks with larger ears enjoyed them too but did have occasional trouble with them falling out.

The Fitness Earbuds come with helpful touch controls for volume, ANC, and even three different sound profiles (more bass, etc.), and their multipoint feature lets you connect to both phone and laptop at the same time. IPX7 water-resistance means they can handle rain and even short periods of total immersion. One tester who works as a carpenter wore them at work and ā€œnever had any issues with them being affected by sweat or sawdust.ā€

Killer Value

JLab GO Air Sport

Pros and Cons
āŠ• Exceptional value
āŠ• Secure fit
āŠ— Infrequent pairing issues
āŠ— Some tunes can sound tinny

For those who put their buds through hell, thereā€™s nothing to dislike in this smooth-sounding unit, given that they come with a replacement cost that is less than a pizza with all the toppings. Their comfortable, bendy ear hooks all but guarantee a secure fit during workouts, even if your workouts involve handstands. With an IP55 rating, they can handle dust and moderate rain. ā€œThese were my go-to earbuds for durability,ā€ said our Anchorage-based tester. ā€œI tested them on trail runs and hikes during misty Alaska rains. They are very durable and did not fall out of my ears or seem to be affected by rain or sweat.ā€

While one runner on the test crew found the relatively large case a bit cumbersome to carry in a pocket, the 8-hour charge was adequate for most workouts and daylong activities (and the case provides another 24 hours). As for that case: We like that it has its own built-in USB charging cord. The touch controls are nice to have but donā€™t always perform as expected, and the earbuds do not come with ANC, though at this price that shouldnā€™t be an expectation. Based on their durability, clear sound, reliable connectivity, and price, they make perfect sense for more rough-and-tumble activities or as a backup to pricier headsets.

How to Choose Earbuds

Earbuds are more like shoes than most other gear categories: so much depends on the right fit. What comfortably fits one personā€™s ears may not suit anotherā€™s, and thereā€™s more to it than size. The internal anatomy of the ear makes certain designs actually sound better to one person than the next. If you canā€™t try them out at a store or borrow them from a friend, it may be best to buy them from a retailer with a good return policy. Once you have them in hand, do some real-world tests with the different tip sizes, and trade them in if you arenā€™t in love.

If you want to get serious about the perfect fit, consider aftermarket foam eartips, like . In addition to helping with a more secure fit, they provide passive noise isolation, which can improve the experience with both ANC-equipped and ANC-less earbuds. Should fit issues persist, consider a model with behind-the-ear hooks, like the JLab GO Air Sport reviewed here.

Also give some thought to which features do it for you: Some people like sleek touch controls, others prefer old-school push buttons; some like to tap for quick pausing, others would rather forgo that feature and pull out one bud to ask for directions, so as to avoid the annoyance of unwanted pauses every time your fingers go near them. And if you live in a rainy climate, be sure to choose ones with an IP rating ending in 4 or higher (as all the models here do).

Finally, be aware that there are more specialized designs emerging and getting better each yearā€“like these earbuds for , others for , and for those who want to stay more tuned in to their surroundings.

How We Test

• Number of Miles Run During Testing: 415
• Number of Miles Cycled: 154
• Number of Dogs Walked: 8
• Hours of Podcasts Consumed During Travel: 45
• Coldest Temp: ā€“3, Anchorage, Alaska
• Warmest Temp: 102, Tucson, Arizona
• Highest Elevation: 12,341 feet, Deception Peak, New Mexico
• Most Remote Testing Location: Antarctica
• Most Listened-To Tracks: Aphex Twin: ā€œ#3,ā€ Billie Eilish: ā€œBad Guy,ā€ Biosphere: ā€œBaby Satellite,ā€ Christian McBride and Edgar Meyer: ā€œBarnyard Disturbance,ā€ Fontaines D.C.: ā€œFavourite,ā€ J Dilla: ā€œLast Donut of the Night,ā€ Kendrick Lamar: ā€œNot Like Us,ā€ Orbital and Sleaford Mods: ā€œDirty Rat,ā€ The Replacements: ā€œKiss Me On the Bus,ā€ Tyler, The Creator: ā€œNew Magic Wandā€

