Click Here To Listen!
Today on THE ROCK FIGHT (an outdoor podcast that aims for the head) Colin and Justin open the show by getting Justin's thoughts on the new social platform from Outside and how it's integration into Gaia will impact Justin's use of that app (02:50).
Then they run through the following headlines to come out of the outdoor community over the past week:
Killian Jornet set a new record last week summiting all 82 peaks in the Alps that are over 4000 meters high in 19 days. Why do we care about incredible feats by incredible people? (12:10)
Canadian Trail Running reports that older runners are thriving as trail runners. What is it about running in our middle ages that makes it so appealing? (21:46)
Arc'teryx opened their biggest store in NYC last week. Does Justin agree with Colin's assertion that they are no longer an outdoor brand? (27:25)
They wrap things up with their Parting Shots! (33:16)
Head to www.rockfight.co and sign up for News From the Front, Rock Fight's weekly newsletter!
Please follow and subscribe to THE ROCK FIGHT and give us a 5 star rating and written review wherever you get your podcasts.
Listen to and follow Gear & Beer! The newest show on the Rock Fight Podcast Network.
Have a question or comment for a future mailbag episode? Send it to myrockfight@gmail.com or send a message on Instagram or Threads.
Click Here To Listen!
Episode Transcript
Colin (00:08):
Welcome to the Rock Fight where we speak our truth, slay sacred cows and sometimes agree to disagree. This is an outdoor podcast that aims for the head. I'm Colin Tru and joining me today, he just got done updating his social profile on Gaia. It's Justin Hausman. Is that already? Do you already have If they roll that out? Oh, if you open Gaia right now, it'll be right there. We're going to talk about it in a minute. I need to get your input on this. I'm very excited for the Haman rant. That's to come. I
Justin (00:37):
Dunno, there'll be one. There'll be one. There's probably open Gaia. I haven't, since I've heard all about all the changes,
Colin (00:44):
You probably have to accept a new terms, a set of terms that'll be 35 pages long that you should probably read, but you won't. And then
Justin (00:53):
This is your account is now live. Feed directly into China's weird social credit servers. You are now Putin's nephew. Congratulations. You have to defend the city of Kirs. Good packing
Colin (01:09):
Does a ring at the bell, just like a package, a military kit there waiting for you. Get changed. I mean, I
Justin (01:13):
Did just download TikTok, so I've obviously softened in my, I don't know, social media firewall, but we'll get to it. We'll get there.
Colin (01:22):
Well, today we're going to be talking about the New York TerraX Shop Open in New York City. How old folks are just straight killing it at trail running and killing j's. Latest. Big accomplishment. Before we get to that though, we got a few things for you. Please follow and rate the rock fight wherever you're listening on any podcast app, leave us that five star rating. Click follow, click follow folks. Just click that follow button. That's such a huge thing for us. We'd so much appreciate if you just hit follow and then go listen and follow our other podcast Gear and beer. Or you should also follow and rate that show and you can find that wherever you're listening to The Rock Fight. And Justin, where else can people hear us or follow along with what we do here at Fight?
Justin (02:01):
Well, you can send us an email to just kind of introduce yourself, tell us what you like, what you don't like, what you ate that day, what you might eat later. Who do you think Russell Wilson's going to do this year as Super Bowl picks? Super Bowl picks would be great. What movies have you seen? Please? Movie suggestions would be wonderful. I'm really struggling these days folks. Find something to watch. But anyway, you can email us at my rock fight@gmail.com and while you're on the internet, why don't you head over to our website, which is@rockfight.co and you can join our mailing list and we'll hit you up with all the stuff that you need to know about shows and things like that and stuff that we're into. And Colin will draw you a little picture of what his daughters are up to. And let's just, let's be friends. Let's be internet pen pals.
Colin (02:47):
Alright, well before we kind of get into things though, last week on the show I did talk a little bit about Outside's acquisition of Map, my Run and Map MyFitness, that whole suite of apps as well as their launch of kind a social media platform into their entire ecosystem. There was some very spicy content over on Reddit, especially as it pertains to Gaia and Justin, you're a big Gaia fan, so I was kind of curious your take on this move by our friends at outside.
Justin (03:15):
Well, what's interesting to me is if they push it out on all the apps that they own a little basically a tab for it or what have you, or it's in the background, I guess that makes sense to a degree. But again, the only things I would ever use in their ecosystem are things, obviously I had that before outside owned them, but it's like if I'm going to go to Gaia, I have a very specific thing I'm doing. I don't also want to get distracted by a social thing. I don't want to start scrolling knowing me, it's probably the night before I'm going somewhere or even more likely at the the last coffee shop with wifi before I hit the back country frantically downloading an offline map, you're downloading a map. I'm not going to be like, oh, let's see if West Silo's written about trucks.
