Yoga classes these days are as diverse as the personalities drawn to them. And in recent years, one of the most polarizing topics among teachers and students everywhere is the use of music in yoga. Should classes boast banging soundtracks or should the room be as silent as a temple?

Spoiler: There is no universally right answer. Whether you’re a teacher or a practitioner, you need to search for your “why.” Once you understand that, you can more easily unpack the pros and cons of music in yoga class by balancing collective experience with personal growth.

Should There be Music or No Music in Yoga Class?

Ultimately, whether you practice to silence or let beats set the tone, you want to approach your decision with purpose and recognize both the magic and the challenges that each approach brings.

Yes to Music in Yoga: It Sets the Tone and Energy

There’s no doubt that a well-curated playlist can transform the energy in a room. Music creates a vibe, infusing the space with emotion and guiding practitioners into a shared rhythm. Moving together in sync with music can feel like a collective heartbeat, a unifying pulse that connects everyone in the room and creates an atmosphere where bodies and minds align almost effortlessly.

In dynamic classes, such as vinyasa flow or power yoga, music can fuel the intensity. That uptempo track might encourage students to find strength in their poses or push through challenging sequences.

On the other end of the scale, in more gentle or peace-and-love style classes, music can also unify the participants under the umbrella of a particular emotional state.

Music doesn’t just fill silence—it sets the mood.

No to Music in Yoga: Distractions Disrupt Self-Inquiry

Similar to how music can manipulate the vibe, it can just as easily pull our focus elsewhere. Yoga is ultimately a practice of self-inquiry. It encourages practitioners to observe their thoughts and emotions without judgment or commentary. It’s a place where, to quote Mary Oliver, “to pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.” For some, music becomes yet another external stimulus—a distraction that makes it more difficult to tune inward.

Think about meditation. Most practitioners wouldn’t pop on the radio or TV while sitting in stillness, although it would undoubtedly make the practice easier and more pleasurable. Instead, we seek out a space with as few distractions for the mind and senses as possible.

Asana, or the physical practice of yoga, is an opportunity for mindful observation. Silence can amplify that experience. When you strip away external noise, students might find themselves more attuned to the breath, the physical sensations, and the subtle workings of the mind.

Yes to Music in Yoga: Anchors the Mind

On the flip side, music can serve as a powerful tool for grounding. As we all know, the mind loves to wander, especially in moments of stillness and quiet. For some, silence can feel deafening with its infinite space for spiraling thoughts and emotional discomfort.

In these instances, music can act as a life jacket by helping wandering minds remain relatively present without getting pulled away by the undercurrent. A steady beat, gentle melody, or familiar lyrics can become an anchor—a point of focus that helps practitioners stay engaged with their movement and resistant to ruminations. This is especially true for beginners to yoga. Familiar music can ease the transition into a practice that might otherwise feel intimidating or overwhelming.

No to Music in Yoga: Emotional Interference

The very same qualities that make music so powerful in everyday life can make it challenging in a yoga class. Music evokes memories, emotions, and associations that can send you tumbling into an entirely different time and headspace. Have you ever been flowing through a vinyasa class when the playlist includes a song that unexpectedly dragged you back in time to the first dance at your wedding, a brutal breakup, memories of your late parent, or a hilarious instagram reel?

Yoga asks us to be present—to let go of distractions and cultivate awareness. Silence, while stark, offers a clean slate for the mind. Without the influence of music chosen by a teacher,Ìę students may find it easier to access a state of calm observation, free from emotional interference.

(Teachers, come clean: Have you ever tried to influence someone’s emotions with music? A little tear-inducing in Savasana, perhaps?)

Yes to Music in Yoga: Creating a Welcoming Atmosphere

For many, silence can feel intimidating and unfamiliar, especially in a group setting. A quiet studio might come across as uninviting, particularly for newer students. Music, even just a gentle piano soundscape, softens the edges and creates warmth and approachability.

Music also acts as a buffer against noises from the outside world; emergency vehicle sirens, local bars, the gym floor music or the very audibly enthusiastic front desk team. In doing so, music creates a cocoon of sound and an escape from life off the mat—a safe container where students can focus on their practice without interruption.

No to Music in Yoga: A Place of Fun or Learning?

Sure, adding music to class can make the whole experience more fun, but is fun what we are seeking? Life offers us countless opportunities for entertainment, but few places where we can experience aÌę deeply introspective journey—a sacred space to sit with our thoughts, face discomfort, and invite growth.

The spiritual and philosophical roots of yoga emphasise stillness, awareness, and connection with the self. In asana, we’re using our physical bodies as a vehicle of self-inquiry to then ultimately transcend the physical.

By removing external distractions, we can fully embrace the discomfort and transformation that come with facing ourselves on the mat. Self-development and challenge go hand in hand.

The Answer? It Depends.

There is no universal “right” or “wrong” when it comes to the music question in yoga. The answer is unique and personal to each of us. And that comes back to your intention. You want to make certain you’re asking yourself questions and not just doing what everyone around you is doing.

For teachers, this means considering the kind of experience you want to offer students. Are you cultivating a lighthearted, playful vibe where music can uplift and energize? Or are you prioritizing introspection and needing silence to encourage enhanced self-awareness?

Let yourself be liberated by the fact that you don’t have to be everything to everyone, but also be aware that one decision may be more commercially successful than the other, meaning you’re probably going to draw more students if you bring the tunes. But if you base your decisions solely on chasing money or fame, you’ll lose your integrity.

For practitioners, it’s about noticing what resonates with you. Do you feel more grounded with music as your anchor or does silence provide the clarity you need? Are you choosing one simply because it’s the route of least resistance? Even if so, that could be perfectly fine if simply showing up to your yoga mat requires lots of will power.

In case you’re curious, I prefer to soften the edges of an intimidatingly quiet space to make it welcoming for as many people as possible. I rely on chilled-out, low-volume piano melodies with songs almost blending into the next when I teach public classes. But I don’t want music to interfere with the practice. No one would recognize these tunes. When I lead a teacher training, I typically teach in silence.

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There’s no other way to put it: My skier friends and I are hedonists. We chase the pleasuresÌęof a 100-day ski season, cold snow splashing in our faces as we make turns in deep powder. We stay up late dancing, eat fondue and sip a cold beer on a sundeck under an azure sky. We minimize discomfort by shelling out beaucoup bucks for absurdly expensive outerwear and spend hours in a ski shop tweaking our plastic foot-coffins.

