Today on THE ROCK FIGHT (an outdoor podcast that aims for the head) Colin & Justin run through headlines to come out of the outdoor industry and community including some breaking trade show news! Here's the rundown:
It's trade show season and Switchback, which launched at The Running Event in 2022, is adding a spring event to be held in Nashville in 2025 and THE ROCK FIGHT has the scoop. (04:20)
Closeout retailer Sierra opens it's 100th store and may have accidentally fallen into a collab with SAW's very own Jigsaw. (17:35)
Spring Energy's Awesome Sauce was discovered to have a discrepancy between the nutrition facts on its packaging and what's actually in the product and people are losing their minds about it. (21:46)
Another billionaire wants to build a commercial submarine to go deep into the ocean. Because apparently there is nothing else in the world for billionaires to do. (28:28)
The Everest Basecamp welcome sign has been taken down. If anyone out there knows anything, Justin is looking to buy it. (32:04)
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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 and joining me today. He's the reason Red Bull. Shut down the hard line Canyon jump. It's Justin Hausman.
Justin (00:24):
Did they shut down that jump?
Colin (00:25):
They said they're not doing it. Yeah.
Justin (00:27):
Whoa,
Colin (00:27):
Someone got hurt. I watched
Justin (00:28):
A little bit of it. I'm a Marin Bikes fan boy. Did you know that, Colin? Have we talked about that? Yeah, I do know that I do. It has nothing to do with living in Marin, it just worked out that way. But Matt Jones is, you live
Colin (00:38):
In Marin.
Justin (00:41):
Matt Jones is their poster child. Cool guy jump guy and I watched him do a couple of jumps and he looked legitimately scared.
Colin (00:49):
It was terrifying. I mean, absolutely terrifying. Someone got fell. Well, someone
Justin (00:52):
Fell. I saw a picture of someone falling at the apex,
Colin (00:55):
Still made the job.
Justin (00:57):
What his
Colin (00:58):
Body did? He landed on the other side. His body did. He made the job. His body did. Yeah. Not on his bike. So hey, I had another one though. You want to hear the other one I had prepared?
Justin (01:06):
Sure.
Colin (01:07):
All right. And joining me today, he was just found guilty of 34 counts of tadpole abductions. It's Justin Houseman.
Justin (01:15):
That's pretty good too. I wish I got 34 of those full fuckers. I got to go check on the other one today to see if it's still tad pull. You
Colin (01:19):
Released the one, right?
Justin (01:21):
Yeah, I released it.
Colin (01:23):
How'd you do it? Did you just pick it up, take it outside?
Justin (01:25):
No, because it had hopped out of the tank. I took the lid off the tank to look for them and then all of a sudden there's a tiny frog hopping around on the table next to the tank and I don't see how another frog got in the house, so that's clearly the one that turned into a frog already
Colin (01:38):
And it was never seen again,
Justin (01:40):
And so I got it into a little bowl and I put a lid on it and I walked two blocks down the street to the creek and let it jump out and it was chilling next to the creek last time I saw it.
Colin (01:49):
I'm
Justin (01:50):
Sure Lizard ate it within two seconds, but
Colin (01:52):
No, I thought I can see on Zoom, I see some batter, like some fried oil.
Justin (01:56):
I mean, hey, if these were like bullfrog size frogs, hell yeah, dude. Frog legs are good.
Colin (02:00):
Not a lot of meat on the old,
Justin (02:02):
Not a lot of meat talking two millimeter long frog legs.
Colin (02:10):
All right, well today we are going to run through some of the more notable or exciting headlines to come out of the outdoor industry and community, but before we get to that, we got to do a few housekeeping items. We'd like to ask you to please follow and rate the rock play wherever you're listening, whether that's on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or any other podcast app. And if you happen to be just listening on Apple Podcasts, leave us a written review. It really helps the show. And if you do it from now until the end of June, if you leave a written review and email us at my rock fight@gmail.com, we'll send you a rock fight or gear and beer sticker. We've already gotten a few, so those of you who have done that, really appreciate it. Your stickers will be going out shortly and everybody else. Come on man. Get a rock. There's six stickers,
Justin (02:49):
So I'm not a Spotify user. Is there not an option for them to leave a written review on Spotify?
Colin (02:54):
I think you can just rate it. You can't actually write a review, so please. Five star rating on Spotify though. Do
Justin (02:59):
Appreciate that, Debbie, get a sticker.
Colin (03:01):
No sticker that.
Justin (03:02):
What if they write to us as if it was a Spotify review free sticker. Then we'll give you a sticker.
Colin (03:07):
You bet.
Justin (03:08):
Yeah. Just acknowledge this in any way. Just please give us five seconds of your attention to get a sticker. That's all we're looking for here.
Colin (03:16):
Justin. I'm curious though, how can our listeners follow along and reach out to the podcast?
Justin (03:22):
Well, they can email us at my rock fight@gmail.com. They can social media at us. Our Instagram handle is rock fight.co on the Insta and then, but really also go to our website, head to rock fight.co and join our mailing list. We have a fun newsletter, comes out every Sunday. It's kind of a grab bag. You never know what you're going to get if you're me. I don't really participate in making the newsletter, so join me in being surprised and delighted every Sunday with whatever Colin and producer Dave put together for us.