(04:00):
That's just not what I'm going to do with it. And the same thing like Trail Forks. I only use Trail Forks literally on the trail. I use it all the time, but I am on the trail while using it. I'm not going to read something else and most likely I'm using an offline. I mean that's the other thing too is that if 99% of the time Guy is on my phone, I'm offline. So that in of itself is a huge head scratcher. I mean if they were trying to shoehorn in some kind of all trails discussion thing based on mapped areas, but again, that's not how Gaia really works, but maybe there's an aspect of it I'm not familiar with. I mean, again, all I ever do use it for is downloading maps. I don't use it for, I don't know if they have customized routes built in and maybe there's a discussion section around there like, Hey, I'm going to do the Ray Lakes loop and it is already prepackaged for you and oh boom, here's a discussion about it. Alright, we like all trails, but again, all trails is freaking huge and so clearly people want something else with their mapping or whatever. Clearly they want some kind of discussion level.
Colin (05:10):
I just go back to if take Facebook at its for what it is, the best thing it possibly could be, it's like, okay, well if I'm an outdoorsy person, it's like, oh, I follow outside on Facebook, I can engage this level on the outside page. But then if it's like, oh, a new restaurant open in San Marcos, oh, on the San Marcos page is a thing over here, all of my interest are sort of encapsulated there. Isn't that kind of the best of what social media is supposed to be?
Justin (05:33):
I mean at Adventure Journal for a long time when the site was still part of what we were trying to do there, Steve and I would talk a bunch about, okay, let's be the go-to source for everything outside. So not only are we going to do news and stuff, but we're also going to have big giant checklists for if you're going car camping or backpacking, whatever, you can go download it and print it out. We were talking about doing maps that way too. We were talking about doing, we had a forum briefly that no one really used. I mean there is an impetus there that's like, okay, people are coming to us to read about products or outdoor news, but also people are going to all trails to talk about places they want to go. Why don't we do that too? You can sort of see the thought process behind something like this, but I don't know.
(06:19):
To me it seems like if I've learned anything about the internet in the last 10 years, it's that people don't want a clearinghouse website. They like their little, I mean, I don't know. I know for a fact that if I want to talk about backpacking Yosemite or the Trinity Alps, I can go to my Facebook group and there's going to be pictures from yesterday. There's going to be this. I know the people on it leaving Twitter and going to Blue Sky was terrible. I didn't know anybody at Blue Sky and wasn't, it's probably great now and Threads took forever to get going
(06:51):
And I still don't really feel like it's the same, but you don't want to leave a little community that you've built online. And so that would be my thing is that I don't care, even if honestly, whether it's outside or somebody else built a flawless ecosystem where you're just like, wow, this is amazing. Everything is smooth and it works great and it looks great and the content's great. I doubt I would leave what I'm already used to for that. These are important things to me, and so I'm not really looking for a new way to consume this sort of stuff. But again, I don't think we're the target here. Probably as a hardcore guy, a user who uses Guy the way that he likes to use it all, I want, when I turned on the other day, I'm like, shit, it's different. I don't know unless I couldn't find it. Now the only way I could make an area was with a triangular shape instead of a rectangle one. I'm like, I don't understand why that sucks, but I had to figure it out. I'm so much easier before got to sound old.
Colin (07:52):
No, but I
Justin (07:53):
Sound old.
Colin (07:54):
I do think you're right that maybe this is good for the 20 something, 30 something person who's just getting into these sports, but I really want to have someone to
Justin (08:05):
Talk to about it.
Colin (08:06):
Yeah, I get that. But I also think they market themselves as being the solution for the outdoor community. And I look at the titles, I don't begrudge them their business strategy of acquiring other titles and frankly, a lot of the titles they acquired probably would've gone out of business if they hadn't acquired them anyway. But when you then kind of homogenize everything and it's like the voice of what those titles were and why people who did love them, loved them, it's like, well now they all just kind of sound the same and you want to just throw it up on a, it doesn't make a lot of sense. So I'll put my call out. Again, anybody outside listening to this, I really am genuinely curious. I would love to talk to somebody over there and be like, Hey, here's what we're really trying to do with this and why do we think it'll be? And in 10 years they would
Justin (08:48):
Say what they would say, what we just said, but probably with a more optimistic strategy behind it. I mean probably. Yeah. It's also, I got to think that they're so big that all the pressures that a little site like AJ feels or felt when it was still like a going website, it must be magnificently
(09:09):
Greater. Someone's funding all this. So he's like, you got to try stuff. I would agree with Dave. I would sink money into content myself. Pay better. Not that they don't have good writers, but pay better writers, more money or content creators in other ways. If you want to go the full video route, that's whatever. I get it and I get that it probably feels like the time is ripe for a social media thing, but at the same time, I also got to think the people making decisions are probably in their fifties. Do they really know what the cutting edge of the internet sort of usage is these days? I don't know. I mean it's tough. Again, to me, social media or even just the community aspect of all these things, to me it's an intrusion on something that I already use and for a very specific thing.
