Gear Patrol | Spirit of Adventure, Passion for Gear

Rack Opinion

Can a key rack inspire lust? It might if it comes from the Joshua Tree, CA shop of J.L. Lawson & Co. Applying three generations of machining knowhow, father and son duo Floyd Lawson and son Anthony have created an impressive collection of small steel goods and accessories. Their latest creation, The Rack ($58), might [...]

Bookin' It Old School

Etsy maker “punkassjim” came across a photo of an antique electrical handbook and got inspired. The bold title and fun aside notes seemed to describe the iPad 2 perfectly. So, he decided to recreate the look into a set of custom iPad 2 smart covers. All of his wares are made by hand from leather [...]

Tool House Rocks

The “ultimate workshop” is one of those rooms that frequently crop up in a man’s dream home ramblings, right between mentions of the Holodeck and a putting green. Even for those who’ve never lifted a tool in their life, the allure of escaping to an oasis of tinkering, away from the rest of the house [...]

Powering your lifeline

One of the few knocks on the iPhone 4S has been its battery life. While our own iPhone doesn’t seem to be plagued with any battery-sucking gnomes, having a longer battery life, when you need it, is never a bad thing. PowerSkin makes a number of cases for major mobile phones (ahem, your iPhone) that [...]

Minimal Magnetism

Simple, elegant, purposeful — those adjectives are just as applicable to the iPad 2, as they are to the Magnus iPad 2 stand ($50) by Ten One Design. The pure aluminum base is machine-crafted and equipped with customized magnets to hold Apple’s latest tablet firmly in place. While thicker cases won’t work with the stand, [...]

Pack ten

At CES, we eyeballed an expansion on the HEX bag we wrote about a few months ago. They have introduced a neat new line of carry gear for the urban man with a subtle nautical touch. We love the streamlined but stylish look of the HEX Fleet Sonic Backpack ($100). With its dressy but understated [...]

Ready for your Friday presentation in Palo Alto and Saturday in Seattle, the Cambridge serves double duty as both a commuter and overnight bag. Lo & Sons, a family operation, has infused the bag with plenty of conveniences and features learned from their own travel-heavy lifestyle. Inside the bag offers enough room for a 15″ [...]

The business end

Your average man doesn’t give much thought to knives, much less fixed blade knives. But if you’re at all a prepared man and you either get to the great outdoors with some regularity or you just want to be ready for whatever may come, you might want to include one of the Cold Steel Leatherneck [...]

Nimble Networker

D-Link’s All-In-One Mobile Companion is a new travel accessory designed to take the headaches out of setting up a wireless network on the road. Packed inside the mouse-sized cube is a Wireless-N router, USB recharger, and an ethernet port for those in search of faster wired speeds. The small cube can just as easily be [...]

Chasing the light and an explanation how

The first in a series of upcoming editions, photo artist Bruce Percy has compiled 40 of his incredible photoworks into The Art of Adventure: 40 Photographic Examples (~$61). Spanning the waterfalls of Iceland, to the Bolivian Altiplano, to Nepalese buddhists, each photo — like Patagonia’s Pehoe Curve (pictured above) — are stunning examples of Percy’s [...]

The DODOcase has been a favorite accessory for iPad users looking to add an old school literary feel to their cutting edge gadget. While this isn’t the first collaboration by DODO that we’ve seen, this iteration created in partnership with eco-conscious upstart Vicarious by Nature still deserves a mention since it does a fine job [...]

Pure and Simple

Prospector Co. is an independent men’s grooming brand that channels a similar vibe to the Portland General Store. All of their hand-blended, small batch products feature purely natural ingredients and are designed for those who care just as much about what goes on their skin as what they drive, eat, wear, or watch. Distinctive combinations [...]

Mighty Lite

A flashlight is a flashlight. Right? Think about all the times when you needed to reach for one in the house or the garage and the batteries were dead or if it did work, the beam was weak. Even moreso, your run-of-the-mill flashlight tends to be bulky (hence, bad for small spaces) and the beam [...]

One glove that works better than two

Most winter gloves force adventure seekers to choose between protection and dexterity. If you’re sick of dealing with mummy-like hand skills for the sake of keeping warm, then take a gander at the G-Comp Wind Glove ($80) from Italian outdoor brand Camp. The medium weight base glove features a durable, synthetic leather palm and Grip’R [...]

Show Tunes

Box of Vision is a company that still remembers the days when showing off your music collection didn’t involve a scroll wheel and being a true fan meant owning every album, instead of the five best singles. Subsequently, their archive products are designed to act as a showcase for displaying the complete works of legends [...]