Colin (03:54):
I'll tell you though, you kind of did because all those columns you wrote years ago, you didn't know that one day they were going to go in the newsletter.
Justin (04:01):
Didn't know that one day we were going to get sued for copyright infringement for using old articles I wrote for somebody else, but that's why we have a crack legal team here@rockfight.co. Do we have a attorney? Yeah, should have brought this up before. I'm not allowed to use any of those old calls. Of course we do. Just kidding.
Colin (04:20):
Alright, well as we lead into headlines, this is the first episode of June and you know what that means, right?
Justin (04:27):
No,
Colin (04:27):
It's officially trade show season. Oh,
Justin (04:30):
That does kick off in June.
Colin (04:32):
Yeah, we're recording this on Friday the 31st. We're running it on, was it the third Monday the third, so Big gear was this past weekend at the outside festival. Next week is the Grassroots Outdoor Alliance, which is going to be in Reno and then Outdoor Retailer is the week after that
Justin (04:47):
Starring us,
Colin (04:48):
Starring Justin and Colin do a little live beer and beer. So if you're at Outdoor Retailer, come see us.
Justin (04:54):
I think that's the official that's on their signs and stuff. Now
Colin (04:57):
You actually have life-size photos on the outside of the Salt
Justin (04:59):
Palace. Yeah, just like they would for the Utah Jazz,
Colin (05:03):
But as outdoor retailers changed over the past five years or so, there's been a kind of constant C chatter, constant chatter in and around the outdoor industry for an event to be sort of the gathering the tribe that or used to be for so many years. I think I'm sure you did as well. This is something I heard quite a bit about just in April with the Sea Otter Classic. It always comes up like, oh, is this going to be the event? Or there should be more events like this to get back to. We have what outdoor retailer used to be. The outside festival that just happened was billing itself as the South by southwest of the outdoors and they're really openly trying to be that new industry hub and then Sean Smith from or came on this pod and talking about the efforts to reinvigorate that show. I'm curious though to, I dunno if we've talked about this too deeply, deeply as a journalist, somebody who's used to go to or, and I've been thinking about what are we actually missing and what are the paths to making everybody happy here with this? So what do you think missing by not having a sort of go-to national event?
Justin (06:00):
I'm almost afraid of saying this because it sounds like I'm going to be a commercial real estate person trying to urge everybody back to the office, but it was really nice to just see the faces of the people that you deal with on a daily basis. I mean, if you're a journalist like me and you're getting pitched stuff constantly for gear reviews, it was great to actually put a name to the PR people's faces and it's easy to ignore an email, but when you're actually at a booth and seeing what's coming, there's lot to get excited about. I mean it just kind of makes you excited about the industry.
Colin (06:32):
Yeah, it just kind charge your batteries right when you leave you feel a little like, all right, that was cool. It was good to see everybody. There's something that
Justin (06:38):
When is it bad to engage in a community space? It's always fun to feel like you're with your peeps and to discover that they're unlike you real people when because you are of course ai.
Colin (06:51):
That's true. We've established that, I think. Are you done writing the book
Justin (06:53):
About it yet by the No, doing all these podcasts. I don't have time for that, but I'm having AI write it, which seems appropriate. I've
Colin (07:00):
Been talking to your ai, we're working it out. It's great.
Justin (07:04):
Yeah, I didn't get a ton of stories out of or other than, I mean I may have and I just don't remember, but that was a great place to go if you wanted to talk to a higher up at somewhere, you could just get a beer with them rather than doing it over the phone. I mean, it just felt like the family, it felt like a family reunion. I think we all miss that now. I think people love to talk about how we didn't want to go to or anymore, but now that we're actually doing it or now that we're not going anymore, I think a lot of us miss it.
Colin (07:33):
Yeah, I think people kind of get it wrong with trying to replace it. I don't know how the things are going to go with the big gear show. They've had several iterations now and now tying their hitching the boat to the outside festival, maybe that will end up letting them evolve to what they should be, but to have everybody kind of be like, it seems like everyone's just trying to replicate what was and the reason why. Well, or
Justin (07:52):
Was too big though too. I don't want necessarily go back to a gigantic or was massive and it was unwieldy and you had to, it's not super fun to make a 30 appointments to visit a bunch of different brands and there was some No, nothing about that was fun. If you wanted to go discover all the little up and comers, you had to go to a whole different floor and now you're out in BFE and I like us a smaller, more focused one would be cooler.
Colin (08:23):
The last time I went to, or was the last summer show in Denver, and I think I'm imagining this is what our experience is going to be there in a couple of weeks, which I was. Yeah, if you're going to compare it to what you just described, it's not that at all. At all. There's mostly brands you don't recognize there, but also that felt very probably akin to what it was like in 1983. I mean, it was probably more smaller booths, smaller presence by a lot of folks who were just trying to get started and now we've got a, is that maybe what it ultimately just should be, right? Is it like, Hey, is this for the upstart brands who just want to get a little bit of exposure and this is the way they can get that done is at a show like this now, it's not going to be like it was and it never will be again. I just think that everybody seems to try and solve the problem by recreating what was, and there are reasons for why or isn't what it used to be.