(10:01):
So I'm turned off by that. I mean at this point I have a lifetime free subscription to Guy just because worked in the outdoor industry. But if at this point I'd probably look for something else just because I don't really want to deal with all that. Not because I have a grudge against outside or anything like that. I'd rather have a stripped down one. That's just my map, please. And I don't want to have to click through anything. I just want my map. Well, I don't belabor it. Let's do that. Let's do that with the rock fight. We'll make it an app. We'll just have Force it all in. We'll have a mapping app. Actually that would be really fun. Make your own
Colin (10:32):
Action
Justin (10:33):
Figure. It'd actually be really funny to have just a stupid bad mapping app. It's totally wrong.
Colin (10:37):
It only has one area in Missouri.
Justin (10:40):
Yeah, that's it. That's it. But it's fucking dialed, dude. It is dialed that map. That map of Missouri is
Colin (10:46):
Dialed. Well, let's move on. I think something we'll keep an eye on for sure, but I was definitely curious, your take on it, given your anti technology stance and wanting to just go back to the Stone Age and just bang rocks and use clay pots and shit like that.
Justin (11:02):
We'd all be happier.
Colin (11:03):
We definitely would. I do like my car though, I got to admit, I like M Soft. Before we get to this week's headlines, we need to mention our teammates at Darby Communications. If you run an outdoor, an endurance or active lifestyle brand, there's no better PR and digital marketing belay partner or a beer drinking buddy. I can prove that now. I've had beers with the folks at Darby, then at Darby, and they can help your business reach new heights and they might just keep you from falling on your ass. Look, guys, I keep saying this to you. You have to listen to me. If they can help us, they truly can help anybody. Head over to darby communications.com today to check out what's going on in Asheville, North Carolina. I've never been there. I've only been there once. It's supposed to be amazing. It lived up to the reputation. It's
Justin (11:49):
Great. I bet it's great. I have a feeling I would really like it.
Colin (11:52):
Yeah, I actually think, yeah, you would really like it. Actually think it would suit you. It's like, oh, cool. Quiet mountain town with lots of breweries like, oh boy, I'd hate this place.
Justin (12:03):
Yeah, right. Really good food.
Colin (12:06):
Yeah, sounds great. Alright, well let's kick things off because a couple interesting headlines this week. According to Explorers Web Ultra Athlete, Killian Jne set a new record last week, summiting all 82 peaks in the A set are over 4,000 meters high. He accomplished the feat in 19 days, which breaks the previous record set by climbing legend Uli Stack in 2015. Stack accomplished the feet in 62 days, so that was a hell of a drop off 62 to 19. And he used a combination of climbing and paragliding. Killian used a combination of climbing, cycling, and running. In total, he covered 1200 kilometers, 75,000 meters of elevation gain and averaged five hours and 17 minutes of sleep. I mean, this is obviously impressive and I actually saw our friend Kyle Frost and Cody Townsend and some other folks on threads actually were talking about how this needs more attention. And I think definitely this is pretty cool. This deserves attention. It probably got a little bit lost because UTMB was going on, I think around the same time as he was trying this. But mostly this makes me nostalgic for the days when big accomplishments came regularly from outdoor athletes. I mean, do you miss those days? I know we talk a lot about people taking unnecessary risk on the show, but it's cool that you see a story like that when you go, wait, he did what? That's incredible.
Justin (13:20):
Define what do you mean by big accomplishments came regularly? What?
Colin (13:25):
That's a good, I don't know. It just seemed like it was always like, oh, so-and-so paddled off this waterfall. Or there was another thing, a cool thing that happened to Everest or somebody did. And these things still happen if you look at these websites, but I don't know, this one just felt particularly big and maybe it just felt the kind of, maybe I'm just sort of waxing poetic around the old days, but I don't know. Do you feel anything at all when you got to read something like this or is this interesting to you?
Justin (13:50):
So the other day I was listening to my second favorite podcast, Radiolab, and
Colin (13:58):
They're okay.
Justin (13:58):
And it was a repeat. Oh, it wasn't even a repeat. We just wanted my daughter to hear it. She had just recently ridden a horse and she's a five-year-old girl. She loves horses. And my wife was like, oh, she'll love this one. And it's the one about the man versus horse race in Prescott, Arizona. Are you familiar with this, Colin?
