Gear Patrol

One of only three people to have skied solo to the North Pole — the youngest to do so by over a decade — Ben Saunders is also an avid cyclist, Twitter presence and Land Rover enthusiast. We chatted with him about his own heroes, what scares him and his next epic adventure.

Canadian-born Steve Dubbeldam, founder of Wilderness Collective, has been described as a “serial entrepreneur”, having begun multiple fashion collections and co-created an online magazine with his wife. His latest venture is Wilderness Collective, supplier of “Legendary Adventures for Men”. We sat down with Steve to discuss his approach to adventure, what men stand to gain from the trips he arranges and what went into starting a company built to satisfy man’s thirst for exploits.

Plenty of guys think they’re grill masters. But Russ Faulk, vice president of product design at Kalamazoo Outdoor Gourmet, actually happens to be one. After asking him to add his personal notes to our tips for mastering the grill, we caught up with him to talk about life, family, battling squid and American craftsmanship.

Alex Walker grew up in a National Geographic photo spread. Instead of a lawn with a picket fence or a city playground, the fourth generation East African’s childhood stomping grounds were the tea fields of Mufindi, the bush of southern Tanzania and Kenya’s Mau forest. Today he makes his home in Masai Mara, Kenya, one of the most famous wildlife ecosystems in the world. After staying at one of Walker’s camps on our adventure in Kenya, we were curious to hear more about what makes this safari guide tick.

Kevin Krigger is a 29-year-old derby rookie and the rider of Goldencents — a favorite in this year’s race. As a native of St. Croix, though, Krigger will share the honor of being the first Virgin Islander to compete in the race. More importantly to some, he’s also the first black jockey to compete in the event since 2000 — and he has a chance to be the first black rider to win the Derby since 1902.

Talk about working your way up from the bottom. Chris Morris came to Woodford Reserve’s parent company, Brown-Foreman Corporation, in 1976 as an intern. The native Kentuckian stuck it out, rising to the position of Master Distiller as American bourbon rose, too, from a soda additive to a super-premium product on the same level as its haughtier cousins. We caught up with him as part of our summer preview to hear some drinking stories, find out what’s next and hear about his love of the Kentucky Derby.

There are globe trotters, and then there’s Lee Abbamonte. Though he doesn’t consider himself a “competitive traveler” per se, he is the youngest American to visit every country (196) in the world. He is 34. We got to chat with him about his life in and outside of the suitcase.

Martin Miller has been hatching money-making schemes ever since he can remember. His early business ventures as a schoolboy included hamster breeding and a magazine for local teenagers. The ambitious youngster’s first small-scale money-earning success came with a mail-order dating book called Success with the Fairer Sex. He was 14. In 1999, he struck gold in the gin business with his eponymous Martin Miller’s Gin. We caught up with him to chat about bucking industry trends, chess and what he’s working on next.

Jake Meyer is one of those throwback British adventurers, in the mold of Shackleton, Scott and Fiennes. He’s tough but refined and well-educated, positive but not giddy, understated but confident, and has that mix of derring-do and panache that we admire. Meyer, who at one time was the youngest Brit to summit Everest, is now a management consultant who applies what he learned on the world’s highest peaks to business best practices. But don’t think he’s gone soft. We recently had a chance to catch Meyer in his London offices for 30 minutes of Q & A.

Pine pollen is a powder that contains the cellular material used to produce male sperm cells in coniferous plants. It’s available on Amazon.com as a supplement to increase testosterone, with some companies marketing it as a source of “perpetual youth”, claiming that it helps with everything from improving endurance to regulating prostate function. As part…

21st century moviegoers think technology has taken the dirty work out of filmmaking, leaving the job of faking the “impossible” in the hands of the hardest working person in the Hollywood: CGI. But the best action directors still understand there’s no airbrushing when it comes to the strain of a man at his desperate limits….