Despite this dogged commitment to skiing, I’ve recently made a compromise, to preserve my sanity while chasing snow 12 months a year, to maximize pleasure and minimize pain, I will no longer wake up at the crack of dawn on powder days to chase bottomless turns alongside the early-risers.

I know. I know. That’s what it’s all about—there’s an early morning ritual that skiers hold sacred. Rise early, brew coffee or grab a cup and a breakfast burrito at the local cafe, boot up in the lot well before the bullwheel spins, and snag first chair and an untracked run.

For dedicated skiers, that experience is universal. But I’m over it. My old early morning routine will give you a clue as to why.

It went something like this: I’d wake up bleary-eyed (I have never been a morning person) at 6 A.M. Fumble upstairs and realize the temperature of my living room has dropped to 48 degrees Fahrenheit.Ìę

After an arduous experience shoveling and loading the car, I would drive to the mountain. Rubbing a slim circle in the fog on my windshield so I could see if I was still on the road, I would hit traffic. Some crossover driver who thought all-wheel drive is the same thing as having snow tires spun off the road and stalled the creeping line of also ill-equipped cars to a standstill.

By the time I make it to the resort, boot up, and get in the lift line, I can see nothing but ski tracks on every bit of choice terrain on the hill.

It’s just not worth it. I’m done waking up early for pow days.

If you’ve read this far, you’re probably thinking, “Does this guy even like skiing?” No. To be clear:ÌęI love skiing. I eat, sleep, and breathe skiing. I’ve built my life around it to the point where I live 20 minutes from the resort, an incredible privilege that has ravaged my savings account to its core. In fact, I’m so obsessed with the sport that I couldn’t care less what kind of snow conditions I ski. Skied up chop is just as fun to me as deep powder, so I’ll be as happy showing up at noon on a powder day, just as the early birds are starting to leave from their primo parking spots.

I’ll spend the afternoon hours popping off soft moguls, finding air anywhere and everywhere. I’ll hunt for stashes of snow that the wind has picked up and recirculated. I’ll lap the chair that crowds have abandoned, thinking it’s all been skied out and laugh as I find pockets of pow and ski right back onto an empty chair lift.

I’m a backcountry skier too, and I live among a range that is more than 200 miles long and populated by fewer than 15,000 people. So don’t worry. I still ski powder. But to me, that’s no longer what resort skiing is for. It’s for hot laps with your friends and not stressing over morning lines, car accidents, traffic, or powder panic.

This weekend it’s going to snow another foot and a half, and you can find me lapping Mammoth Mountain’s Chair 22, the best chairlift on earth, from 2-4 P.M. Because I’m a hedonist, and I’ll be having more fun than anyone else on the mountain.

Jake Stern is a digital editor atÌęșÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű. He spends the winter months skiing as much as humanly possible. He just needs his beauty rest.

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Whether or not a backpacker carries a camp chair tells you a lot about them. Do they view camp as a destination to get comfortable and enjoy? Or just a brief pause that’s necessary if they want to spend a weekend walking without collapsing from exhaustion? While camp chairs have gotten lighter and lighter over the past several decade, they’re still far from standard in most backpackers’ gear lists. Should they be on yours? We asked two of our editors to weigh in.

Ditch the Camp Chair

I want it on record that . I’m the kind of person who’s constitutionally unable to sit on a couch without eventually oozing into a lying-down position. I like fireplaces and cozy flannel shirts. I’ve been known, on occasion, to wear Crocs. But when it comes to comfort, it’s possible to have too much of a good thing.

If you’re a middle-class person in the global north, you likely live in an environment that’s tailored to your physical ease. Your clothing is mostly soft and always clean; your furniture is upholstered, your temperatures are controlled. Like a fish in water, you’ve likely become so used to the comforts surrounding you that you’ve ceased to register them.

But sometimes, I think, a little discomfort can help us fully engage with the world. When you feel the sweat trickling down your neck or the hard rock underneath the seat of your pants, what you’re really experiencing is the feeling of being a human being out in nature, immersed in the sun and the bugs and the cold ground. Yes, when you leave the chair at home, you’re sacrificing a little bit of comfort—but you’re gaining so much more.

Then, there’s the obvious problem with carrying a chair: the weight. Backpacking chairs have gotten a lot lighter over the years, with models like the tipping the scales at a single pound. But you know what weighs less than bringing a lightweight seat? Leaving it at home. A chair is a luxury item that you can replace with any log or relatively flat rock. If I’m going to carry that weight, I’ll bring a book, a first-night meal, or exactly 1 pound of .

I don’t judge anyone who brings a chair—or any other personal luxury—but to me, focusing on comfort in camp is missing the point. The joy of backpacking is in movement and, for once in our comfort-swaddled lives, immersing ourselves in the wide world around us. So rebel, I say. Leave the chair at home. Sit on the wet grass or the cold, hard rock. —Adam Roy, Editor in Chief

Pack the Camp Chair

Just like Adam, I have an admission up top: I don’t hate discomfort. I several years ago, and it changed the way I behave. This Nordic trait boils down to channeling your determination to rise above all adversity. Just when you think you’ve reached your limit, you can always dig deeper. Basically the opposite of hygge, it’s how Finns are resilient enough to ice swim through the winter months, which is central to their culture.

Since I read that book, a lot of my life has trended toward hobbies and activities that test my patience: I actually enjoy running marathons. I write for a living. On the weekends, I climb rocks until my fingertips are raw. Plus, I regularly spend long hours carrying lots of weight on my back and setting up camp far from my comforts of home. I know what it’s like to test my strength, and doing so has let me experience parts of the backcountry that I’d never be able to if I took the easy route. However, there is a line between a hardy challenge and straight-up misery. How can you balance the two when you’re voluntarily putting yourself into uncomfortable scenarios? For me, having reliable comforts makes all the difference.

I bring a chair on most backpacking trips, and I actually use it. It doesn’t detract from my ability to connect with the outdoors at all. I’m still hearing the same birds, feeling the same wind, and getting bitten by the same bugs as I would if I was sitting on a rock. In fact, I feel like I can focus on connecting with nature a little more. (Sitting directly on wet grass or cold ground would also trigger my Raynaud’s-prone extremities to numbness that would take me out of the experience of being outdoors.)

In a community that prides itself on grit, it can be controversial to admit that you go out of your way for luxury. However, determining your hiker status by how much you want to suffer isn’t something we should be doing. We all have had hikes that tested us, whether with , technical scrambles, or . After a brutal hike, being able to reliably and comfortably sit down can help recharge your suffer meter. And doing so on an uneven log or soggy grass patch definitely doesn’t do it for me.