Colin (14:18):
Maybe tell me about
Justin (14:19):
It. So it's been going on for decades as all good outdoor things were. It started with a bar bet some guy had just run some really far distance in Arizona and came into a bar to get a beer and was like, I just ran this far and this fast and some cowboy looks like. He was like, well, my horse could do that or whatever. My horse would smoke you. And the guy was like, well, let's find out. And so they ran. Of course he got his ass kicked. But the point of the episode though, is that why humans are really good at running, right? There's some biological, or I think there are biologists or evolutionary biologists I suppose, who are sort of talking about their competing theories about why we're good at running either. Either we're chasing down prey animals or we were trying to get to already dead prey animals before other scavengers did.
Colin (15:05):
We evolved to grow a CLE ligament in our neck.
Justin (15:07):
Exactly. They talked, have you heard this one or you've just heard this thing.
Colin (15:10):
No, that wasn't born to run and
Justin (15:11):
Stuff. Exactly. And they talk about our butts and why they're big and how most other animals don't have that kind of thing. Anyway, all of that sort of stuff is in there and then they get back to the race. I think it's 50 miles and humans will beat some horses during the race, but never in the point in the history of this race had a human been first overall, if that makes sense. The fifth fastest human might be the third slowest horse or whatever over the course, but a horse always came across the finish line first, always, usually well ahead. And so they send us Radiolab sensor producers out there. They record while they're there and there's this runner, I forget his name, I looked him up afterward. He is a real endurance runner guy who everyone was like, oh, he might set their course record.
(15:54):
Everyone was all like, Ooh. And he shows up in a battered Honda fit or something, which is amazing. Slept overnight at the course, got up and ends up winning by a lot, and everyone was freaked out. They're at all the aid stations and all the volunteers are always here every year. And they're like, well, the horses shouldn't come here any second. And all of a sudden, here comes this dude running and everyone's like, holy shit, we've never seen a person before a horse here. He wins about an hour. Now the reason I bring that up is that to me is fucking incredible. That is so interesting. I loved every second of that story. I find that relatable. I find it scientifically fascinating. I find the guy who did it really interesting. It's historically interesting. That is so in my wheelhouse. I just don't care about killing J's record that he, whatever this is, I just don't care.
Colin (16:43):
So why do you think that is? Is it because that story was presented to you the way it was in storytelling and if you had heard the Radiolab version of what Kill Killian did? Good point. Good point. Maybe I've just No, I think there's merit there how you're told the story versus if you had read like, oh, a guy beat a horse. You'd be like,
Justin (17:00):
Okay, that's a very good point. That's a very smart point to make and you very well could be. Right? I guess part of it is that I feel to, and that's why I asked you about the big accomplishment thing. I feel like legitimate, obvious things like first to Climb Everest, first to Swim the English Channel First to Swim to the Al I was, that stuff is all pretty cool and I find that very interesting and inspiring and all that sort of stuff. I guess at this point it feels like there's a bunch of super beings who are out there just trying to make up random shit to do that no one's ever done or that is really hard. And frankly I just can't. Yeah, dude, I couldn't do anything in this list. I could maybe ride my bike from place to place, whatever.
Colin (17:47):
I think maybe it was just the fact it was a little bit more adventure based.
Justin (17:51):
I think it's awesome that people are doing that super. I mean, I think it's super cool. That's a cool thing to have. I mean, I can't even imagine what it must be like to look at where was this the Alps? It
Colin (18:01):
Was in the Alps. Yeah.
Justin (18:01):
I mean, it must be rad to look at the Alps and all these, what I don't, 4,000 meters is what? 10,000 feet, whatever it is. Look at all these peaks and you're like, I've been on the top of all of 'em and I rant to all of them. That's cool. Personally, I'm sure that's an amazing feeling. I feel the same way about F kts. I just don't really care anymore. It just feels like there's a new one every day. It's wholly unrelatable. I mean, don't, we've talked about this before. I don't go outside to set a record in anything at all. If I did, it would be who had the most fun or who lounged the hardest. It's just not, I'm not a jockish outdoors person. It's not something.
Colin (18:39):
How would you measure that? I don't know. You would win the,
Justin (18:40):
I'd like to find out. I don't know, but
Colin (18:43):
Fuck you. I kicked your
Justin (18:44):
Ass at laying around again. I'm not trying to belittle, I mean
Colin (18:50):
No, no, no, you're actually helping me. I think get to why I liked the story, and I think part of it is at the same time, the guys like Cody and Kyle and other people, I was sort following on threads where freaking out a few weeks ago about, oh, the Leadville one hundred's going on, and then, oh, then it's UTMB and it just feels maybe like we've gotten a little, I don't know, kind of stuck mired in these sort of regular occurrences. Like, oh, it's time for the Barkley, it's time for this, it's time for that,
Justin (19:17):
And here's this dude who's just straight up human humor, human powered climbing, all this shit. I mean, I get that.