Justin (09:12):
Well, yeah, I remember going to sitting in the Tin Cup whiskey booth, which I don't know how big Tin Cup whiskey is now, and they had a, or not booth, they had a snowcat that they dragged into this convention center and had refit to be a little bar and pouring everybody free, endless free whiskey for three days in a row and you could just go in there and just have shot. You could just go in there and have shots. And I remember sitting there thinking, how much is this costing? It's a lot. What is the point? I've never bought Tin Cup whiskey outside of all It's fine. Yeah, when you got it for free. Exactly. So it's like, I don't know that, that's not why I went though. I didn't go to get wowed by the booths. It felt like it became an arms race to have the coolest booth and that doesn't really matter.
Colin (10:00):
Well, I think the reality is that maybe just more smaller shows might end up being how this gets resolved. So I'm going to be at GOA Connect next week and that is a very much a trade driven show. What's that?
Justin (10:11):
Goa? What does that stand for, please?
Colin (10:13):
Grassroots Outdoor Alliance. Thank you. So that is a sports specialty independent, retailer based show meeting with brands, very limited media and it is a, you go here and you get business done, you sit, see product. I don't know if people are writing orders, but it is very much a, if the intent that orders will come out of this or will be at the following week, the Outdoor Market Alliance is doing their media day in July. There's a good chance that we might show up there this summer. So we'll see if that happens and then we will see what the feedback is from big year and outside. We do have some breaking news though. Did I do about this? We
Justin (10:44):
Do, yeah. I'm trying to make a, is that a breaking new sound?
Colin (10:52):
Do it again.
Justin (10:52):
Do it again. No, I don't want, I'm embarrassed. I'm very embarrassed now.
Colin (10:56):
So the Rock Fight's been asked to break some news regarding the outdoor industry trade show. So topical given what we're talking about Switchback, which builds itself as an education and business show and made its debut at the Running event in 2022 and the Running Event is the premier running trade show held annually in Austin, Texas, and they've announced that they're adding a spring edition of the show. So Switchback now being held twice a year and with the spring and summer iteration being the first one being in June of 2025 in Nashville, Tennessee
Justin (11:24):
Music Town, another music town. Yep.
Colin (11:26):
Yeah, big music town vibe here and a press release that just came out. This edition of Switchback will not be tied to the running event. So it's not like the running event's happening twice a year though. That will remain the November, December timeframe and this will be solely switchback, which is more outdoor focus, not as much running focus as the regular running event. It's a camping, hiking and trail running trade event taking place next June. And it sounds like this will be more than just a typical trade show with a focus on educational sessions, networking events, and exhibitors. We're excited to break this news. The show organizers came to us to do so. Yeah, absolutely. I think the thing that's kind of interesting here as it relates back to our previous conversation, the previous part of our conversation about trade shows, the running event has a really interesting reputation. Whenever we're having these sort of trade show conversations, it's lamenting like, oh, outdoor retailers not like it used to be or what could take its place and all that kind of stuff. The running event has just seemed to be, there's a really high approval rate no matter what everybody's like, oh yeah, the running event's great though I love going to the running event. So to see them sort of expanding is an interesting take.
Justin (12:28):
So Colin, what do you think? Can the industry support another show like this? I mean it's smaller, it's more focused, but obviously we're trying to find our feet underneath us after losing or and trying to figure out how to fill that hole. But does that mean that it can support something like this?
Colin (12:46):
Where do you think or was misplaced when they lost it? Do you think it's behind a rock?
Justin (12:50):
Yeah, well, no one knows if it's in Denver or Salt Lake City. It's somewhere in one of those two places. It's lost
Colin (12:55):
In southern Wyoming somewhere.
Justin (12:56):
Yeah, yeah. Help.
Colin (12:59):
I think this goes back to what I was saying about people need to redefine what this experience is. It is not just going to be something swoops in and it's like, oh look, we have the new outdoor retailer. I think it probably can be that we have smaller multiple events to kind of see out a classic if or finds its legs in whatever the current edition of it is. And then with TRE, the running event has a really good reputation and their expertise lends themselves to doing something like this. I think it's really what's your point of view? I think there's so many shows where they just say, Hey, we're going to do something. And this is what I was curious about with the outside festival. It's like I think the music fest of that makes a lot of sense, but I'm really curious to hear what the unbiased non attendee responses to the industry stuff and what people see there in terms of it becoming the hub of the outdoor industry.
(13:54):
So I think the idea of, hey, in the spring I go to the Sea Classic and then I go to maybe switchback in Nashville and then the fall I go to TRE or maybe I don't go to a couple of them. I think having more of those options and doing it on a smaller level makes actually a ton of sense for where we are. Everybody has a different need that needs to be filled and the idea that we can just sort of all find that is some sort of giant national event in 2024 is bonkers to me.
Justin (14:24):
I remember, it's funny when you look at what switchback is going to be, which is camping, hiking, trail, running, your first thought is, well, isn't that just, or because obviously that's its main focus, but I remember thinking a few years probably the last time I went to, I always enjoyed, I feel like they always had different names for, but maybe not. I always enjoyed the floor. That was not the hardcore outdoor brands. It was more like the boutique apparel sort of stuff. I just thought, there's always something interesting to see there, but I remember Mollusk there, which is a surf shop in San Francisco and they have a couple of locations in Southern California, but they don't make hard goods. I mean, they make their own clothes, but they weren't there to sell. They weren't there to show off surfboards or any kind of actual gear.
