Bike-Powered Generator for Your TV
Commercials are unbearable enough when I’m elbow-deep in a bag of pretzels and half-drunk on 24oz cans of Coors—if I had to sweat out extra wattage on a trainer to get through them I’d vow too many boycotts to survive in the city. This do-it-yourself page shows you how to setup a bike generator that you can use to power your electric car, RC cars from the 1970s, or an air conditioner to keep you cool while pedaling like a sucker. Building the torture machine will set you back about $450; so about the cost of that gym membership that was automatically renewed on your credit card on 1/1/09.
via GetOutdoors
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Ultralight Sports Toothbrush
At .04oz for a toothbrush it’s getting more difficult to justify letting your expensive dental work rot in the backcountry. If you’re among the crowd that chopped the handle off your toothbrush or drilled holes through it to save weight, you should check out the Ultralight Sports Personal Care setup. You could throw everything out in the Ultralight Sports pack except the toothbrush since the set is mostly razors and body/hair gels, but I guess you could just toss the toothbrush, too, and use your finger with some toothpaste—but then you wouldn’t get the sweet buzz of rigging up new gear.
via Gear Talk
ByThe Running of the Bears
My old co-worker used to tell hikers that if a bear chases them, then they should turn around and run backwards hoping that the bear does the same thing since bears can’t run very fast when they’re trying to back up. This Alaskan must have missed that advice since he played some fun hide-and-seek around his Ford Bronco while trying to avoid being eaten alive. Pretty high stakes—kind of like that Edgar Burroughs book The Chessmen of Mars, except it’s in Alaska instead of Mars and around an old Ford instead of a racist chessboard allegory—so I guess there’s not much in common after all.
via Backpacker
ByAscension ClipFix Climbing Skins…for Snowblades?
We have no idea how long these have been around, or whether Black Diamond finds them as terrifying as we do, but the first time we see this…individual…flailing up the skin track, we expect them to be followed by four pale men on horseback. Judging from the fact that they are “for the 05/06 season,” and that Armageddon has yet to arrive, we’re making the assumption that nobody in the last 3 seasons has taken Ultimate Gaper status into the backcountry. Here’s hoping it stays that way.
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SkiGym Home Simulator
Or maybe this option is more up your alley for post-icecap-melt skiing? After all, prices keep dropping on flat screen TVs and you wouldn’t even need to leave the office to take a ski vacation. The SkiGym home ski simulator runs off a PC and includes 32 race courses from 18 real-world mountains. The setup only costs about $2300, so I’m sure there will be a few setup in the break room at Backcountry.com within the next couple days.
ByClay Surfboard Fins
These Dr. Seuss fins comes to us from Clayfin and are made with Raku fired stoneware, which is earthy talk for ‘clay.’ They’re colored with an underglaze then topped with a clear glaze, and they sell for about $35 each. If you’re like me and wonder how well clay surfboard fins work, well, the answer is ‘not at all.’ Turns out they’re just to look at on your wall.
via 70percent
ByMIT Backpacking Exoskeleton
It’s about time technology started doing something for me. The MIT exoskeleton can make an 80 pound backpack feel like only 16 pounds to the wearer, and it uses only 2 watts of power instead relying on a series of springs and dampers to transfer weight to the ground. It’ll be nice for carrying my own firewood and several jugs of Gatorade into the backcountry—and by “backcountry” I mean someplace close to a robot repair shop, which shouldn’t be hard to find.
Thanks Daven
ByConcept Bikes from Specialized
Good design brings simple, elegant solutions to problems. Except maybe when you’re Specialized and trying to conceptualize a new bike that answers the question, “How do you ride a tandem by yourself while sitting on the backseat?” The designs on Trendhunter try to reinvent the wheel in Akira red but lack the laser cannons all future bikes will require.
via Trendhunter
ByLazy Sunday Exercise
If I don’t lock my bike up when I duck into a coffee shop, I’ll just leave it in the highest gear to make the getaway a little tougher for any bike thief. Maybe I’ll just get an exercise bike and stop worrying about it altogether.
photo via Wend
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