Colin (19:21):
And he's one of those guys who's done some of the, and he's won U TM B four times. He is one of those superhuman you're talking about. But instead he's like, Hey, you know what? Be kind of cool. I'm just going to go link up all these mountains
Justin (19:31):
And I did it in 19 days.
Colin (19:33):
That's great. I think that was like, oh, that's badass. I just thought that was a little more badass than I
Justin (19:36):
Agree with
Colin (19:36):
That he did another race. I
Justin (19:38):
Agree with that. I do agree with that. And it's not something that, I guess thinking about it, that thing is anytime you're on the top of a mountain, you see all these peaks. That'd be cool to be at all of them. And I'm not even a mountaineer, but I'll do a cool trip, a big hike, a high alpine hike, and you see endless peaks and you're like, wow, someone's probably been at the top of all of those. I get the desire and the urge, and if you have the means and you don't have to work a job and you don't have a family, I dunno if he has kids and you're able to do that sort of stuff, I would probably too. I have a neighbor down the street who I don't know, barely works as far as I could tell. He's an endurance athlete and
Colin (20:18):
He topo athletic
Justin (20:19):
Fan. He's not him different one. He's constantly, constantly talking to me in the mornings about what he's, he's getting into mountaineering now and he got into ski mountaineering now he wants to do regular mountaineering. And finally he's just like, I'm just bored. He's straight up. He's like, I can't, I need something big to do. I can't really do my, he used to do all these huge ultra races. He's radically fit, radically fit,
(20:44):
But you can tell he's searching and I'm just like, I don't know man. I like to go outside and just fish and look at the mountains and maybe draw and go for a hike and get sweaty. I just do not have whatever it is in you that's like, I need to run faster than anyone else has ever ran through here before or else I just don't get that. I don't have that. So these sorts of things to me are on a personal level, it's impressive. I just really don't frankly care that much. Anyway, sorry. That's enough about that. I mean it's amazing. Killian Badass, I'm sure you listen to the show, super badass, but not
Colin (21:14):
He's a big fan. Big fan. We hear from him a lot. I'm going to send him some stickers I
Justin (21:17):
Think's ever, ever listen to a podcast in the fucking life. He probably doesn't sit still for more than 20 seconds.
Colin (21:22):
Yeah, I dunno. He was probably doing astrophysics in his brain while he was running up the Alps. Who knows? To your point, he's Superman of the Terminator combined and he seems like a really genuinely nice guy. When you see so
Justin (21:34):
That I've seen interviews, he seems great. Yeah. Yeah. And I think if emailed with him before, I think super nice. I have no doubt. Look at
Colin (21:41):
You. Look at you
Justin (21:41):
Name dropping on the old podcast. Fuck
Colin (21:43):
Bro. Yeah, big deal. Another big deal. This is from Canadian trail running. They reported on a trend of older runners defined here as runners in their forties and fifties who are performing better as they age, which I thought this something we kind of knew about, but I wanted to bring this up. I read this article and you told me that you've been actually started the trail run with some passion right before you'd been more of like a Ah, do it for fitness every once in a while. I need to get out in something quick. I'll go for a run. Now you attributed that to a pair of shoes, the nor is you were testing and you really liked them. But I was reading this, I'm thinking, is there something more there? Do you think? Was it the shoes that sort of unlocked something for you that you're like as a guy in his mid forties now you're like, actually the running is, I'm starting to feel it a little bit more. Or is it truly the shoes?
Justin (22:28):
Well, there is something about the shoes. I mean, I had never even heard of NoDa until I went on this press trip last month and they're super expensive. Dyma uppers with a rum sole and they're just really well constructed and
Colin (22:47):
We will be covering them on gear beer.
Justin (22:48):
Yeah, they feel great on your feet. They feel more like a tool than any other showrooms I've ever had. Just, they're just great shoes. So
(22:58):
Part of it was that the trail run I did with them on in Boulder was a very similar trail to the one I would do here and my feet weren't sliding around. I hate in trail runners and I just felt really confident and secure and it made it fun. So that's part of it. But I think that there is something to the fact that running, I think it's got to be a simplicity thing. I've talked to other people about this before where I live, where I do because there's access to good mountain bike trails, even though it's mostly legal, but even at a certain point I'm juggling three part-time jobs right now and I have two kids. My schedule's weird and it's like, okay, I have an hour and a half. It's like, okay, I could spend 20 minutes getting on my cycling clothes, on my cycling clothes.
