Gear Patrol | Spirit of Adventure, Passion for Gear

Grips with both hands on the wheel

Drive confidently swerves around pigeonholes. Pink scripted credits, seemingly plucked from an 80s billboard, burn over opening shots of the LA skyline, right before plunging into a tense getaway that would make Michael Mann grin from ear to ear. The protagonist — whose proper name is never revealed throughout the entire flick — barely speaks [...]

Heat your meals, charge your phone

They say you can’t teach old dogs new tricks — but the same axiom apparently isn’t true for the wood burning camp stove — the oldest camping gear dog of all. Like any other timber burnin’ stove, the BioLite CampStove is great for cooking, since there’s no risk of fire-starting chemicals flavoring your grub. Lugging [...]

Thinking Ahead

No matter what the law dictates in your particular state, not wearing a helmet while riding is one of the dumbest things you can do. That doesn’t mean lugging around a bulky dome guard is any fun for commuters. The Overade aims to make riding slightly more convenient and just as safe. Designed in France [...]

In the pantheon of male bonding experiences, few adventures have the provenance of a weekend fishing trip. This short film by the Swedish fishing site Frontsidefly, made during a trip to övre vindelälven in their native land, perfectly captures the magic of these outings, leaving all of us here at GP HQ itching for Fly [...]

Poof Positive

Got a Michael Bay-like appetite for capturing destruction, without the matching slush fund to pay for it? Well, $50 can land you a neat bit of photographic trickery, known as Smoke Drops. Imported from Italy by the fine folks at Photojojo, combining a few drops of bottle A with bottle B creates 5 to 10 [...]

Need proof that the fashion world is cyclical? The fact that esteemed eyewear brand Persol reintroduced clip-ons last year is all the evidence you should need. While traditionally synonymous with bad taste, the PO 3007 V and 3002 V frames make a strikingly good case for the design’s revival, especially considering their price and convenience [...]

Ready for the next 20 years

Flash back to 1984. Prince still went by Prince and was ruling the music charts. Ralph put the macho in Macchio by laying the hurt on Cobra Kai. A former hollywood actor was just reaching the middle of his tenure in the oval office. And Koss introduced what would become one of the most iconic [...]

Here’s a quick mental exercise for you. Imagine you were faced with a fight, in which you knew your opponent was bigger, stronger, more experienced, and had access to the best facilities, trainers, and coaches money could buy. Would you step into the ring? It’s a terrible analogy, but those kind of Rocky odds are [...]

Help bring this Irish spirit upstart, stateside

Poitín is essentially the traditional Irish equivalent to moonshine and holds a reputation for being one of the strongest spirits in the world, thanks to its 60%-95% ABV. Its Gaelic name references the small copper pots used in its distillation and the booze is commonly found throughout homes on the Emerald Isle. Poitín is in [...]

The First American Cookbook

American Cookery ($10) is the first cookbook written by an American. Strangely, the only details that are actually known about its author come from the words “American orphan” found on the cover. Other hints from the book’s text suggest she was a domestic laborer who lacked formal education. The book was published originally in 1796 [...]

New Jerseys

Take a trip down memory lane and look at the unis worn by Bird and Magic, vs. Jordan and Isiah Thomas, vs. Lebron and Kobe, and you’ll see just how much the style of basketball has changed. The same trends have flowed through the college game. Yesterday, Nike unveiled what it expects to be the [...]

Making the most of a bad situation

Cancer is poor topic for a comedy, but then again, humor has always served as tent pole for those suffocating under grief. 50/50 also isn’t your generic, “let’s get edgy” script, because its writer Will Reiser was actually diagnosed with spine cancer, and his real life friend, Seth Rogan, actually stood by him through the [...]

Rip yourself up, not your equipment

Sandbag training provides plenty of benefits for athletes of all stripes compared to routines centered only around formal weight lifting. Their awkward shape, along with the slight movements of the sand inside, provides an added endurance challenge, forcing users to constantly adjust to the weight. The no-handled variety are excellent for increasing grip strength too. [...]

As presidents go, JFK takes the prize as the greatest style icon (sorry Lincoln). These chinos serve as a tribute to that legacy and are modeled after Kennedy’s 1950′s bespoke slacks. Each pair is handmade in England from 100% Italian cotton twill and features a few modern tweaks to the original design, including a slight [...]

One for all, all-in-one

People at the helm of Apple, like Jony Ives and the late Steve Jobs, tend to get all of the credit for the company’s constant innovation. Startups like the Nest Learning Thermostat and Flipboard, which were both founded by Apple alums, proved though that Cupertino’s talent pool is incredibly deep and certainly capable of innovating [...]