It’s easy to get caught up in the argument about weight, but honestly, chairs don’t weigh that much. My legs have never buckled under the weight of my 1 pound, 11 ounce REI Co-op Flexlite Camp Chair. And a chair weighing a single pound, like the Helinox Chair Zero? Weight-wise, that’s chump change. A decade ago, we wouldn’t be splitting hairs for the sake of weight class status, and doing so now is pretty trite. Just grow up and bring the extra pound or two. — Emma Veidt, Assistant Editor

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I have built two home walls this year. The one in my garage is 11 feet wide, nine feet tall, and 47 degrees overhanging. The one in the backyard of my parents’ house (where I spent the summer) is eight feet wide, 11 feet tall, 41 degrees overhanging, and set with a 2016 Moonboard. Building these walls was something of a culmination for me: definitive proof that, after two decades of commuting to the gym, I finally have the disposable income to train at home. Neither wall, however, is even remotely as photogenic as the 83-foot mistake currently at 16 Minetta Lane in New York City’s uber-posh West Village.

Did I just say mistake?

I guess I did.

But before I explain, let me first admit that the rest of 16 Minetta certainly looks pretty sweet—almost infinitely nicer than the roach-ridden one-bedroom my wife and I once shared in Prospect Park South. The mansion was designed by architect Adam Kushner, and it served as a primary residence for him and his family for several years. It’s 4,200 square feet across seven floors. It has four bedrooms and five bathrooms. It has multiple fireplaces, a private courtyard, multiple terraces and balconies, a private roof deck, 23-foot living room ceilings, and stylish piles of cordwood providing rustic decoration throughout. The only true eyesore, in my plebeian opinion, is the 83-foot climbing wall.

The wall begins at the basement level and “climbs” up the northwest side (morning sun, evening shade) of an enclosed, glass-topped courtyard. For the first four stories it looks much like any other pre-21st century climbing wall: vertical and brown-tinted, with tape designating certain routes. But then it escapes through a retractable glass roof. And for the next three stories, as you ascend into the air above the West Village, the wall material is glass, which offers the climber sweeping views of Manhattan and allows envious passersby on the street to compete over who can take the least-flattering butt shots.

Pretty cool, huh?

Sure. But you’d think an architect with an $20 million home would have invested in a slightly more interesting arrangement of wall angles (dead vertical being perhaps the single worst angle after dead flat), and a slightly more thrilling set of holds. In photos, the vertical wall is, admittedly, broken by a few large volume, but is it even possible to climb its weird slug-shaped overhang without dabbing against the facade of the building? And those holds! They look like used gym holds from the 90s—chalkless, slippery, and ergonomically fucked. ( gorgeous wood grips would have fit the home’s timber-themed decor far better.) When I first looked at the pictures, I immediately thought that while the house looks like it was designed by someone who knows a thing or two about houses, the climbing wall looks like it was designed by someone who knows almost nothing about climbing.

This is sort of—but not exactly—true.Ìę According to a 2021 about 16 Minetta in Gripped, Kushner began rock climbing in the 1980s and used day trips to the Gunks as an “antidote” to the urban bustle. He never led harder than 5.6 trad, and he never followed harder than 5.8, but he was emotionally devoted to the sport, and he’s since translated the meaning it brought to his life into a design element in his architecture, even (according to Gripped) incorporating a wall used during the X Games into one of his earlier projects.

In this sense, Kushner’s home wall seems designed to serve more of a metaphorical function than a physical one. I mean, it literally begins in a forever-shadowy basement courtyard, pierces a glass ceiling, and loses even the visibly restrictive nature of—well—a wall by turning translucent. It is, quite literally, an escape from the confines of a closed-in city home.

Yet I can’t help but sense that the climbing wall’s upward-reaching, unenclosed nature also—and ironically—mimics a famous feature of one of history’s most restrictive architectural structures: the high towers of a Disney-style castle. This makes sense to me. Because city mansions are a bit like castles, designed to make the wealthy feel separate and safe from the commoners in the street, and the climbing wall at 16 Minetta is little more than a 21st century version of the high tower from which a king, or a prince, or cloistered maiden might gaze while simultaneously submitting themselves to the admiration of those below.

Accidental? I think not. “The city park is right across from us,” Kushner told Gripped in 2021. “We certainly draw a crowd.”

The appropriation of climbing and climbing walls by non-climbers isn’t particularly new. Hollywood has made hay out of misrepresenting the sport for decades. And artificial climbing walls—or their genetically tortured cousins—have been popping up in fairs, parks, weight gyms, and cruise ships for decades, attracting kids and scorn and in seemingly equal measure.

But what’s interesting about Kushner’s version at 16 Minetta is the combination of utility and location. This isn’t a state fair. This is a home. Which means that this wall is something that Kushner and his family looked at, and lived next to, for years. And though the wall’s design is pretty mediocre from a climbing standpoint, it is functional. You can lead climb or top rope. You can crimp, drop-knee, or pump off huge greasy volumes. And according to Gripped, the wall hosts—or did in 2021—some relatively challenging routes. While Kushner remains a novice, his son took to the sport pretty well and set climbs as hard as 5.11—though, judging from photos, it seems he either didn’t use chalk or, for cleanliness reasons, wasn’t allowed to, so who knows how hard the climbs actually were.

Of course, the thought of Kushner’s teenage son spending hours hanging on his family’s wall, testing moves, setting 5.11s, and mocking his old man—that makes me happy. But it also makes me a little lonely on his behalf. Because when teenagers find climbing, they generally find a community to go along with it. But I suspect that having a wall like this in your house would inspire the opposite. Does that make him a Rapunzel figure—trapped in his high tower, in need of escape? Probably not. But for most of us, gyms are social—and it’s that part of their functionality.

I have nothing against Kushner. If he and his son are happy lapping a vertical wall while the plebes ogle them from the street below—fine. But regardless of how dysfunctional the wall is from a climber perspective, I do think it’s there’s something meaningful about the fact that Kushner’s home climbing wall is being marketed as a central design element of an $20 million mansion that Kushner (a famous and influential architect, remember) considers “deeply philosophical” and “the culmination of [his] dream.”