(15:04):
It was just through their clothes. It's like why they need to be in the same place that standup paddleboard brands are. It makes very little sense. There were so many people that would go to or and only go to a very narrowly focused aspect of, or I mean there was food, there was a hook and bullet section. There were all these different things that had nothing to do necessarily with the North Face. So it makes a lot more sense to me that if it was just restricted to camping and hiking and things like that, that someone like me is going to be way more interested kind of the stuff that I cover. So I like that. And I do think the only downside I can think of is that if you're either a PR firm that represents a bunch of different brands across loss of categories or you're someone like me who is a, or the guys at Gear Junkie probably are annoyed now you have 15 of them to go to rather another
Colin (15:53):
Thing to go to
Justin (15:53):
Rather than one because they cover cars and guns and clothes and everything. So that's probably a little bit of a bummer. But yeah, I like that. An hour focused thing. I think it's cool. I'd love to go to the switchback one. You
Colin (16:06):
Probably will. Yeah. I think ultimately it just comes down to what's your point of view on why people should come and everybody else who attends these things needs to change their expectation about what they want to get out of them. I mean, if you're going just to hang out, well that's probably not the best reason to spend your money and go to these shows. But there are real reasons to attend them and now actually, if you take the glass half full approach, you have a lot to choose from. There's a lot of things you can go see and see on display that's different than what we would just get in Salt Lake City twice a year.
Justin (16:37):
I've never been to Nashville.
Colin (16:39):
I've only been there once. It's a cool town. Yeah, so well let's go just so we can go to
Justin (16:44):
Nashville. I want to go because I want to go eat. I bet that food fucking is insane in Nashville.
Colin (16:49):
You know what? I will say that regardless of how this turns out, if it's successful, not successful, they do want and it's done or it goes on forever. Good for you for doing Nashville. I got to tell you, even though I live on the West coast now, as someone who lived on the East coast, getting into a lot of these Western trade shows was a giant pain
Justin (17:04):
In the As. Yeah, I didn't really think about that. That is pretty cool. I mean, it makes sense to pick a town where people are going to want to go to anyway that might lure them more than Salt Lake City would.
Colin (17:14):
Everybody always talks about like, oh, you got to have the outdoorsy stuff around you. Salt Lake is the only town where you can really make that work. Where you have a giant convention center and then mountains like 10 minutes away everywhere else you got to drive.
Justin (17:24):
I'm also not really that interested in join Helly Hansen for a hike in their new stuff.
Colin (17:29):
Mean when I'm there, I'm in work mode and I'll go recreate when I get home.
Justin (17:32):
Exactly. Yeah.
Colin (17:35):
Alright, so getting into more traditional headlines this week. So according to SGB, this past week, Sierra, formerly Sierra Trading Posts, which I have to say because I can't not think Sierra Trading posts, when I see Sierra opened, its 100th store in Sheboygan, Wisconsin on May 31st. First of all, is there a better town named than the United States than Sheboygan? Can we just give it up for Sheboygan for a second?
Justin (17:56):
I mean, there's a town in California called Rough and Ready. How is that not a better name than Sheboygan. That's too, yeah.
Colin (18:01):
Anyway, to celebrate Sierra is sending what they are calling the Sierra active wagon,
Justin (18:05):
The Sierra active Wagon, the saw
Colin (18:07):
SAW, which appears to be an orange, four door Jeep Wrangler. It's in the link if you want to see it. That's loaded up with a hundred products that you can find in Sierra stores and road tripping from Chicago to Sheboygan. Or they'll stop at other Sierra stores along the way and give away some of these items. This feels really gross to me.
Justin (18:26):
I have a question. I have two questions. Three, maybe four there. A lot of 'em are coming. Okay. Really? I mean Sierra Active Wagon, do you really think they're trying to use saw as an acronym?
Colin (18:41):
Alum made a saw part. I just noticed that it was SAW.
Justin (18:45):
That doesn't make, I don't like that. I don't love that. Name two. I don't see how you can be called Sierra and not be going to the Sierra Nevada on this road trip Chicago to Sheboygan.
Colin (18:56):
Well, it's the new store that's opening. They're using it together.
Justin (19:00):
Yeah, I guess thats true
Colin (19:01):
From you can go from Sheboygan to the Sierra.
Justin (19:04):
It's weird. There's not, they have a hundred stores. I knew they opening some hundred
Colin (19:08):
Stores now and we know they're opening more this year. I mean, I think when I talked about Sierra here in the pod a couple of months ago, I put the focus on the brands that are making too much stuff and knowing they have a place like Sierra to dump what's left over or doesn't work. But this just feels like, yeah, this is great. We know they're going to keep sending us stuff. Let's buy a car and paint it up and drive around and hand out free sleeping bags. Just going to look at these $300 items. We're just giving 'em away. We're outdoor Santa Claus driving to Chicago. Does Sheboygan, it's freaking nuts.
Justin (19:39):
Is that really is what? Their stores are just outlets, right? I mean that's essentially
Colin (19:45):
No, I mean if you go to 'em, they're well merchandised outdoor stores.
Justin (19:48):
Right. But yeah, but it's an outlet though, right? I mean it's a lot
Colin (19:54):
Of closeout product, but there are plenty of outdoor brands that make stuff specifically for Sierra. Oh, there
Justin (19:59):
Are. That's what I was wondering. That happens.