Colin (23:41):
Yeah. You mean
Justin (23:42):
Cycling
Colin (23:42):
Clothes?
Justin (23:43):
Jesus
Colin (23:43):
Christ putting socks on instead of flip
Justin (23:45):
Flops? Well, no, putting on my bike shorts and finding a bike shirt I can sweat in and like, okay, is there sealants in my tires? Does my chain need to get leaked?
Colin (23:53):
No. Even if you can ride from your house hour and a half top max.
Justin (23:58):
And then I got to ride the trail head and it's not fun until I'm at the Trailhead. It sounds like a stupid thing to complain about. I'm not complaining, it's just that it does more steps running. I just put my shoes on, I just run.
Colin (24:09):
There you go.
Justin (24:09):
And so I think that probably has a lot to do with the age thing now performing better. That's fucking wild. I don't know about that, but I get why people my age are doing it. It makes a lot of sense. Maybe if these are people that have been trail running their whole lives and they're just suddenly getting better in their forties and fifties, that is beyond me. I don't know. Maybe the,
Colin (24:27):
Yeah, that's always been the thing of people, especially in the ultra community. People like older folks have done well and obviously I think that's changed as more and more people have done it and younger folks have gotten involved. But there was a thing about just the experience and the patience with it and it's such a head game, the run long distances and all that kind of stuff. But it made me think about it because you're absolutely right. I've always made that argument that everyone becomes a runner. If you're active, you become a runner eventually because of everything you just said.
(24:50):
I was really into, I like to do cross country mountain bike races and then I've got a job where now I've got three kids at home and I'm traveling on airplanes every week. So what am I going to do? Come home on the weekend and say, sorry hon, I got to go ride my mountain bike for seven hours. I want to do this race in a few weeks. No, that's not going to fly. So what did I start doing? I started running more and I got really into that. I don't do it as much anymore obviously or at all really anymore. But there is, to your point, there is, and kind of, I was curious what sort of unlocked for you, because I do feel like when you get into that kind of the whole flow state thing, I dunno if that's bullshit or not, but if you're on a good trail and you feel good and you're kind of just cruising, I don't know if there's really anything else that, I mean, it's a little bit, we talk about surfing in a way when you kind of find that sweet spot where you're like, this is awesome. How do I make this last forever kind of vibe? And I think you can get that from running and a lot of people maybe never find that. But I think it's just, it's
Justin (25:41):
No, you totally can. I also think, and I was talking to with one of the teachers at my youngest daughter's daycare, I think she's exactly, she just turned like 46 or 47, so right around our age, and she ran her first marathon last month and we were just talking about running in general. I see her sometimes. I'm on my mountain bike. I'm like, she doesn't strike you as someone who's particularly fit, but she's been running for a while and is really into it. And we were talking about this, the fact that it takes a little bit to get into that to where you can run without it being painful. And so I'm in that phase now where I'm like, okay, this is great. I used to run a lot when I was younger and then I run sometimes and if you run, sometimes it hurts, but when you run often it doesn't as much. My hips are freer. Everything. I don't get the weird quad cramps I used to get. It just feels like my body's like, oh, we're running again. Okay, great. And it just kind of works. And there's also probably, especially after listening to that episode of Radiolab, I think there's just something ingrained in us that we just running. I mean,
Colin (26:42):
I believe that
Justin (26:43):
Too. Watching my daughter at soccer practice yesterday. I mean it's like all they want to do is run. And it's kind of an insane thing to think about that you just stop running at a certain point.
Colin (26:53):
I mean I'm well, we'll have more on the middle-aged white guy running podcast
Justin (26:57):
Coming up later. Jesus Christ. Could we be more cliche?
Colin (27:01):
Seriously,
Justin (27:02):
Jesus.
Colin (27:04):
I just think it is fascinating. As much as I don't run anymore, I still find it a fascinating
Justin (27:06):
Topic. Know this is great. It's convertible Porsches. Should we talk about that
Colin (27:11):
Next week we're going to talk trophy wives, 401k, Corvette versus Mustang. Where do you land? We
Justin (27:18):
Talk about how much we used to
Colin (27:19):
Bench coming up used to being the opera. Oh my god. Alright, well lastly, today per SGB Arctix has announced they're going to be opening its largest retail store in New York City on September 6th, which is actually today as we're recording this. So I guess it's open right now. Congrats Arctix. Most notably, this two story location will promote circularity as the future of retail with the lower floor devoted to the brand circularity platform. rer a service center that will employ four full-time repair operators. First of all, I love obviously the circularity of this. Good for you, for you eRx, for prioritizing that. But I wanted to get your thought on Arteric. I've did a thing recently where I was positing that Arteric had sort of removed themselves from sort of the outdoor conversation. I said, they're not an outdoor brand. I mean technically of course they're an outdoor brand, but in terms of when you talk about who you see on the trail, what you would wear to go out an adventure, I feel like their brand strategy and the retail strategy is completely different, technically more in line with a Lululemon or an athletic brand than it is or an urban fashion brand than it is a typical outdoor brand.