Meaningful how? I don’t know if I can answer that in any concise and singular way. Perhaps it’s meaningful in the same kind of way that $1,590 Louis Vuitton chalk bag was meaningful: an implication that our sport is now mainstream enough to be mined for symbolism by people who don’t actually engage in the sport. Or perhaps it’s meaningful in the same way that Eddie Bauer’s to fire all its climbing athletes and replace them with Instagram influencers is meaningful: a reminder that, in our late capitalist society, semblance is more marketable than the real thing. Or perhaps it’s meaningful in the same kind of way that recent climbing gym are meaningful: a reminder that our gyms, which were once owned by climbers and run for climbers, are now overseen by executives whose fundamental allegiance is not to their customers or the employees but to the already-wealthy investors who expect the gym to maximize their returns. In other words: a reminder that our sport is now quite literally being defined by wealthy people who have no emotional investment in it.

Indeed, in a full-circle moment, Kushner has been part of that process, too. His architectural firm, , and his construction company, the , led the of Brooklyn Boulders’s former home, at 575 Degraw Street in Gowanus, for the Brooklyn Bouldering Project. Brooklyn Boulders was my old local gym, so I can attest to the fact that it was a dilapidated tear-down. There were no showers or saunas or yoga rooms. The roof often leaked. In the winter, frigid air plowed through single pane warehouse windows, and in summer, the place smelled like someone was trying to roast old socks in an oven.

But I’m old enough to remember the days before Brooklyn Boulders’s management ran it into the ground, when BKB—back then the only commercial climbing gym in the city—was a legitimately beloved training hub whose densely set walls and wide range of difficulties attracted folks like Ty Landman, Phil Schaal, and Ashima Shiraishi. So it’s a little sad to know that Kushner Studios and the In-House Group finalized that gym’s long transformation into something very different: a mirror image of every other chichi commercial gym out there. Yoga studio! Coworking space! Yet another gigantic facility that doesn’t have very many problems because we don’t want to pay our setters but we’ll attempt to disguise that by splashing colorful macros across the walls and then quiet dissent from core climbers by throwing a Tension Board 2 into one corner!

Perfect. Just what our sport needs.

But I’ll tell you this: If you gave me 16 Minetta, I’d at least consider tearing it down to build a real rock gym. The sort of core community center that, for a few years, Brooklyn Boulders managed to be. Maybe we can shape some good old timber crimps from those piles of ornamental firewood.

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Flip through the pages of șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű, or watch an episode of a hit show about the intersection of , and you’ll be presented with one unifying message: survival is about rugged individualism. But the ever-escalating climate crisis is bringing us a very different lesson from the real world. Despite the fantasy so often portrayed in the media, real survival is actually about tapping into community.

That was very much the case for one of șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű’s readers, Kyle Moorcones, who lives outside Elk Park, in westernÌęNorth Carolina. He messaged me late last week to share his story of survival in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.

Moorcones was able to get in touchÌębecause his family has a Starlink satellite system, and one of his neighbors had a portable generator. While surveying the damage post-flood, Moorcones says his neighbor rode by on an ATV to see if they needed anything. The two ended up setting up a regular rotation for their little community of eight families, taking advantage of their limited fuel supplies to switch Starlink on each morning and evening so everyone could check in with friends and family, connect with first responders or local authorities, and read the news.

It actually shouldn’t have been that difficult. Moorcones says he’d recently had a whole home generator installed, which was designedÌęto use propane from his family’s big tank to provide power for everything in their house. But the installation had gone unfinished while they waited on a single backordered part to arrive.

It was at one of those Starlink-generator sessions when Moorcones was describing the problem with the home generator that it turned out another neighbor had the missing part. They managed to install it, and now they’re able to provide hot showers and laundry twice a day, in addition to that internetÌęconnection.

Another neighbor’s well was still working, providing water that could now be boiled at Kyle’s house. Still another raises chickens, and shared the eggs with his neighbors in need. The one with the ATV was able to ride half an hour across the mountains on a narrow trail to get a few supplies like bottled water and diapers. One family had a big chest freezer they ran off of the portable generator to keep everyone’s food safe.

One night this weekend, Moorcones says he smoked one of his neighbor’s chickens whole and served it to a big group of neighbors. “That was a significant morale booster,” he told me.

Right now, almost two weeks after the storm, Moorcones’ life has almost returned to normal. He told me he went back to work for the first time this morning. YetÌęno official agency has yet made it to their little community to provide relief—they’ve done everything themselves.

Moorcones says a neighbor was able to hot-wire an excavator that the Department of Transportation had parked nearby, staged for a pre-Helene project. A nearby road bridge was still intact, but left inaccessible by flood debris. As he and his neighbors used that excavator to open up their side of the bridge, the Tennessee Valley Authority showed up on the other side, and now Moorcones’ community is again connected to the outside world.

“The ride’s pretty rough, but it’s passable,” he says of the one road out.

I asked him if he needed to use any of the stereotypical survival skills during the aftermath of Helene. “I definitely haven’t had to drink my own pee yet,” he says, “but I did get a fire going in a cast iron stove to dry a neighbor’s basement out.”

Moorcones says he thinks it’ll be at least two more weeks before grid power is restored, but that he’s not too worried. Over the weekend, a group from Samaritan’s Purse—an evangelical Christian aid organization run by the Graham family—passed through. They told him it didn’t appear he or his neighbors needed any help.

“It was people skills,” Moorcones responded when I asked him what the most vital capability has been over the last couple of weeks. “Just being able to knock on doors, say we’re all humans, and figure out how to help each other.”

And it’s not just some little holler in Western North Carolina where this rings true. When a wildfire raged through Lahaina, Hawaii,Ìęlast August, neighbors worked together to . When a cattle farmer in Illinois lost his barn during the historic tornado outbreak during March 2023, , fed them, and helped him rebuild his barn. LastÌęAugust, a flood in Juneau, Alaska, damaged the home of a couple my wife and I met on vacation in Mexico earlier in the year. We joined hundredsÌęof other people to donate money, enabling them to rebuild.

None of this is to say that individual skill and preparation don’t matter. I just checked in with family members in Tampa, Florida who have chosen to ride out incoming Hurricane Milton at their home. Their home is well clear of any storm surge and, hopefully, is constructed strong enough to withstand the wind. They’ve stockpiled food, water and fuel, have a generator, and feel like they’re ready to spend two weeks or more without access to the outside world.

But, as Kyle’s experience demonstrates, combining skills and supplies goes much further than anything amassed by an individual or single family.

