(Photo courtesy of MicroJib)
Every week, we bring you five gear-related stories, from all over, that you won’t want to miss. Here are this week’s highlights:
A GoPro Pole Reinvented
Easy Reader News has the scoop on 23-year-old entrepreneur Ben Swanson’s successfully funded Kickstarter project, MicroJib—a smaller, more portable GoPro jib pole that can angle down or up at a subject, mimicking the human eye.
It’s a charming entrepreneurial tale. In Swanson’s words: “I went to Home Depot and combined some stuff with [an] old egg beater. I kept prototyping at my house for another year. I filed a patent. I contacted China.”
(Photo by Brad Perkins | CC 2.0)
Dirt Bag Squatter: Ski Town Caricatures
‘Tis the season for poking a little fun at the ski-bum dirtbag lifestyle—one that Teton Gravity Research heralds for having “mastered the art of discomfort. … Homeless, tireless, and never willing to pay for a hotel room, these scrappy life-hackers create a whole lifestyle out of improvisation and not playing by the rules.”
Among the well-illustrated caricatures: semi-tasteful public nudity, the back-seat mattress, eating PBR for breakfast, milk-crate furniture, parking boot on car, and many more.
(Photo courtesy of MSR/GuardianPurifier.com)
Testing Gear in the British Columbian Wilderness
What happens when an outdoor company like Cascade Designs (who manufacture MSR and Therm-a-Rest equipment) invites a swath of journalists on the trip of a lifetime to explore Canada’s remote Great Bear Rainforest? Follow along with Gizmodo’s Brent Rose as he traverses this remote stretch of wild lands 300 miles north of Vancouver, while testing out a variety of gear—water filters, covered hammocks, tents, sleeping pads, and more.
The 2016 MSR Guardian filter is, in Rose’s words, “the baddest water filter ever built.”
(Photo by miketually | CC 2.0)
Reverting Back to Flat MTB Pedals
Much is made of the boons of cycling clipped in to (the ironically named) clipless pedals—but as one writer and mountain biker at Bike Radar points out, “It’s all too easy to rely on being clipped in to give you a lift over obstacles, rather than employing good technique.”
In an effort to undo some bad habits she’d developed, the writer details her test loops on flat pedals, and consults a coach for some tips on transitioning—ranging from arcing your foot position to mastering a “pumping” (rather than “lifting”) motion.
(Photo courtesy of Mountainsmith)
Tested by Fido: Mountainsmith Outdoor Dog Gear
In this gear review from Dogster, dog sitter Wendy Newell takes a few new dog packs and collapsible bowls from Mountainsmith out for a test with her “clients.” Her first observation is that Mountainsmith differentiates itself from dog brands that also make outdoor gear by being first and foremost an outdoor gear company that (for 30 years!) also makes dog products.
Curious which products made the cut on the trail for four-legged testers Sissy, Happy and Riggins?