Colin (20:01):
Yeah. So they're not like all altruistic here. They're like, Hey,
Justin (20:05):
Yeah, it sounds like it. I just don't understand why they're called that they don't have any presence at all in California. None. They need to change their name. It's called Sheboygan Trading Post. What
Colin (20:14):
Do you think about the tour? What do you like this? Does this bother you in any way?
Justin (20:17):
The Jeep thing? Yeah. No, it's kind of cool. No, I mean, what are they going to do? Are they going to stop random people on the street and you want a sleeping bag or they just going to other stores and being like,
Colin (20:29):
Actually thank you. Actually, you just made the point. They're going to other Sierras and handing out these things to people there. Why not you stop and hand out sleep bags to homeless people? Why not use this for good in the world? We're going to drive or we're going to help out people along the way. Then I'd be so on board and singing their praises.
Justin (20:43):
Or even just those. Remember the Red Bull cars? You'd be at some kind of a random farmer's market and there'd be a Red Bull car. They'd just be hand out Red Bulls. Maybe they'd be kind of cool. Hey man, here's some socks.
Colin (20:55):
So bringing back our propensity to turn everything into a movie. So it's the, what did we call it? It's the Sierra Active Wagon. AKA saw. Is this like saw 11? Is this the plot for saw 12? Is this? Yeah,
Justin (21:09):
This little truck of horrors lure you in with free sleeping bags and then all of a sudden, next thing you know you're in a tent that you can't get out of and you have to eat your own arm off to somehow leave the tent.
Colin (21:18):
Or is there something at the bottom of the sleeping bag? You get it?
Justin (21:21):
It could be that. Yeah, it like, oh crap, something's eating me in the sleeping bag. Yeah. Yeah.
Colin (21:25):
Jigsaw comes riding up, but he doesn't have his little suit on. He's got on a backpack and a cap. OSI sunglasses.
Justin (21:35):
Jigsaw's in his outdoorsy phase. He's in his core phase.
Colin (21:38):
I'm going to play a
Justin (21:39):
Game. Panic Tant is good today
Colin (21:41):
We're going to go camping. Moving on, man. Justin, how do you feel about sports nutrition? Do you ever pack any of the more endurancey stuff like on backpack, like as emergency stash of GOs or something like that? Absolutely.
Justin (21:57):
Emergency STS of GOs are key. When my wife and I used to backpack all the time, she would make our little oh shit bags and they always had a couple gooses in them like Starbucks via packet. Goo things. You can't live without coffee and food. When I think about it, I'm a huge fan of hydration stuff. I'll put some powder in my water bottle before a big ride or some hydration chew. I'm into that, but I also don't remotely care. Does that make sense?
Colin (22:24):
I think that's the proper take on sports nutrition. Yeah, it's great if it's there also, do
Justin (22:29):
Not care. Yeah,
Colin (22:30):
But you know what? I got a Snickers. I'm doing pretty good.
Justin (22:32):
Totally. Yeah. I'm also just as liable to put some, well, I guess this counts peanuts and some dried fruit in a bag or not bring anything and be really hungry and regretting it and bonk and crash and just go home and eat a sandwich.
Colin (22:43):
Anyway, the reason I ask about nutrition is are you from the spring energy? Because I'm
Justin (22:47):
Ridiculously fit in an endurance freak. That's why you asked me. Obviously
Colin (22:50):
I know that's true. You are the leading authority on this topic. So Spring Energy, which is a, they make real food based nutrition solutions versus what you would
Justin (23:00):
Very good real food. This isn't clearly pulled that from their website. What does that mean? Real
Colin (23:04):
Food based nutri. I've used Spring Energy. It's delicious. It's really good.
Justin (23:06):
Yeah, but you've never said organically in your life. Real food-based nutrition solutions. That's obviously from, I
Colin (23:11):
Was a sales manager for two
Justin (23:14):
Nutrition.
Colin (23:15):
I've said that multiple
Justin (23:16):
Times. Alright, alright, alright.
Colin (23:18):
It never sounded organic coming out of my organic, coming out of my mouth. It's okay
Justin (23:21):
If you've lifted that from their site, man. It's totally fine. I
Colin (23:24):
Actually didn't, I really didn't put that off on my own. So the accordion article published on the direct.com Spring Energy, who does make real food based nutrition solutions for endurance athletes, what do they make? Real food.
Justin (23:38):
What's the nutrition solution based Alan from
Colin (23:40):
Real Food.
Justin (23:41):
Real
Colin (23:41):
Food. Real food.
Justin (23:43):
What
Colin (23:43):
A not just high fructose corn syrup. It's real food. Justin. Good
Justin (23:46):
Concept. Okay. Alright.
Colin (23:48):
Well they've had a hell of a time recently. They've dealt with a controversy around their awesome sauce gel, how we found out the name. Awesome sauce you down for you like awesome sauce.
Justin (23:55):
I don't like it when people use that phrase generally speaking, but it totally works for this. It's great. Do you ever eat the magnifi sauce that Trader Joe's makes? That stuff is
Colin (24:04):
Good. No, that sounds lovely.
Justin (24:06):
It's Thousand Island.
Colin (24:07):
It's like a Oh, okay.
Justin (24:08):
Yeah, it's good.