Climate change will continue to make events like that fire in Lahaina, or Hurricanes Helene and Milton, or tornadoes, or flooding, or heat, or snow storms more common and more severe than ever before. And it will bring all the above to new areas. It’s my hope that this story can remind and encourage all of us that humans rely on community to survive.

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When I’m standing in the Meadow in Yosemite, adjusting the telescopes that point to El Capitan, tourists of all ages often ask me how I got started in climbing and how they could try it out. I tell them the truth: I started in a climbing gym.

When they ask how much it costs, I’m still honest: Depending on where they live, it could be as low as $60 per month, or as high as $150, but for me, it’s usually been around $90 per month.

That’s when their faces fall.

It’s another daily reminder that climbing, as a sport, is knee deep in an economic identity crisis. In campgrounds and wilderness areas, my friends and I sleep in our cars and forego the common luxuries of showers and kitchens in order to climb as much as possible. On my feed, videos of shredded boulderers in action suggest an ascetic freedom–empty hands, lone chalk bag. But for most climbers, the opportunity to climb outside only unlocks after they hone their skills in the gym–and even dirtbags only rarely escape that fact. It was in the gym that I learned to belay, lead climb, and practice cleaning anchors until I could bet my life that I had it right. While outdoor climbing still looks and feels like an anti-materialistic pursuit, its common prerequisite, indoor climbing, has quietly followed skiing into the category of high-income, elitist sports.

Fortunately, the American Alpine Club (AAC) has noticed. On July 12, the AAC announced via email that high gym membership prices are officially an access issue.

“Many climbers are introduced to the sport through a gym, and therefore a holistic approach to climbing access requires us to consider challenges across the climbing spectrum, including indoor climbing,” they wrote.

To solve this problem, the AAC says, climbing gyms can start offering discounted pricing for lower-income climbers, also known as a Pay What You Can (PWYC) pricing model.

“Addressing equity issues in climbing is not mutually exclusive from best business practices,” wrote the AAC, noting that “sustainable PWYC models” often come with “the added benefit of increasing these gyms’s memberships.”

The AAC followed up that suggestion by publishing a free, 26-page Pay What You Can for gym owners. The toolkit analyzes nine different components of PWYC programs, asking questions like “Honor System or Proof of Need?” and “Self Funded or Community Funded?” It then concludes with specific recommendations for each component based on real PWYC gyms.

The AAC (a nonprofit) has added a carrot to these recommendations by announcing that, in partnership with The North Face, they will offer $1,000-4,000 grants for gyms who need the extra boost to start PWYC programs of their own. Applications are due August 31.

But Wait, Is Climbing Really “Too Expensive”?

By the numbers, yes. Climbing gyms, today, regularly charge more than $100 per month and $1,000 per year (with a discount for paying annually) for membership—far more than most Americans are able or willing to pay.

For example, in Denver, one can get a monthly pass to Movement ($102), the Spot ($115), Übergrippen ($98), or G1 Climbing ($91). In Atlanta, where the cost of living is 11% cheaper than Denver, the average price dips slightly—Central Rock Gym ($80), Wall Crawler Climbing ($79), and Overlook ($1o7)—but in New York City, where the cost of living is 47% higher than Denver, gyms such as MetroRock ($125), Brooklyn Boulders ($129), Central Rock Gym ($135), Movement ($135), Bouldering Project ($120), and VITAL Brooklyn ($145) have much steeper fees.

According to the Aspen Institute, American families making $100,000 or more (the top 33% of households) spend an average of $1,099 per child on sports–enough, if barely, to afford most annual climbing gym memberships–but the average family making $50,000 or less only pays $476 per year–which means they’re firmly priced out of today’s climbing gyms. (This is one reason, by the way, that work in gyms for minimum wage: even low-paid employees get free memberships.)

For adults, the numbers are even more dire. The average American spends just $33.89 per month to work out, which falls about $67 short of a $100 climbing membership. Indeed, only 15 percent of American adults are currently accustomed to spending more than $100 per month on gym memberships.

For gym owners who hope to grow their membership base, finding creative ways to lower their prices could help drastically open up their audience.

Option 1: Volunteer MembershipsÌę

The most famously progressive gym in the country, Memphis Rox, opened in March 2018 with financial inclusion as a founding principle. “We exclude no one, regardless of ability to pay,” says their mission statement.

Memphis Rox, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, lets members exchange five hours of volunteering for a 4-week membership. The gym’s 32,000-square foot campus houses a community closet, food bank, and food garden, and volunteers support those programs. Since 2018, members have performed at least 2,000 hours of community service.

Despite their zero-dollar option, Memphis Rox—located in Memphis, where the cost of living is 16.6% lower than Denver—charges just $55 per month and $630 per year for traditional adult memberships.

Some for-profit gyms have also tried volunteer membership. The Pad Climbing, which operates four gyms across California, Nevada, and New York, charges $85 per month for traditional adult memberships. Yet their PWYC program allows members to set their own price, with special requirements—volunteering, caregiving for a relative, or showing evidence of financial need—for those who choose to pay under $50 per month. Some pay as little as $1.

Did offering such cheap membership options bankrupt the gym? Surprisingly, no. In 2023, the Pad supported reduced-price memberships for 527 people out of 860 applicants. On their website, the Pad announced that fundraiser events, optional premium-price member support, and contributions from the gym itself had allowed them to “pay for” the full $16,781 value of the program—with more than $300 left over to re-invest into this year’s program.

The downside? In its compare-contrast analysis, the AAC noted that volunteerism-based programs, compared to discount-only programs, typically increase the burden on staff to track hours and manage scheduling.

The Popular Alternative: Sliding Scale or Tiered Membership

Among for-profit gyms looking for a quick-and-easy PWYC system, the most popular setups so far are sliding scale or tiered discount memberships. For example, the Spot, which operates five gyms around Denver and Boulder, charges $115 for one month’s membership but offers three lower price tiers: $62, $42, and $32.

In 2022, the Spot awarded 450 of these lower-tiered memberships. Had the affected members all paid full price, the gym would have earned $22,000 more—but the Spot doesn’t consider this a loss.

“$22,000 in membership dollars saved,” reads their proud announcement in Climbing Business Journal.

Other gyms offer only one discount level, most likely because the accounting is simpler for the gym and its staff. Movement Englewood, for example, offers the TEAL membership for the flat rate of $31 per month, or 70% off the standard $102 rate. Launched in April 2024, the TEAL program currently has 516 members across all 30 Movement gyms.

The AAC notes that sliding scale models offer the most flexibility to a participant’s financial situation, but tiered prices are typically easier to integrate into gym check-in software.