(28:25):
So as a gear reviewer and someone who spends their days neck deep outdoor stuff, how do you view arc tariffs when you look at them the same way you look at Patagonia or North Face?
Justin (28:34):
Obviously not, you wouldn't have brought it up if, well, I dunno,
Colin (28:38):
Maybe you could say, yeah, of course I do.
Justin (28:40):
That's a good point because, and struggling to, when I saw this on the outline, I was struggling to come up with an explanation for it. I mean, price point has something to do with it in the sense that it's more expensive than even Patagonia for the most part. And so as a gear reviewer, I've always been reluctant to cover things that I'm like, well, most people aren't going to. I feel weird covering a $400 jacket. Of course it's good. And that's a huge amount of money for most people. So that's part of it in the sense that I don't feel like, I haven't always felt the need to cover Arc Turks stuff. And you're right about not seeing it on the trail that much. And some of
Colin (29:21):
That could be priced as well.
Justin (29:22):
It could be where I live, expensive. It could be, I would imagine they're much bigger in Canada and probably much bigger in Europe. I would think they are. But also it's like if it was like, Hey, this was a life or death situation, two jackets and I saw the Artur, I would just grab the Artur one without even knowing what the other one
Colin (29:42):
Was because it won't fail. It's
Justin (29:43):
Going to be that thing will a piece of equipment. The other one could be the Patagonia. I'm going to grab the Arteric one every time. I don't even know if I own anything that Art Turx right now.
Colin (29:52):
Yeah, I think that to your point about where you see it and how you use it. If I said to you, you walked into a specialty shop and half of their apparel assortment was arteric, you would look at that and be like, this is weird. It would be weird to see that much arteric in a specialty store versus if you saw it, I was like, oh, it was all North Face or Marmon. You'd be like, okay, that makes sense.
Justin (30:09):
Yeah, but I mean the stuff is great. The vibe is, I mean, I feel like the ads are very, it feels like a Scandinavian brand. It feels very serene or not even severe maybe is maybe a better word. It just feels very cold. Not in a bad way, just it doesn't have a bubbly warmth that I associate with every other outdoor brand. I Birds is a fun name, but I'm just trying to think. If you look at Patagonia ads, that looks fun. Everything about Patagonia looks fun. They're in a fun place. Or there's some wit some kind of funny, witty thing about this jacket. Our Turks is just like, it looks great. It's really nice. I mean, honestly, it's like the Porsche of outdoor, it sells itself, so
Colin (30:55):
It doesn't need to kind of win anybody over
Justin (30:57):
Anymore, which is awesome. Nothing but respect for the brand. Their stuff is, I did have some of their shoes once that I hated.
Colin (31:07):
Well actually, so just that was part of the other thing we chatted about. Well, that was in that article. I mean that they just took over their shoes. Solomon was making their shoes for them. Basically it's all Armor sports. And so now they have taken it over. They have their own team producing them, and apparently there's been a huge uptick in quality. Oh,
Justin (31:25):
That's interesting.
Colin (31:25):
By a lot of Sanders.
Justin (31:26):
But Solomon knows how to make shoes.
Colin (31:28):
But I think it was a little like, Hey, big Rx shoes for us. Like, all right, well here you go. I don't know. I'm sure that it is deeper than that, but I feel like they just remove themselves from the conversation by saying, we make really high. They're a little like Apple. Even if Apple has a problem, they don't sit there and have to worry about solving it. They're like, oh, we'll just fix it in the next generation. And it's like the same kind of thing. They sort of are like, oh, we're making incredibly hardcore outdoor stuff, but we also are going to appeal to the urban city dwelling consumer and open our own stores. And now they're huge in China, right? They're opening stores in China having a huge response over there.
Justin (32:02):
They got to be big in Japan. It feels like a brand that would be big in Japan. Do you think it'd be anything negative about Artur? I mean is
Colin (32:08):
No, that's the other thing.
Justin (32:09):
Yeah.
Colin (32:10):
As a former textile guy, I used to get annoyed at the valence line, which is way more than the regular line, but it was a lot of the same fabric. So you could tell it was just a total margin plate of like, oh no, no, this coat's 800 bucks.
