Entries Tagged as 'Gear'
Edward Nickens of Popular Mechanics spends a few days paddling Louisiana’s salt marsh in search of sea trout and redfish and writes about the new breed of fishing kayaks: stable casting platforms, easy to paddle and maneuver, relatively indestructible, light and portable, and most of all, comfortable.
“These new fishing-friendly designs have ushered in a golden age of small-craft angling. According to the Paddlesports Industry Association, kayak fishing is the fastest growing segment of human-powered water recreation. These boats are introducing outdoor enthusiasts who might never have considered themselves paddlers to a new kind of fishing adventure.”
Native’s Ultimate Hybrid and Hobie’s Mirage Pro Angler are loosely reviewed.
Patrick Sébile–41-year-old lure designer and founder/CEO of Sébile Lures–has created a line of realistic and utilitarian fresh and saltwater lures that are making inroads in the fishing market. An accomplished angler and businessman, Sébile has “fished in 61 countries, [holds] 27 IGFA records, and [has] caught more than 565 species of fish. That background now combines with a talent for making things to produce a range of extraordinary lures.”
John Merwin of Field & Stream interviews Sébile about catching carp, selling his “1 millionth lure,” and the innovation behind the Magic Swimmer (his first marketable creation): “‘I had wanted to create a hard bait that swims like a real fish, so I studied everything from how fish actually swim to the hydrodynamics of a hard body in water,’ he said. ‘Eventually, I was able to make some segmented parts that moved in a true baitfish motion. Importantly, this was much more than just a good- looking shape designed to catch fishermen before catching fish.’”
Cross-Country Ski Line-up
During the near freezing/mostly wet snow conditions in Vancouver’s Olympic nordic events, many athletes turned to waxless Zero Skis: nordic ski bases that grip through a technique of vigorous base rubbing until the hairs, which lie in the base material, stand up.
“While approaches vary slightly among brands, zero skis replace grip, or kick wax, with a small section of special base material. To a large extent, the secret of zero skis is using an old technology in a new way,” writes Ian Austen of The New York Times.
“During skiing, the early plastic bases tended to develop small, fuzzy particles of plastic on their surface. When that happened, the skis were, in skiers’ vernacular, hairy, and thus slower when gliding. The problem was solved in the 1980s by mixing graphite into the base plastic.”
Pete Wagner, a ski designer from Telluride, CO and owner of Wagner Custom Skis, believes in detailed personal surveys, talking to his his customers directly, and having his production team listen to client playlists as they construct your new pair of $1,700 custom skis.
“Wagner has read The Hidden Messages in Water, the book that claims vibrations can be trapped, and therefore, things like ambient music can affect structural integrity of materials. Pete believes. And he exerts a calming influence on his product—a factory soundtrack of reggae and world beat. I told him he’d been living in Telluride too long, and, just to smite this new age bullshit, I sent him a playlist composed of early ’90s metal. All Pantera, all the time,” writes Jake Bogoch of Skiing Magazine.
Adirondack Descent
Headed into northern Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA), Gustave Axelson of Men’s Journal writes about the new (but old-school) trend of winter camping without all the high tech gear: toboggans, canvas tents, wool jackets, and “three growlers of India pale ale.”
“We were embarking on a four-day winter camping trip into the boreal heart of the Boundary Waters. But instead of the finest high-tech Gore-Tex parkas and windproof mountaineering tents, we were outfitted with technology from a century gone. I was here to try out a new style of winter camping, which is really an old style of winter camping called snow walking.”
Designed by bf1systems, the Factor 001 is a $34,000 bike designed with “no respect for rules or restrictions.” Charlie Sorrel of Wired offers his review:
“A bike’s basic two-triangle design is almost perfect, but that hasn’t stopped the bf1 guys from going all high-tech on its ass. Almost the entire bike is made from carbon fiber, but is still strong enough to take out on a real road (although NYC potholes might prove a problem). The bike also has a lot of electronics inside, from power meters to built-in GPS to a handlebar-mounted touch-screen. This bike isn’t meant for racing: it’s all about training.”
photo credit: bk2000
The recent injury of Pascal Dattler, a ten-year-old Australian surfer who was struck by the pointed nose of another surfer’s board (requiring seven titanium plates to repair his skull), has “sparked an intense national debate among the surfing fraternity” around designing safer, dolphin-nose boards to avoid these types of on-water accidents.
“Robert Holt, the co-ordinator of the Surf Science and Technology program at Edith Cowan University in Western Australia, said 41 per cent of surfing injuries were lacerations. Of those almost a quarter were lacerations to the head, caused mainly by the fins, tail or nose of the board,” reports Nicky Phillips of The Sydney Morning Herald.
“A veteran surfer, Rusty Miller, suggests boards be shaped with a ‘dolphin nose’, where the tip of the board is rounded off into a 75-millimetre-sized semicircle.”
Convincing the conservative surfing community to alter longstanding board designs is another story…
photo credit: goose3five
As seen at the SIA Snow Show in Denver this past week, ski and snowboard manufacturers are hoping that new technological advances in “rocker” design will help fuel performance and marketability of their product.
“Rocker was developed to ski deep, fresh snow — the shape encourages skis to float on top of the stuff, instead of digging into it — but now ski companies around the world are adding rocker to skis in ways they say will improve skiing on groomed trails,” writes Douglas Brown of The Denver Post.
“‘I guarantee you, every (manufacturer) has some rocker in their skis,’ said Erin Forest, marketing director at K2 Skis, the largest ski manufacturer in the world. ‘It’s the next revolution.’”
photo credit: rowland_rick
Ocean Beach, CA’s Danny Hess of Hess Surfboards is creating elegant, environmentally friendly, and high performance surfboards from reclaimed and sustainably harvested wood, renewable cork, and recyclable foam, in addition to coating his designs with half the fiberglass of conventional boards.
“By synthesizing the woodworking techniques of cabinetmakers and boat builders with the standard foam-and-fiberglass approach, Hess creates surfboards that push the boundaries of environmental sustainability, aesthetic beauty and speed generation. They may cost twice as much as conventionally shaped surfboards, but they have the durability to last a lifetime,” writes Eric Gustafson of the San Francisco Chronicle, as he chronicles Hess’ circuitous path from Colorado carpenter to San Francisco surfer to custom surfboard shaper.
Stay updated on the design evolution of Hess Surfboards at Danny’s blog.
photo credit: Indy Charlie
Joey Santley and Steve Cox of San Clemente, CA start-up Green Foam Blanks are trying to change the toxic manufacturing history of the surfboard industry by creating blanks that are 60 to 65 percent recycled waste.
“Green Foam has sold about 1,000 recycled surfboard blanks since it began production earlier this year. Mr. Santley has put Green Foam surfboards into the hands of surfing celebrities like Cameron Diaz and surfer-singers like Jason Mraz, as well as professional surfers and influential board makers,” writes Todd Woody of The New York Times.