The first thing we do with any earbuds, headphones, or speakers is attempt to pair them with our phones without consulting the user manual: the quicker, more intuitive, and easier the Bluetooth setup, the more points scored. Then we put them through rigorous hours of testing doing the kinds of things ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶų readers doā€”from dog walks to HIIT workouts, from fireside listening to our day jobs, which for one of us is at the local woodworking shop. Our testers, who range in location from Alaska to Berkeley to Santa Fe to New York City, spent hours in them, bouncing up and down on trails, treadmills, and trains.

Our team turns in reports on each product tested, providing a score from 1 to 10 for five different measures: sound quality, pairing and connectivity, fit and comfort, rain and drop protection, and user friendliness. Scores are averaged, with more weight given to sound quality and (knowing our audience) how well they stand up to the elements. Note: Battery life estimates in these reviews are based on manufacturer specs; itā€™s difficult to confirm those numbers, given the time involved and variances among user habits (different volumes, different uses, different functions enabled). Actual results may be 10 to 20 percent lower, judging from averages experienced in general testing.

Meet Our Lead Tester

Will Palmer has been testing gear for 20 years for ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶų, where he was managing editor and copy chief for nine years. Based in Santa Fe, he has been a runner since 1984, and while the mile counts have decreased over the years, heā€™s kept motivated to head out the door on the hottest, coldest, and wettest days by the opportunity to test the best new productsā€”and to commune with the junipers and piƱons.

The post The Best New Sport Earbuds (2024) appeared first on ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶų Online.

Josh Drinkard always wanted to build his own cabin. Growing up in suburban New Jersey, heā€™d wander to a small strip of woods near his childhood home and spend hours constructing forts and treehouses. When he moved to New Mexico as an adult, Drinkard, the IT Operations Manager at ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶų Inc., bought 2.5 acres of land in the mountain village of Truchas, about 30 miles north of Santa Fe. There, he took on his first effort at building a very simple cabin with the help of a friend who was an unlicensed contractor and taught Drinkard framing and building basics.

In 2021, Drinkard and his wife, Saraswati Khalsa, started looking at New England as a place to move once their three children were grown. After scouting around, they settled on 25 terraced, hardwood-filled acres near Halifax, Vermont, not far from the Massachusetts border.

Over the past three years, Drinkard has spent vacations building a cabin near Halifax, with the help of his wife, teenage son, and one of his daughters. After a cumulative seven weeks of effort, they can now stay there for long periods, although it still lacks internet service, a shower, and a toilet.

Learning the ins and outs of building a small log cabin in the woods is no small feat. We asked Drinkard to talk about what the project entailed and what skills are required to turn a cabin-building dream into a reality. This is what he learned.

How Big Is the Cabin?

Itā€™s still a work in progress, but right now itā€™s a one-room cabin with a loft. Two people can sleep up there comfortably. The interior is just 12 feet squared. We use the lower room as the living room and kitchen. Another two people could sleep there with a foldable futon.

Why Did You Choose Vermont?

We bought this property without any services or electricity, so the price was below the national average per acre (which was about $3,000 at the time, according to Drinkard). I love the location and especially the lush green forests. We also love skiing and whitewater rafting and can do both near here; the closest mountain is Mount Snow, 18 miles north, and the closest flowing river is the Deerfield, to the west.

We liked that itā€™s not far from a town with big-box storesā€”Greenfield, Massachusettsā€”and that you can catch a train from Brattleboro, Vermont, to New York City. We thought that if the kids are in college, or after, if they wanted to take a train up, that would be convenient.

And I like Vermont in general. Everything has a small-town feel. There are no billboards. And itā€™s similar to northern New Mexico in that itā€™s rural and very liberal.