For PWYCs to Work, Gyms Need to Rethink Cost and Profit

A standout section of the AAC’s report was the firm reminder—demonstrated by the owners of The Spot—that PWYC programs shouldn’t necessarily be tracked as gym expenses, and that owners shouldn’t necessarily worry about finding alternate sources of funding to offset what they supposedly would have made if their PWYC participants were also paying full price.

“We found this was oftentimes a perception issue rather than a true financial concern,” writes the AAC in their report.

“For example, ‘We have 30 members who are paying $40/month on an $80 membership; we’re losing $1,200/month through this program!’ could alternatively be viewed as, ‘We added 30 members to our gym who are paying $40/month who can’t afford an $80 membership; we have increased our monthly revenue by $1,200,” the report said.

But whether a gym is truly winning over new members in a lower-income tier depends on how the PWYC program is being marketed. If a gym wants to attract new members with discount prices, the AAC warns against simply advertising “in the gym’s physical and digital spaces.” Instead, the report recommends advertising PWYC programs “through local non-profits, school programs, or other community outreach,” to ensure that each new member is indeed a new source of revenue.

Let’s Not Be Like Skiing

As the high-income recreational sports market becomes more saturated, climbing gyms may choose to grow in the direction of supporting underprivileged participants. If they don’t, climbing will be even more restricted to an activity for the rich. For those of you who argue that it already is, remember that it can get even worse. Just look at what’s happened with skiing, where the vast majority of resorts do not prioritize equitable access or offer reduced pricing for lower-income athletes. The result is a sport with rampant inclusion issues: 88% of ski visits are made by white people, and more than half of skiers make two times the national average salary.

Despite attracting participants with plenty of cash to spare, ski resorts have not succeeded in building wealth for their local communities, and staggering income inequality has become a predictable component in each one. In fact, Teton County, home to Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, has the highest income inequality of any county in the U.S. Yet climbing isn’t that much cheaper. While renting ski equipment (at least $30 per day) costs far more than renting a pair of climbing shoes (typically $5-6 per day), and the average day pass at ski resorts like Vail ($259) and Breckenridge ($241) are nothing short of exorbitant, most annual climbing memberships in the Denver area actually cost more than an IKON base pass ($969).

And while climbing gyms do not tend to highly skew the cost of living in otherwise remote rural towns, as ski areas do, climbing gyms are already markers of gentrification in many cities—and their proliferation in places like Brooklyn’s and Los Angeles’ , have coincided with severe housing crises in . Pay What You Can programs give climbing gyms a chance to build in the opposite direction: toward inclusion.

If we care about stopping climbing’s acceleration toward elitism, then we should all take the AAC’s advice to our local gyms and push them to apply for the North Face grant before August 31. And when they miss the grant deadline, let’s push them to create a PWYC program anyway. We need to close the climbing wealth gap while we still can.

I want to live in a world where inclusive pricing is so common that, when Yosemite visitors ask me in the Meadow what joining a climbing gym costs, the answer won’t make them grimace at their shoes. Instead they’ll nod with excitement, squint up at El Capitan—and maybe, for the first time, see themselves up there.

Four Main Takeaways from the AAC’s Toolkit

• Across the 47 gyms with Pay What You Can programs in the study, the “vast majority” had “net positive” but “not substantial” effects on their revenue—which means that, while it’s good business, it’s not something that most gyms will be able to structure their entire business model around.
• Most PWYC programs require 1-4 hours per week of staff time to maintain, so they can be managed as an additional duty by one staff member
• Most PWYC programs operate successfully on an honor system rather than requiring proof of need. The incidents of members lying about their financial situation for lower rates were, on average, “less than one member per gym” with “negligible” economic consequences.
• One case study gym, which introduced a PWYC program with two tiers—30% and 75% off a full membership—saw their membership increase by 8%

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“Yellow blazing,” or hitchhiking past trail miles, has a bad rap. Most thru-hikers agree that it’s the cheapest and most disappointing way to complete a trail. But catching a ride or leaving the official route for an alternate for a couple miles (also called blue blazing) is a relatively common experience due to simple logistics, or even the side trails that lead in and out of shelters.

and I hiked about 2,000 miles of the Appalachian Trail together as purely (without skipping miles or stepping off-trail) as we could in 2015. But over the years, and as our trail miles grew, our perspectives shifted about whether or not your thru-hike still counts if you miss a few miles. Here’s what we think.

Wrecker: Mile-Skipping Degrades the Integrity of the Hike

Wrecker was a purist from day one on the AT. “I feel like self exploration is the only point of it,” he says today. Wrecker saw the endeavor as an act of discipline, demanding devotion and mental stamina in addition to physical fitness. As a result, there were many times when I followed Wrecker while he retraced his steps on blue blazes in and out of shelters instead of skipping small sections of trail.

By the time we made it to Virginia, we’d already hiked a marathon day at a blistering pace that left many of our companions irritated at our intensity and devotion. “I needed to prove to myself that I was capable of more,” he says.”

Over the years, Wrecker has also tackled the , which only seemed to deepen his commitment to each on-trail mile. But he doesn’t judge others who take a more liberal approach.

“I’m maybe more of a purist [now] than ever before,” he said. “For me, I need the structure to feel any reduction in anxiety. But that’s just what’s best for me. I’ve learned that what’s best for others is different.”

While discipline and testing physical and mental limitations is Wrecker’s greatest trail motivator, he still recognizes that the “right way” to hike a trail varies by person and that would-be thru-hikers should “hike their own hike.”

Mouse: Routes Change Every Year, So the Official Trail Route is Arbitrary Anyway

The beginning of my AT thru-hike was a debacle. I was new to the mountains, which resulted in my best friend and I meandering around winding, steep roads in a crappy vehicle hoping to find one spring morning. After the check engine light came on, we decided to leave the mountains and regroup. On our way out, we found a random AT crossing, and the next day she dropped me off there and waved goodbye.

My original plan was to hike backwards to Springer, but shortly after leaving, I burst into tears next to a stream and decided that going against the grain to reach the southern terminus of the trail simply felt wrong. Instead, I abandoned my resolve to complete every mile of the trail and started heading north, a fact I was ashamed to admit through the entire thru-hike. To this day, I still have yet to complete the first 16 miles of the AT, plus a few other short sections due to hitchhiking logistics and a mystery illness that by a few miles.