Colin (24:09):
Well, apparently someone tried to replicate awesome sauce on the road and found there was a discrepancy in the nutritional value of what they made and what spring claims about their awesome sauce product. That was then verified by fitness coach, fitness coach Jason Coop, who had the spring product tested, independently tested, and at this point Spring pulled awesome sauce from their web store. But then there's this entire subplot now involving Spring Energy ambassadors who are being criticized for endorsing awesome sauce, but then not apparently using the product. And this guy, Jason Coop is coming at them hard saying it's obscene the way they've handled this product. And if you go on Reddit, there's this entire thread by the original guy who tried to reverse engineer awesome sauce where Spring Energy is getting raked over the coals for this situation.
Justin (24:57):
I'm almost more concerned about people getting mad that the athletes that endorse awesome sauce don't always eat it. I mean, what do the people think? I
Colin (25:04):
Know that was amazing to me. I'm like, do you know how endorsements work? You endorse me for whatever you want right
Justin (25:09):
Now. You get paid to endorse it. That's wild to me. Do people think that every podcast host sleeping on a Casper? No, they're not. They're not Casper's buying ads on their show.
Colin (25:20):
The only way this is an issue is if Spring Energy is in the face of all this new information, fuck off. We're doing it whatever we want. Keep buying awesome sauce. We're not changing anything. I mean, they took it down.
Justin (25:32):
Well, I'm sure you can get wildly sued for that. I mean, I would think, right?
Colin (25:36):
Totally. That's what I mean. It's probably
Justin (25:37):
A felony. It's probably a huge crime actually now I think about it, right? Like diabetics or whatever need, that's a real
Colin (25:44):
Thing, but they're apparently responding responsibly, so I don't really know what other people want them to do. I imagine this maybe was somebody put off of a spreadsheet updating the packaging, probably put the wrong number in it is probably what happened. What I mean it was probably something really simple.
Justin (25:57):
They're responding very responsibly for a brand that makes something called awesome sauce. That sounds like five dudes in a pair of cargo shorts made that brand, but they're doing it the right way. Speaking of which, this is a bit off topic, but I think it's fun and we should talk about it anyway because Liquid Death is somewhat related to the outdoor space. But have you seen the both marketing blow up and just kind of hat tip to Liquid Death about their new Arnold Palmer beverage? Have you heard about
Colin (26:29):
This? No, I've not seen this.
Justin (26:30):
So first of all, say that, say the name of that drink right now.
Colin (26:34):
Arnold Palmer.
Justin (26:35):
Wow. You can do it. I can't Arnold Palmer. I have such a hard time
Colin (26:39):
With that. See, I'm classy. I won't make fun of you. You make fun of me. And how I say the word layers,
Justin (26:45):
Listen to you. So anyway, so Liquid Death put out their version of an Arnold Palmer and they called it the Armless Palmer, which is a pretty cool name. And I guess Arnold Palmer famous, of course, golfer pastor. He's no longer with
Colin (27:01):
Us Lemonade and Iced Tea Baby.
Justin (27:03):
And I guess his estate though was nuh and threatened to sue Liquid Death. And so liquid death's response, dead billionaire is what they called it instead.
Colin (27:16):
That's amazing.
Justin (27:17):
That is amazing. That's amazing. I've got
Colin (27:19):
I so much respect for that company right
Justin (27:21):
Now. I do. Now I've never been a fan of Liquid Death. When I first saw it and I saw their ads, I thought their ads were funny. But I'm just like, come on, we do not need to sell. Just generally speaking, stop fucking selling canned and bottled water. Just stop. It pisses me off if that's a thing. And in fact, just the other day there was someone parked Shittily in a Beamer near my house with a liquid death in the cup holder. And I was like, yeah, of course. But I am head over heels in love with dead billionaire. That's
Colin (27:49):
Amazing.
Justin (27:50):
You know what I'm looking up, I'm actually looking at a can right now and I got it wrong. It's dead billionaire. AKA armless Palmer. So they didn't even take the name off completely. So it's like, they're like, yeah, I guess you could sue us, but also that's fucking brilliant.
Colin (28:07):
Well, spring Energy could have learned a little something from Liquid Death. They went the other way. They're just running and hiding it seems like. But they also don't deserve everyth. Think a lot of the grief they're getting so well, I dunno. We'll see what comes of
Justin (28:18):
Purposely unless they totally just lied about the amount of carbohydrates in their product.
Colin (28:23):
That's shit we got caught.
Justin (28:24):
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm not applauding that.
Colin (28:28):
Alright, our next story comes from Explorers Web. We reported this week that after last year's Ocean Gate Titanic disaster, which I'm sure you remember
Justin (28:37):
All you, I had a ticket on that boat.
Colin (28:40):
Did you get excited because you're going to love this story. We may not have to wait long for another billionaire to finance a commercial craft that can dive to depths even deeper than the or Titanic rests, but this time safely, this time. We're going to do it safely this
Justin (28:55):
Time. We're not going to be implo. Who's not going to implo this time?
Colin (28:58):
This is not safe at all guys.
Justin (29:00):
We should Well, that seems to be the case actually. That kind of seems to be the case. The Ocean Gate one definitely seemed to be very unsafe and they still did it.