How Did You Get Started With the Build?

We found a spot that was flat and open. There was a little meadow on the property just big enough for a cabin, so we didnā€™t have to clear it. We knew weā€™d use the hemlock trees from the surrounding forest. I was told hemlock resists rot pretty well.

I knew Iā€™d have to find a cheap 4×4 vehicle to leave out there, and we only had a few thousand dollars to work with. In Vermont, good pickups in that price range were all rotted out, so I settled on an old Lincoln Navigator in New Mexico that had been stolen and recovered; its interior was beat to shit. I welded a receiver hitch in front, to use as a winch and a pushbar, and I also fabricated a roof rack big enough to haul 16-foot-long lumber and plywood sheets. Then I drove it out to Vermont.

We decided to use a to build the cabin after a lot of time looking at YouTube videos. Butt-and-pass cabins go up quickly, but the drawback is you need a ton of expensive lags to connect the walls to each other and each log to the ones below.

We used logs for the whole first level of the cabin. The first year, the family came out for four days and we felled trees and placed and leveled the bottom four logs. After they left, I stayed another six days on my own and threw up the first 12 rows of logsā€”they werenā€™t that heavyā€”plus the floor and a temporary roof to keep the snow out.

The next year, we got the structure height to about eight feet. At this point, we started using two-by-fours for the loft level. I traded an old laptop of mine for a bunch of small windows and a door.

After the entire structure dried, we hung shingles on the front. I installed a water-catchment system and solar panelsā€”both are sustainable. We built the loft platform inside and scraped and sealed all of the logs. And I built a small shed with scrap materials and installed more windows on the first floor.

What Was the Hardest Part?

Felling trees for the logs and dragging them around 100 yards to the build site was exhausting. And Iā€™m not in awful shape.

Using a , we took down 30 to 40 relatively straight, light trees on the first trip out, but they kept getting hung up in the tight forest canopy. Then we cut these to 12 and 16 feet and dragged them to the site. It took a few days. The next time we were there, the following July, we cut another 30 or 40 trees.

Does the Cabin Have Plumbing and Electricity?

One of the last things I did when I was there was put in a . The rainwater goes from the roof to a gutter and through a small-screen filter to a 300-gallon IBC (intermediate builk container) tank. The tank was repurposedā€”it used to hold soy sauceā€”and someone sold it to me. Iā€™m gonna have to plumb from that tank to a sink and an outside shower. Thereā€™s no toiletā€”we probably will get an outhouse but right now weā€™re using a bucket with a toilet seat on top.

For electricity, I have a small solar setup: two 100-watt panels and a solar battery thatā€™s good enough to charge things and for basic lighting. The great thing about these is theyā€™re upgradable; I just need to get more batteries and panels to turn it into something more robust that could handle, like, a fridge.

What About Heat?

I brought out a woodstove from New Mexico but decided itā€™s too big and that it would heat us outā€”thatā€™s a mistake I made with the cabin in Truchas, tooā€”so Iā€™ll probably buy a small one.

Did You Have to Troubleshoot Any Unforeseen Issues?

It rained a lot one trip, in July, and the road, which is unmaintained, was turning into a rutted off-camber mess. I was having to winch up in several places, and I blew out the Navigatorā€™s 4×4 low. So we found a local heavy-equipment operator and hired him to take down some trees and smooth out the road.ĢżBut this is an investment for us. Having a small functional cabin with a roughed-in road will increase the property value by more than what weā€™ve spent.

Also, except for the initial time I drove the navigator out, weā€™ve flown. And every time, we fly with the power tools. I check the chainsaw, the circular saw. You canā€™t check the batteries, so I have to carry those on.

How Did You Cut Costs?