Justin (32:20):
It's like, come on. Well, it could be like that. I did have a pair of URS underwear that lasted a month. It just died. They just like, yeah, how does this already have a hole in it? This is wild. These are probably 50 bucks. But I'm not going to judge 'em based on that. I mean, I've only had a few things from them because I've always been wary of price point, like, eh,
Colin (32:42):
Yeah, I'm hoping to have their CEO on the show at some point. I've reached out to their PR team. I think it'd be a really interesting conversation of, from a brand strategy perspective, what is, they are different. I think it is objectively safe to say that they are different from the rest of the brands who play in the space that we typically cover. So anyway,
Justin (33:00):
There's an Artur store near me. I've never been in it. Go check it out. But I'm not going to spend $89 on a
Colin (33:06):
Sock. Just one sock too. The pair that's
Justin (33:09):
Coming, right? That's coming. That's got to be that day's
Colin (33:11):
Coming. What you want both socks. All right. We can wrap it up with the parting shot, man. What's your parting
Justin (33:20):
Shot for this week? No, you go first this time. I went first last time.
Colin (33:21):
Okay. Parting shot this week I have is for the Kansas City Chiefs as we record this last night, the season the NFL season kicked off, the chiefs won. But I told Justin before we hit record, I was just watching them and I'm like, all right, look, I like Pat Mahomes. He's obviously clearly the best quarterback in the NFL. They've restacked that team, but they've won two in a row. I'm over it. It's time for somebody else to win. And then between that and the Harrison Butcher making horrible comments in his commencement address, that bothered me. So they're officially in the, no matter who they're playing, I'm going to root against you camp because they were playing the Ravens last night, which is a team that I don't like. And I found myself rooting for the Ravens. So Kansas City Chiefs here on notice. I'm out on you. I do not want to see you back in the Super Bowl this year. It's time for somebody else to go win the Super Bowl. So that's my party shot.
Justin (34:07):
You're here?
Colin (34:09):
Yeah.
Justin (34:10):
I'm going to go cart related again after a mile one from last week. And unfortunately you brought up doing this yourself earlier today, so you're on notice, Colin. Oh no, stop fucking honking. It doesn't do any good unless you're on the freeway or something like that. But if you're in, well, I mean this is obviously because I never leave my little town. If you're in a residential area or a commercial area, the entire block doesn't need to be blasted with you being mad because the person had you on their phone. Fucking stop. It's
Colin (34:39):
Annoying. Oh, I take exception that if the light has turned green and they're not moving in front of me a little, I will honk the
Justin (34:45):
Horn. Yeah,
Colin (34:46):
No, no, no.
Justin (34:47):
It's up pop. Exactly. Yeah. But it's the not like a fucking, it's just the honking. Or if someone cuts you off a little bit, it's not going to reverse. Oh, that I agree. It's not going to reverse time. I see this all the time at the coffee shop I work at where two cars are. It's a weird intersection, but two cars are turning at the same time. And the one who's started out laying on the horn, it's like there's people every you laugh message, you laugh, but what do you think is going to happen? Yeah, exactly. There be no more horns than cars.
Colin (35:16):
That's amazing. My wife's still alive. She gets kind of agro in some of these situations.
Justin (35:21):
Well, that's the thing. It also, it is just amps up the situation. Don't fucking honk at me. Half of my road rage incidents were because someone would honk at me and take offense to it, mostly because it was jarringly loud and it scared me. So you get all mad.
Colin (35:33):
Is there any scenario in our lives where we're more sensitive than when we're behind the wheel of a car? The world is out to get us. I used to like that. Anything goes.
Justin (35:39):
I was just talking to somebody about this the other day. I've really let my road rage go and it is a wonderful thing. I mean, it is a wonderful thing. I don't even have the impetus anymore, but man, it's like someone cuts you off. You're like, okay.
Colin (35:53):
Even the guy though, I was saying now I honked my horn at who's trying make illegal lefthand turn. Okay, that I'm trying to get the attention like, dude, you should turn right. But it's still more that. Ah, I'm not laying on the
Justin (36:04):
Horn. Yep,
Colin (36:04):
I'm with you. I'm with you on this party shot. It's a good one. Good one, bud. All. Alright man, we can wrap it up there. The rock Flights of Production of rock Fight LLC. We didn't have a producer today. He had a meeting he couldn't attend, but our direction was provided by Sarah, the Commissioner Genzer, for Justin Hausman, I'm Colin Tru. Thanks for listening in here to take us out. Krista Makes is back from Rockview and he's here to sing the Rock Fight Fight song. We'll see you next time. Rock fighters, Rockside rock fight.
Chris DeMakes (36:34):
Bike into the bike where we speak our truth, say sacred cows, and sometimes agree to disagree. We talk about human power, outdoor activities and pick bikes about topics that we find interesting. Black back culture. Music, the latest movie reviews. Aim for the head. This is where we speak truth. This is where we speak our truth. Rock back.
Comments