Since 2015, I’ve accumulated more trail miles than I can count. The longer I hike, the less I care about touching every single mile marker on a trail. The length of the AT grows every year due to trail maintenance and development. Even if I’d chosen to chase a completely pure thru-hike, the trail I completed would be different from any other AT in a given season.

What really pushed me off of my high horse, however, was an experience I had in the White Mountains. There’s a section of the that takes hikers through a valley instead of meandering over the region’s 6,000-foot peaks (likely due to the area’s reputation for dangerous weather). I chose to hike the valley on a perfect bluebird day to follow the official AT route, and a friend went on to “blue blaze” all of those spectacular peaks. To this day, I think I made the wrong decision. Being able to improvise and tag off-trail peaks is much more fulfilling and exciting than blindly following a trail.

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Some pieces of gear are just controversial. Trekking poles, camp shoes, and even have their haters and die-hards. As it turns out, so do pee cloths. While legions of women have hailed the pee cloth—a reusable square of fabric used to dab drippy nethers—as a great equalizer in the backcountry, others have rolled their eyes at the excess. For years, the debate has raged on: is the pee cloth an absolute necessity, or just an unnecessary accessory? Here’s our editors’ take.

Pee Cloths Rule

My is a treasured staple in my backpacking kit. Sure, sticks and leaves can keep me dry-ish in a pinch—but why would I settle for subpar and scratchy and flirt with when I can invest just half an ounce of weight and zero pack space into being dry and clean?

Air drying is OK in a pinch, and snow works where I can find it (brrr!), but my pee cloth keeps me feeling as fresh as I do at home, and it has a cool design that adds some razzle dazzle when hanging on the outside of my pack. If I’m going to spend a week being grimy, I’ll take the small comforts where I can get them. That includes extending the use of my underwear before I’m dying for a fresh pair. I can wear a sweat-stained t-shirt for days, but dry underwear makes all the difference for my enjoyment on trail.

Smell isn’t an issue, either: My Kula dries in a flash in the sun and washes easily in the laundry when I get home. It’s odor-resistant and antimicrobial, so I can feel good about my hygiene. Nothing against smooth rocks and vegetation, but I’d rather keep the dirt on the outside of my hiking pants).

Sure, I could spend a laborious extra minute in a deep squat, trying to shake off the drops, but I’d rather do my business, pat dry, and be back on the trail in a heartbeat. I’d prefer to save my quads for that next climb, anyway.

—Zoe Gates, Senior Editor

Pee Cloths SuckÌę

Christ on a bike. You wipe with the wrong leaf one time.ÌęWe all make mistakes in our youth, OK, Zoe?

Still, I confess that after the aforementioned incident, I did try the pee rag method for a while. It seemed like such a good idea for all the reasons you lay out. But in reality, it’s just more trouble than it’s worth.

One of the best things about hiking is that you have the freedom to drop trou at a moment’s notice, whenever the mood or scenery strikes you. But if you have a pee rag to worry about, you can’t just kick into a wide stance and let loose. Instead, you have to remove your pack (delicately, to avoid tossing your pee cloth in the dirt), unfasten the rag, and then discreetly carry it into the woods with you. Once you’ve done your business, you must then carry it, dripping, back to the trail, refasten it, and hoist a backpack covered in moist pee. If your bag is heavy, you must sling it onto your shoulder carefully to avoid whipping your partner in the face with your urine-soaked pennant. Not ideal.

While some backpackers don’t mind the junk show look, I prefer to . I want my pack neat and tidy, without any danglers to snag on overhung branches or get caught in thorns during sections of bushwhacking. Then there’s the matter of (literally) airing your dirty laundry on the trail. I wouldn’t want a pair of panties dangling off the back of my pack. So why would I want the world to watch my pee flag fluttering in the wind?

Even during the days when I carried a pee cloth with me, I still found myself shaking dry the majority of the time just to avoid the hassle. It’s so easy to do a little wiggle and then use a smooth stick or stone to flick off extra drops. That way, you leave your urine where it ought to be: in the ground, not all over your pack.

In my mind, the pee cloth craze is just another way to get you to spend $20 on a piece of gear you don’t really need. I’ll keep my money—and continue peeing the way nature intended.

—Corey Buhay, Interim Managing Editor

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I really love dogs. All kinds of . I have two and relish running trails with them. They’re a gift of companionship, loyalty and playfulness that’s nearly impossible to match in this world.

But there’s nothing I loathe more than getting charged by a dog that’s off leash while I’m out running on a trail.

It can be downright scary, especially if I’m running with one of my dogs. Is the oncoming dog going to attack me? Or my dog? It sure seems that way. Why else would they be charging full-throttle in my direction?

Here’s the thing: I have been bitten by five dogs in my life and four of those have come while running trails. I have scars to prove it, including one permanent scratch mark left from a Doberman’s fang in awkwardly close proximity to my junk. (OK, maybe that’s the real reason I find a charging dog so damn scary.)

As much as I love dogs, love running with dogs and think it’s great that people take their dogs running and hiking, I’m often puzzled at dog owners I encounter on the trails who let their dogs roam free and don’t seem to have a care in the world how their canine companion approaches other people and pups. I understand that an oncoming runner can seem threatening, although not one like me who is often chugging along at an ultra shuffle pace. But what I am more perplexed about is why those dog owners don’t seem to realize the magnitude of the problem.

Often I’ll hear something like, “It’s OK! My dog is friendly. He won’t bite.”

Um, sure, but he has teeth and he’s running at me with his mouth open like I have chunks of sirloin steak hanging from my hydration pack, so I’m not really sure I should believe you.

Worse than that, I typically hear nothing at all, partially because the oncoming dog is barking so loudly that your annoyingly passive voice got drowned out. Depending on direction of the wind, those aggressive barks often sound pretty gangster to me.Ìę“Woof! Woof! I’m coming to tear the flesh from your bones, you slow-assed, hobby jogger! Woof! Woof!”

It’s almost like a cartoon, but it’s a real live foaming-at-the-mouth wolf-dog. Still, if it was a cartoon dog in pit-bull pajamas I encountered in a dream, I might still be just as terrified.

Usually—but not always—just as the dog gets close to me, I come to realize it’s just a bluff charge and not a blitzkrieg that ends in a bite. The dog typically darts into a wide arc and starts bouncing around, playfully wagging its tail as if it’s ready for some good-natured roughhousing.

I’m sure it’s a common dog behavioral trait, but how the f#%& am I supposed to know that?