One of our challenges was thinking up a good chinking method that wouldnā€™t take an entire month. There are maybe 80 trees in the structureā€”because they were smaller in diameter, we needed more, which also meant 80 gaps to fill. Concrete mortar was out, because we didnā€™t want to haul water up from the stream and mix cement. was out, because itā€™s too expensive. So we used a product called . This is a spray foam with a component that tastes sour, so bugs and rats donā€™t want to chew through it.

Pestblock worked better than I imagined, but itā€™s gonna yellow real bad and Iā€™ll likely have to paint it. I tried putting floor polish over it, to keep the gray color, but it didnā€™t work.

Also, we didnā€™t strip the bark off the logs. It looks cool, but bark holds moisture and the logs can rot. After we completed the first floor, they sat for a year, and I thought that if we wire-brushed the logs after a year or so, we could then use floor polish to seal them. So far thatā€™s been working great, but only time will tell if we have any rot. I might know in a few years.

We also stayed in a nearby campground much of the time when we were working on the cabin.

Did Your Family Like Being Involved?

We just gave my son, Mason, a nice RAV4, so we forced him to come out and be our indentured servant. After the second trip, he told me Iā€™d worked him pretty hard but that he had a great time. He can do most jobs independently after a little training. One of our daughters also did a lot of work the first visit, carrying logs.

Saraswati, my wife, is really good at certain things like angles or eyeballing whether something is level. My eyes are awful. Also, I can have a short fuse. At the beginning, Iā€™m fine, but after a week, it grows shorter. And Saraswati will really push to get things done when Iā€™m ready to quit, so we get a lot more done when sheā€™s around.

On the flip side, I have to bring her back down to earth on structural realities. Sheā€™s always form over function, and Iā€™m the opposite. For example, we had a full-size door, but I realized that fitting it would cut too many logs on one side and compromise the structure. So we had a bit of a fight about that, because I wanted to cut the door and make it shorter. Thatā€™s what we ended up doing.

What Are You Proudest Of About the Cabin?

We did this on the cheap and havenā€™t splurged on anything so farā€”though having internet out there will be a splurge. The cabinā€™s a pretty basic structure, but Iā€™m OK with that. And except for needing help fixing the road, we were able to do everything on our own. Thereā€™s no cell-phone access out there, so if you run into a jam, you just have to figure it out.

Estimated Costs for the Cabin

Land and Annual Taxes: $78,000

Building Supplies: $8,000

Driveway: $7,000

Eventual Internet Setup: $700

Flights, food, fees to stay in the nearby campground before the cabin was ready: $5,000

Total: $98,700

Tasha Zemke is °æ³Ü³Ł²õ¾±»å±šā€™s managing editor and a member of ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶų Onlineā€™s travel team. She appreciates beautiful, and especially ancient, architecture but canā€™t imagine building a structure of any kind, given her loathing of giant home-improvement stores.

The post How I Built a Log Cabin in 7 Weeks for Under $100K appeared first on ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶų Online.

The room has a heartbeat. Itā€™s the first thing I notice when I walk into the lab: the gentle thrum of machinery, the metallic click and stretch of springs, and the rhythmic thud of two boots strapped to a gadget called the Time Machine that cycles above a treadmill.

At least, thatā€™s what Adam Trenkamp tells me itā€™s called. Trenkamp is the ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶų engineer who runs editorial testing at this new gear facility on the campus. The ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶų Gear Lab is the first of its kind in Colorado and one of just a few in the country. Last spring, ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶų Inc., CU Denver researchers, and Colorado-based outdoor startups began using it to test, studyā€”and breakā€”outdoor gear of all kinds.

I step further into the room, a stark white affair thatā€™s half-classroom, half-science lab, nearly 1900 square feet in size, tucked deep in the campusā€™s engineering wing. Trenkamp follows me over to the Time Machine, which I later learn is a gold-standard piece of equipment designed and built by footwear test company . There, he pauses, then deftly catches one of the steel arms mid-swing. He holds a boot in his palm, and I peer to take a closer look at the sole.