Ahh, that musty smell of dusty, disorganized vintage record shops. Or how about the high-pressure unapproachability of hi-fi audio retailers? Instant turn-off, right? Not so fast. The crew at In Living Stereo prove that purveying fine audio gear and records can indeed live in harmony. With a recent move from deep in the East Village…

Question: How can technology change our lives in the future? In this follow up to the Smart Lives of Smart Men Part 1, our guests Michael Williams of A Continuous Lean, Evan Orensten of Cool Hunting, Anthony Sperduti of Partners & Spade, Ben Pieratt of Svpply, and Richard Blakeley of Thrillist concluded the evening in…

Question: How is technology changing the lives of men and the world we live in? Rather than look to the usual pundits for the same canned responses, we decided to hunt down answers by inviting a group of friends and colleagues to the Royalton Hotel penthouse for an off the cuff conversation over dinner and…

Chances are that if you’re reading this, you’re as completely and unashamedly obsessed with objects as we are. Interviews with designers are our way of getting back to the source and seeing who’s behind some of our favorite gear, and this week we got a hold of Peter Bristol,product designer/renaissance man and one of the…

The watchmaking business is not for the faint of heart. We’ve showcased a number of niche watches on Gear Patrol, and we’re proud to say that Benarus has been one of them. From their groundbreaking Barracuda, which sold out in a matter of weeks, to their latest creations, the Moray 2 and the Remora 3,…

Adventure, and the gear you take along for the ride never ceases to enthrall us here at GP. David Munson, CEO of Saddleback Leather Co. is a kindred spirit in that regard. Subsequently, we decided to sit down with him and pick his brain on everything from the best strategies for approaching world travel, to…

Southern gentleman. English rake. Paul Trible is the consummate man about town. Designer and co-founder of Richmond-based Ledbury, Trible draws on his transatlantic roots to make the ultimate refined-yet-modern shirt. Read about how that happens after the jump.

Gant has a long-standing tradition of helping men look their best, but a recent rival effort has thrust the brand back into the spotlight of men’s fashion. Characterized by modern tweaks on classic americana stye bred in the collegiate atmosphere, the company has also just launched a new online store, enabling anyone with a mailing…

We tend to believe that technological advancement in the last 20 years has changed the world mostly for the better. Still, the waning of film-based photography is the worst causality in our books resulting from the collateral damage of the digital age. Thanks to a passionate community of shutterbugs and the style elite, however, analogue…

Few things are more primal than an axe. It’s the minimum amount of tool that can come between man and the act of felling a tree. But simple doesn’t mean crude — the perfect axe is a transcendent thing. To find out what that looks like, we sat down with Graeme Cameron, formerly of Best…

Lately on Sunday nights we’ve found ourselves glued to the TV watching the Travel Channel’s new show, The Wild Within with Steven Rinella. Rinella, a life-long outdoorsman and avid hunter on a quest to recapture the spirit and skills of our ancestors as he travels the globe in search of food, living by his own…

The modern world is one where generalists thrive – renaissance men who have a broad education, who are involved in dynamic careers throughout their lives, and who have myriad passions ranging from flyfishing to webdesign (read: you, the readers). Rarely do such paragons enter in the world of menswear, especially designing traditional accessories like ties,…

We know that the best gear in the world is no good unless you’ve got a way of getting it from point A to point B. Of course, the MK4 would be our preferred choice, but its beauty comes with more environmental and financial baggage than, say, a bike. Companies like Rickshaw Bags are making…

In England, Ted Baker has become what Ralph Lauren is in the United States: more than just a purveyor of the finest quality shirts – rather, an icon of its nation. (Disambiguation: there is no Ted Baker. Or rather, Mr Baker is “the ultimate Englishman in New York” – at once stylish, worldly and roguish)…

Taylor Stitch, the All-American shirt company based in San Francisco, has never been about New York Fashion Week “seasons” and trends, (and we agree. Real men’s clothing shouldn’t be caught up in the latest Spring/Summer runway presentation). Instead, Michael Maher and his three collaborators who founded Taylor Stitch, pursue genuine quality. “Well-made” is the catchphrase,…