Gear expert Stephen Renegold provides candid, field-tested reviews and recommendations.

The twice-annual Outdoor Retailer trade show, this summer held in Salt Lake City from August 3 – 6, is a peek at the future of outdoors gear. From shoes and gadgets to mountaineering tents, the pre-release equipment on display is a look at what gear shops will stock in 2011. Here are a few highlights [...]

A million little needles work a million strands of yarn. Gears shift. Machine arms adjust and spin, the mechanized anatomy of a knitting machine pulls raw yarn in one side and spits out a sock from the other end. It is a Thursday afternoon in Sheboygan, Wis., the factory floor at Wigwam Mills Inc. buzzing [...]

Over the past few years, reviewing equipment for camping, hiking, biking, and other pursuits, a few products and a few ideas have stood out. These five innovations in gear have literally changed the way I do things outside. 1. Merino Wool Base Layers — The fine wool of the merino sheep happens to make a [...]

Loved to death. That was the case with my first pair of Roclite 285s, a shoe that I destroyed after a year of use and a couple hundred collective miles of trail traveled underfoot. The shoe — lightweight and flexible, with a sole of small sticky-rubber teeth—proved to be flexible, fast, and sure-footed on trail [...]

This gear won’t be in shops until the spring or next fall. But here’s a peek at a few innovations and out-there items coming soon to an outdoors store near you. Glowing Sandals — Never trip in the dark again. A small LED light is built on the tow strap of the Teva Illum sandals, [...]

My plane ticket is booked. The training schedule I’ve committed to for months is winding down. The great adventure that is the Wenger Patagonian Expedition Race, a weeklong endurance event through Tierra del Fuego, Chile, kicks off on February 9th. I’d be a liar if I said I wasn’t scared. Indeed, this race is the [...]

Snow is on the ground. Lights are twinkling in neighborhood trees. Time to find gifts for the outdoors lovers on your holiday list. Here are a few of my favorite things from this year, a half-dozen holiday gift potentials for the gear junkies among your family and friends. Leatherman Skeletool — Many multi-tools are chock [...]

Beginning in the 1940s, the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Mapping Program was tasked with the immense cartographical feat of surveying the entire country to create a series of more than 50,000 topographical maps. Widely-available and mostly accurate, the 1:24,000-scale government maps canvas the total of the contiguous United States. They are today de rigueur on [...]

The bicycle that carried Scott Stoll around the world doesn’t look like anything special. There’s tape on the frame and extra washers to hold racks in place. The leather saddle is faded and worn, a dented anatomical imprint testimony to the months and thousands of miles Stoll sat pedaling on a quest to travel around [...]

Single-speed and fixed-gear bikes are painfully en vogue at the present moment. Skinny jeans. Mustaches. U-locks in back pockets. Take a glance in the urban core of almost any American city and within minutes you’re bound to see a hipster mimicking a bike messenger. Now, I am no innocent here. I have been on a [...]

The Outdoor Retailer trade show is a twice-annual peek at what’s coming to market soon in the outdoors industry. This summer’s show, held in Salt Lake City, revealed a spread of innovations — from the upgrade of a popular GPS messenger device to a vest jacket that provides warmth via fabric cells inflated with argon [...]

Swooping nylon and linked poles, zippered doors, screened windows, and stakes in the dirt holding it down — the humble formula for a tent has long prevailed as an ultimate outdoors habitat for humans in need of a temporary home. But today’s campground cabanas are far from the basic designs of decades past. Indeed, leaky [...]

Can apparel made for athletics add support to the skeletal structure? Yes, according to Smart Fitness Products LLC, a Vail, Colo., company that sells the Opedix line of tops and tights. By stitching together swaths of fabric, then crisscrossing it and building it into a top and tights, the company (www.opedix.com) touts its futuristic clothing [...]

The classic bike-messenger bag has been adopted the world over as requisite equipment for two-wheel transit with goods in tow. But for me a messenger bag’s single-strap setup — weight on one shoulder, the bag balanced on the arch of my back — has never felt comfortable or secure. Instead, a backpack — two straps, [...]

Invented in 1936, and applied toward the heating of water and food for millions of campers and backpackers since, the Esbit solid fuel tablet is a compact and quick alternative heat source to white gas and cartridge-based camp stoves. The tablets — based on a chemical compound called hexamethylenetetramine — ignite at the touch of [...]