The machine, which uses a system of weighted plates, shocks, and springs to simulate the impact forces of human legs, has been running on the treadmill for nearly 48 hours straight. Thatā€™s the equivalent of 70 miles on each shoe. I finger the tread. You can already see bits of the rubber wearing away. Corners of the sole are in shreds.

ā€œWoah,ā€ I say. Iā€™ve been reviewing gear for ten years, and it usually takes me at least a month to get this kind of durability testing in the field. Trenkampā€™s machine has cut that process down to a tiny fraction of the timeā€”and in a way thatā€™s scientific enough to accurately compare the performance of one product against another.

ā€œThis could totally change the way we test gear,ā€ I say. Trenkamp smiles, just a little bit.

ā€œE³ę²¹³¦³Ł±ō²ā.ā€

The post Vacuum Pumps, Robots, and a Real-Life Time Machine: Welcome to the ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶų Gear Lab at CU Denver appeared first on ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶų Online.

Matt McAdow was sitting on a cardboard box in a Montana warehouse, tapping out emails on a laptop and waiting for his shoes to arrive. It was Monday, September 18, 2023, a pivotal moment for , a boutique footwear company headquartered in Missoula. The shoes, Bedrockā€™s first to be manufactured overseas, were supposed to have arrived four days earlier. McAdow, director of operations, had spent months coordinating photo shoots, producing marketing collateral, and figuring out how to fill a 10,000-unit order for Bedrockā€™s new mountain clogsā€”in three colors of suede and nubuck. Cofounder Dan Opalacz was excited that the rollout would occur a week before his first son was due to be born. ā€œIt was all lining up with these big work and life milestones,ā€ he says. ā€œThen everything backfired and created more work than I ever could have imagined.ā€

Unlike Bedrockā€™s other sandals, assembled by the company in California, the clogs were manufactured in Busan, South Korea, then sent to Los Angeles in a 40-foot shipping container, with the first batch arriving at Long Beach port on Monday, September 11. A total of 447 cartons were scheduled to be loaded into a truck for direct delivery to Bedrockā€™s warehouse outside Missoula by noon on Thursday, September 14, five days ahead of the biggest product launch in Bedrockā€™s 12-year history. But when noon arrived, with the ten-person warehouse team ready to receive, quality-check, and prep the inventory for shipping, the clogs were nowhere to be seen.

A message arrived from Landstar System, hired to oversee logistics, revealing that the truck had ā€œmechanical issuesā€ and would arrive by 8 A.M. the following day. This unfortunate news was accompanied by a screenshot of the truckā€™s location on Google Maps, just a few hours away. Friday morning came but the clogs did not, and McAdow says that the Bedrock crew went into the weekend ā€œbummed, but not suspiciousā€ about the spotty information theyā€™d received. A Monday arrival would crunch QC time and possibly delay some orders, but theyā€™d manage.

Monday again brought no truck, but there was an update from Landstarā€™s supposed ā€œdispatcher,ā€ who indicated that the driverā€™s phone was turned off. The dispatcher also relayed the unsettling possibility that the driver ā€œlikes to partyā€ and sometimes drank a lot on weekends. This was the last straw as far as McAdow was concerned. He printed out photos of the driverā€™s license and of the blue and orange truck that had been provided by the shipping company, and scoured several truck stops in the Missoula area looking for his clogs. No luck. Nor were there signs of anyone at the pulloff where, according to the dispatcher, the driver had stopped to sleep. ā€œI was concerned that this guy may have passed out or had a heart attack in some random yard,ā€ McAdow says. A diesel mechanic across the street from the pulloff told him about a truck headed for Seattle that matched the description, but it turned out to be unrelated.