Colin (29:06):
So Larry Connor and Ohio billionaire contacted, contacted Triton submarines shortly after the Ocean Gate disaster occurred and told Triton co-founder Patrick Leahy, you know what we need to do? This is a quote, is build a sub that can dive to Titanic level depths repeatedly and safely. So I already signed you up for the first dive. Happy birthday you're
Justin (29:27):
In. Thanks bud. That's fantastic. I
Colin (29:29):
Shout out the cash. Want to make sure you're there
Justin (29:30):
To achieve your dreams. Always wanted to die five miles below the ocean surface. That's so great.
Colin (29:36):
Why do we need this? We've been to the Titanic like James Cameron tooled around down there for days. Why do we need this?
Justin (29:45):
I have absolutely
(29:48):
No fucking clue what the appeal is in this situation. So to me, that just says that if you're a whacked out billionaire, just sitting around completely looking at homeless people and lack of medical care and all these things that we really need in this country, that's not where you're going to spend your money. What you're going to spend your money on is going to a place that nobody or fewer people have gone than other people. So Mars is out. Elon's already got his fanboy billionaire click setting their sights on that. So what's left? I mean there's currently an olive garden being built on the summit of Everest. So nobody cares about getting up there anymore.
Colin (30:26):
Poop. You can't, there's no bathroom though,
Justin (30:27):
At that olive garden. Yeah, we still have to poop into a bag at the bathroom, which I recommend that. I recommend that. Anyway, I don't know about you, but if I'm going to any kind of public bathroom, I have my little fold up toilet and a wag bag. I'm not putting my butt on where someone else sat. Never. That's so gross. But anyway, yeah, that's it. Where else are you going to go? That's it. It's a very sad time to be a billionaire with vaguely vague aspirations for adventure. I mean, you used to be so easy. No one's ever been to this part of Africa. You just did
Colin (30:55):
That. You see this playing out like Larry Connor's there watching the other guy like, oh man, that guy got imploded. I could do better than that.
Justin (31:02):
I just love that He apparently did it right after. You know what, all those people died and got super gruesomely. Let's do it better. Hey
Colin (31:09):
Patrick, I'm watching CNN right now. You see what's going on? Yeah, we could do this way better.
Justin (31:14):
I do think that Triton might be the real one. I remember watching something about Ocean Gate and there was a guy who owned another Subcompany who's like, oh yeah, we triple check all our shit. They don't do that at all. Their stuff was half as thick as it needed to be. We don't even go down a thousand feet in what they went down in.
Colin (31:29):
But this is a good case of what would you rather do at gunpoint? Would you rather go to space and go to the bottom of the ocean? I mean it was space for me immediately. At least I got to be weightless. Well, you can look out of the window, you can see the earth, you can see you can float around, do all that bit. Even if you had had windows, it's still just dark.
Justin (31:48):
No, I mean I guess in some ways this is like the death zone on Everest where the human body goes, we're not supposed to be here. That's how I feel about both of those places. I don't need to conquer. I don't need to be like you. Fuck you. Physics and biology. I'm doing it anyway. That has no appeal to me. None.
Colin (32:03):
Well, we promised no more Everest News, but there was one last story on Explorers Web this week that I felt we needed to talk about because we covered it a few months ago here in the Rock fight.
Justin (32:13):
Very sad about this story. The
Colin (32:14):
New Everest Space Camp welcome sign has been taken down. Kubu local officials took down the unpopular billboard that was put up in March in an effort to replace the traditional graffiti covered rock that had served as a welcome to those arriving at Everest Space Camp for decades. According to the Everest Chronicle, the sign led to ridicule and outcry from locals, tourists, and climbers. So apparently the two hosts of the rock fight were the only ones who thought it was cool and better than a defaced rock. So
Justin (32:43):
I mean locals, I don't give a shit about the tourists, but if locals didn't like it, get it out. That's all right. I thought it looked nice. I thought it was fine.
Colin (32:52):
I dunno. You think you'd be able to buy the sign on eBay would If it was on eBay, would you buy it?
Justin (32:55):
God, sorry, that just destroyed my mic. Yeah, good question. I wonder if it is for sale on eBay. What happened to it? No, it's definitely not. Or you know what it is? It's in a cafe in Nepal somewhere. It's like at the back.
Colin (33:07):
People walk in, they spin on it like fuck that sign. I
Justin (33:09):
Wonder why the locals were pissed.
Colin (33:12):
I don't understand the backlash. I mean, you were the only person I've ever heard Point out. You drew all over that rock and that's supposed to be cool, but we can't put up The rock is
Justin (33:19):
Yeah, at least the sign's temporary. They just proved my point. They took the sign away. You can't take the graffiti away.
Colin (33:26):
Maybe they'll bring it back in the spring, like suck us. We're bringing it back.
Justin (33:30):
That's true. I mean it is. The season's over mean. That might just be it. Maybe the Explorer. We are, no offense, Explorer's Web. I like their site, but we're just relying on what we don't know how much digging they did. Maybe. Maybe the whole plan is to take the sign down at the end of the climbing
Colin (33:43):
Season, put it back. Why
Justin (33:44):
Is it there and why would it be there all year? Actually you have to. It's going to be completely covered in snow. It's going to, it's going to be fucked. You have to take it down. That's probably what happened.
Colin (33:53):
That's a point. If it was available on eBay, would you buy it? Number one?
Justin (33:57):
Yes.