Although I’ve gotten rushed many times (and, yes, bitten by only a few), I rarely say anything to the dog owner. Unfortunately, most of the ill-repute dog owners don’t even acknowledge the terrifying experience I just went through.

But one time after getting charged by some sort of smallish but aggressively barking white terrier while running on a popular trail recently with Sandy, my playful but decidedly anti-social Airedale, I decided to politely speak up.

“Hey, it would be great if you could control your dog,” I said genuinely after the incident had calmed down. “That was a bit stressful there for us.”

To which the middle-aged woman holding a leash and walking toward me responded:Ìę“F*#% you! Dogs are allowed off-leash here. She isn’t bothering you!”

Well, no, she isn’tÌęnow, I thought, but I was pretty clear that I was referring to that horrific moment about 30 seconds ago when I nearly wet myself because all that stood between me and her dog’s teeth was a skimpy pair of nylon split shorts. I was at a loss for words on that one, so I just rolled my eyes and ran on by.

But then something magical happened. As Sandy and I continued on our way, her dog, aka, Chewy, took chase again and ran after us.

Oh, I thought, this is a game I can win. Sandy instinctively started running at tempo pace along the meandering singletrack and I followed suit. Chewy took the bait and tried to keep up. I could hear someone who sounded a lot like the leash-carrying vixen in the distance yelling for Chewy at the top of her lungs, but Chewy was apparently hard of hearing or just didn’t care.

By then we were easily 200 yards down the trail and picking up speed. Suddenly, I realized the three of us were all in full gallop and enjoying an idyllic trail run, a 10-legged blur of furry paws, and dusty Altras.

“Come on, Chewy, good girl! Come on, girl, you can keep up!”ÌęI heard a voice exclaim that oddly sounded a lot like mine.

By now we were a good quarter-mile away from the scene of the faux-attack and I can only assume that Melanie Manners was starting to get concerned. Sandy and I beelined for the open-space gate about 100 yards ahead and Chewy, of course, kept coming.

We all arrived at the same time, so I opened the gate and we all entered that next section of the park together and discovered a huge sloppy mud puddle in front of us. I controlled Sandy on her leash, but she wasn’t particularly interested in the sloppy mud. Chewy, however, was hot and thirsty and riled up, so she waded right in, and, given her hyperactive predilection, not only gulped up some of the dirty water but also rolled around in it a bit, immediately making her look like a dirty dish rag that had just swiped up spilled gravy.

Oh, that ought to do it, I thought, as I spied Chewy’s panicked owner briskly walking toward us from about 200 yards away. I jumped back and forth excitedly with Sandy’s leash in my hand as I called Chewy’s name, encouraging her to keep rolling around. Sandy played along with a couple of instigating barks and Chewy did the rest of the dirty work herself.

At that point, I opened the gate and sent her on her way back to her kind-hearted owner, offering a wave to the woman in distance. Sandy and I continued on our way, snickering as we trotted along the singletrack back to my truck.

This article was originally published on .

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There are a few things you learn right away when you start cycling “seriously.” Carbon fiber is the best material for a bicycle. (False.)Ìę You need to use clipless pedals for maximum efficiency. (Double false.)Ìę And of course you should avoid wearing cotton, since it’s a very poor choice when it comes to cycling attire. (Wildly, ridiculously false.)

So what are you supposed to wear to partake in “serious” cycling?Ìę Generally, the answer is one of the various branded forms of spandex, the most widely known being Lycra—the Band-Aid of stretchy clothes in that it has become a byword for it. The reasoning is that the fabric is form-fitting for aerodynamics, it affords you full range of movement due to its stretchiness, and, most importantly, it’s “wicking,” meaning it allows moisture to evaporate quickly, thereby keeping you dry and cool.

Meanwhile, cotton, as your friend who uses clipless pedals and just completed a century (or its 21st century equivalent, a gravel race) on a carbon fiber bicycle will patiently bike-splain to you, is not wicking. Therefore, if you ride in cotton clothing, you’ll get all bogged down with sweat. This can result in chafing and fungus, as well as poor thermoregulation, since if you ride around wet for hours on end you can catch a chill and die, or you’ll never cool off and get heatstroke, I forget which. Maybe it’s both.

Of course, cotton dries just fine, which is why you wear t-shirts all summer long. So how did riding in cotton become the object of the second-most aggressive fear campaign in cycling after riding without helmets? How did we come to the crazy conclusion that it takes a t-shirt (arguably the single-greatest piece of activewear ever invented) a long time to dry—so long that you shouldn’t ever ride in one? Well, it’s tempting to blame Big Oil, since we blame them for everything anyway, and of course spandex is made from petroleum, so making cyclists deathly afraid of cotton is their way of making sure people who ride bikes still consume fossil fuels. But I admit that’s a bit too conspiracy-minded, and as with most things involving cycling the truth is a lot simpler: it’s the power of marketing coupled with the aspiring cyclist’s desire to be seen as doing the right thing.

Now none of this is to say spandex cycling clothing is bad. On the contrary; it’s highly engineered, and as such it’s generally ideal at the more extreme ends of the sport. It would be foolish to deny, for example, that a rider ascending a steep climb 60 miles into a ride on a humid 80-degree day is not going to benefit from a lightweight stretchy bicycling speedsuit—and sure, a lightweight carbon bicycle, and clipless pedals, and hey, what the hell, might as well throw in a power meter since we’re going for max performance here.

However, what I am saying is those same cotton clothes you used to run and jump and play football and baseball and hide-and-seek in and generally wore into the ground when you were a kid still work just as well when you’re an adult. In fact, if you grew up riding a bike you almost certainly did it in a t-shirt and jeans, and fundamentally little has changed since then apart from the fact that when you show up at the trailhead in a t-shirt the people unloading their dual-suspension bikes from their SUVs will probably look at you funny. Yes, cycling clothing is engineered for performance, but it’s also engineered to clearly display sponsor logos, which is a feature very few of us will ever need.

Modern cycling clothing is great, and there are absolutely circumstances in which it will enhance your ride. At the same time it’s often expensive, and extremely limited in utility, and generally one minute crash away from winding up in the trash, unlike your jeans which you can wear until you blow out the crotch—at which point they can be darned and worn again. Not only can riding in the same cotton clothes you wear to clear out the basement or play softball or just hang out can be one of the great joys of cycling (when was the last time you just hopped on a bike and ripped around without worrying about what you were wearing?), but it can also make your fancy specialty clothes last longer.

All I’m saying is go ahead, ride your bike in cotton once in a while. It won’t kill you.

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