McAdow was now seriously worried that something shady was going on. He went home and, from his kitchen table, researched the driverā€™s name online, found his cell number, and dialed it. A voice answered. When McAdow identified himself as ā€œMatt from Bedrock Sandals,ā€ the man on the other end asked McAdow to call him back in ten minutes. He proceeded to give McAdow the runaround. Later that day, someone called from a Google Voice number with a Los Angeles area code. The new caller had a thick Eastern European accent and could barely be heard above the background noise. He said that he was in Salt Lake City, driving the truck with ā€œthe goodsā€ inside. He explained that the previous driver had hired him to assume responsibility for the load, a frowned-upon but legal practice referred to as double brokering.

ā€œIā€™m not gonna lie, man,ā€ said the trucker, who identified himself only as Mick. ā€œIā€™ll have it there tomorrow.ā€

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In recent years, mountain bike manufacturers have built heavier and heavier bikes with high-end components in pursuit of better riding. Some riders are questioning whether all that extra weight is worth the riding benefits, so we asked the experts. Two Pinkbike editors debate below whether modern mountain bikes are now too heavyā€”or if the extra weight exponentially helps their performance.

Yes, Weight Matters

By Mike Kazimer, Cycling gear director

Modern mountain bikes are better than ever, but some of them have become downright rotund, especially long-travel enduro bikes: thick tires, burly forks, coil shocks, and big brakes all add up to a fairly significant figure on the scale. Those components work well when gravity takes over, but come climbing time, well, lately it feels like weā€™re back in the freeride days of the early 2000s, when getting off and pushing was an acceptable way of reaching the top of a hill.

For me, weight matters. Think of it this way: Would you rather ride your bike in its current state, or with a gallon of milk (roughly eight pounds) strapped to the frame? Iā€™ve spent more than my fair share of time pedaling heavy bikes around in the woods, including a season when I decided that a 40-pound Specialized Demo 8 with a dropper post was an acceptable trail bike. But these days, Iā€™d rather have something lighter on all-day adventures.

The weight-doesnā€™t-matter mantra lets manufacturers off the hook, giving them carte blanche to keep cranking out burdensome behemoths. Itā€™s 2024ā€”shouldnā€™t the goal be for new bikes to weigh less than the old ones? There have been numerous advances in materials and construction techniques that make it possible to create a bike thatā€™s both strong and relatively light.

Weā€™ll see what the next few years brings, but Iā€™d love a return to trail bikes with a reasonable weight and a reasonable price. Hereā€™s hoping.

No, Performance Matters

By Dario DiGiulio, Technical editor

We build bikes in pursuit of the best performance for a given purpose, whether thatā€™s downhill prowess, all-day reliability, or efficient climbing. Many factors play a role, weight among them. And while weight may , the benefits outweigh (no pun intended!) the penalty incurred from all those extra grams.

This is easiest to argue in relation to bikes focused on descending, where performance and mass tend to go hand in hand. Reliable, energy-absorbing tires are heavier than thin, single-ply alternatives but make a real difference on the trail. Suspension systems benefit from increased oil volume, a stout chassis, and a tight seal to keep out the elements. A dropper post is something I wonā€™t go without, and the longer they get, the heavier they are. Ultimately, Iā€™d love for all performance requirements to be met by lightweight components, but we havenā€™t achieved that balance yet.

Even cross-country bikes are getting heavier, but thatā€™s not the result of lazy product managers pretending the grams donā€™t count. The new crop of electronically controlled suspension systems weigh more than traditional ones, but testing has demonstrated their benefit when it comes to speed. Modern cross-country courses are more technically demanding than they used to be, so it makes sense for a bikeā€™s components to size up in order to meet the task. Even the average rider benefits from the added performance of heavier components, since trails donā€™t become mellower the more theyā€™re ridden. Big brakes, slightly more aggressive tires, and longer-travel suspension have all entered the chat, and Iā€™m good with that.

Sure, my personal bike may weigh 43 pounds, but Iā€™m not foisting that tonnage on anyone else. Somewhere between the extremes lies the ideal, which should be judged on real-world performance, not the figure on a scale.

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