Colin (33:57):
And what would you spend on it? Number two, what's the max you would spend? How
Justin (34:00):
Big is it again? Do we know the, give me the metrics on this. That's a good
Colin (34:03):
Point. There were people, it was higher
Justin (34:05):
Than, it looked pretty big.
Colin (34:06):
I'm taller than you probably.
Justin (34:07):
Yeah, I would pay a thousand dollars.
Colin (34:11):
Okay.
Justin (34:11):
I don't think I'd pay more.
Colin (34:13):
You said so a thousand bucks. You would pay a thousand bucks for that. You think you could find it at the Nepalese Sierra out there? Did they
Justin (34:19):
Have those Sierra, the Nepalese Sierra
Colin (34:20):
Trading books? It's right now it's hitched to the back of the active wagon. What are the Sierra Active wagon?
Justin (34:25):
It is it funny. You look at their locations and mostly in between Chicago and Sheboygan and a few on the Northeast and then one little dot way over there, Nepal. They've set one up out there.
Colin (34:38):
When you hear about things where it's just something out of left field. If this person recreated this set from a movie in their backyard and it's just these bizarre sort of circumstances, they don't really understand why someone would actually do it. But it's also like, it's kind of cool they did that. You should recreate the Sign Bay area, man. Recreates Everspace Camp sign puts it in his front. It's
Justin (34:57):
Confused. Oh, you've climbed. You've seen it. No, no, no hate. I hate everything about climbing Everest, but I just love this. You
Colin (35:05):
Got a boulder behind it that you graffiti all over so it's like legit.
Justin (35:08):
What's weird? Do you do this? I don't know why, but, well, I guess partially because of my job. I spend a lot of time writing about historical adventure figures, but I kind of become fanboys to particular ones for reasons I can't really explain. But Edmund Hillary to me is my favorite and honestly, I don't know why it has nothing to do at all
Colin (35:27):
With him climbing Evers
Justin (35:28):
First. I can see there's about that guy. He just seems rad. And his friendship with 10 Zg Norge seemed really deep and meaningful and lasting. But it could just be from the best country in the world, New Zealand. And he's tall and gangly like me. But something about Hillary, I'd love to have some Hillary pictures of my house. Seemed like a good dude. He just looks like he looked great. Like a Will Ferrell was a climber. Just looks like he's always having a good time. Is Hillary funny? I dunno. That's true. Do we know? I know. No idea. But he's always smiling. He looks great in those old school mountaineering glasses. He looks fantastic in those.
Colin (36:00):
Does he wears them really well?
Justin (36:01):
Yeah, he does bring back those kids. Handsome fellow. Hey speaking. I'm going to add some last minute breaking headline here. That might not mean anything to you, but for some reason I signed up for the Denali National Park and Preserve news releases a while back. And so sadly all of the ones I get are lost climbers on Denali and 90% of the time nothing happens. But there's been these two guys that got stranded, actually I think it was a group of three and they've been stranded all week. One of them was able to kind of hike down severely frostbitten and severely hypothermic and then there were two other ones and they just couldn't get to 'em. They were up at like 19,000 feet and for various reasons they couldn't quite get to 'em, but they just did. They got the last surviving guy just like this morning. They just announced it, which is pretty amazing. They've been up, they've been on the mountain for four days or three days. But at that height, I'm sure the guy's severely frostbitten, but his partner died but he made it, which is, I just amazing that we could do this.
Colin (37:02):
I have no interest in any of the seven summits, but if you maybe rank the ones I would want to climb if you made me Denali would probably be number seven.
Justin (37:11):
Well, because it's the scariest one, it's
Colin (37:13):
Terrifying. Yeah. I mean because of the approach and how cold it is. I mean it says the chance for just these lingering snowstorms that never end because you're so close to the ocean.
Justin (37:25):
Yeah, it seems to be the one that most big time Mountain Mountain climbers fear the most from what I can tell.
Colin (37:31):
Alright man. We can wrap it up there. What else going on? Anything going on? Whatcha are you doing this weekend? Do we announce the retirement of what is Justin doing this weekend?
Justin (37:43):
That segment has provided nothing but grief for me for the year of this podcast because it never, I know we're going to do it every week and I never think of anything funny to say until
Colin (37:54):
I start going into my launch into it
Justin (37:55):
Like, oh shit, I forget we're going to do it. I never think of anything funny. It makes me sound boring as hell. I've never, not once have I been like, oh, I'm going to go climb Shasta
Colin (38:05):
Buddy. You want to, can I give you a little hug? There's
Justin (38:08):
A lot of pressure on me. Okay. It's not easy being a dad of two little kids. Fuck, I should be over landing this weekend.
Colin (38:16):
Alright, well the rock bites of production of Rock Bite LLC. Our producer today is David Kasad and for Justin Hausman, I'm Colin True. Thanks for listening. And here to take us out. It's Krista Makes and he's here to sing the rock Fight Fight song. We'll see you next time. Rock fighters. Rock
Chris DeMakes (38:31):
Fight. Go into the rock bike where we speak our truth, stay sacred cows and sometimes agree to disagree. We talk about human power, outdoor activities and big bikes are about topics that we find interesting. Black, my culture, music, the latest movie reviews, ideas in for the head. This is where we speak truth. This is where we speak our truth. Welcome through the.