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 the following:
Colin & Justin's goals for the summer. (06:11)
Red Bull Rampage will allow women to compete for the first time. (18:35)
Ever want to talk to a headlamp? Now you can! (28:01)
Fitbit makes a smartwatch for kids. We don't like this. (33:22)
The Cicadas are taking over Illinois. (42:23)
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Episode Transcript
Colin & Justin (00:08):
Welcome to the Rock Play where we speak out truth, slay sacred cows and sometimes agree to disagree. This is an outdoor podcast that aims for the head. I'm Colin. True and joining me today. He's the yin to my yang, the Beavis to my butthead. It's Justin Haman. There is shit. I am Beavis. I thought I was actually, you have a lower voice than me. I a lower voice than I'm probably more bevis. Yeah, but Butthead kind of ran the program, didn't he? Beavis just, he definitely felt like more the just kind of poked his head in with something stupid to say and I hate to say it, but that is kind of me. Really loved that show, Colin. Yeah, so the listener who wrote in, left us a review, which we appreciate and it sounds like we frustrate this person called us Beavis and Butthead, but also that said that he likes listening to the show and keeps listening to the show.
(00:54):
I think you may have crossed the line a little bit though. You're questioning our bonafides about the expertise we bring to what we do here on the rock fight and gear and beer. I know that rubbed Justin as particularly the, I'm very offended. I'm super offended. The thing is, I've spent most, I've spent a lot of time, a lot of my life has been built around practicing my craft and getting better and getting to the point where I feel really confident and comfortable in what I do. It's a big deal to me. It's really important to me and it's one of the things that people will often note about me when they meet me for the first time and we're out kind of hanging out and shooting the shit, maybe shooting some basketballs in the street or tossing the ball back and forth and they'll say, are you talking about writing? No, no, no, no. Talking his little quip at the beginning. This little metaphor about having weak sidearms Colin. That's what I'm talking about.
(01:53):
I don't give a shit if he questions our bonafides in the outdoor space. I mean, hey, whatever. But weak sidearm. I know it was a metaphor, but look man, we call it out for me. We're talking about hockey too. Justin can really throw, I saw we were camping. He was like, he picking targets on a cliff and winging it, rocks at it and nailing it every dive. You really actually can't throw. This is the pride of my life. I mean this is what I do. This is my real craft of throwing things at other things. But also, I mean the sidearm thing, what does he even mean? Weak side? Is he saying side side arming is weak. I'm assuming it's a he. And he called out your opinion on stirrups too. I believe. What is wrong with that? I mean, talk about subjective. I mean you can't be wrong.
(02:36):
Anyway, thanks for listening dude. Alright, well today we are of course going to run through some of the more notable or exciting headlines that come out of the outdoor industry and community, but before we get to that, we've got a few housekeeping items for you. So we want to make sure that like those listener we just talked about you as well follow and rate the rock fight wherever you're listening, whether that's on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or any other podcast app. And if you are an Apple Podcast listener, please leave us a written review now 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 a gear and beer sticker. We did get an email from Tacoma Phil. He popped his head out of his Tacoma Hole super fan Tacoma Phil, and he thinks he deserves a sticker without leaving a written review on Apple Podcasts.
(03:20):
Phil, as somebody who also has a self inflated sense of importance, I know where you're coming from with this. I do. You've been with us since day one. He's been with us a long time. We appreciate you. We love your emails. I don't know why you think you're better than our system though, Phil. Just leave a review. We don't make the rules. These are the rules. Apple makes us do that, by the way. That's right. This is an Apple sponsored program. If we don't get enough reviews and send stickers out, we actually, they're going to murder our families. We'll send Phil a sticker. It's fine. Don't you think? Well, yeah, maybe, but we're going to write of course. Now that set a precedent, then everybody will start email. No, see that's what I mean. No, there's nobody. You got to stop at the stop sign.
(04:02):
You got to stop at the red light. You got to do everything everybody else does. We live in a society. Phil and societies have rules. We also want to talk about gear and beer, which now has its own podcast feed. Go and check out wherever you're listening to this podcast. You can find gear and beer. We're still going to tease gear and beer here on the Rock fight for a little while, but eventually it's all going to be over on the solo gear and beer feeds the second podcast. Now what we're calling The Rock, the Rock Fight Podcast Network Word network just takes two. It's all takes. So go rate and follow gear and beer. And Justin, just wondering, how can our listeners, how can they reach out? How can they follow along with what we're doing? What can they do? Well, before we get to that, you get a sticker.
(04:43):
If you rate us on a gear and beer sticker, if you rate us on, if you leave a review on gear and beer, if you didn't say that, but we'll allow, that's true. So anybody who's already sent a written review for the rock fight beer, do it on gear and beer and you've got another sticker, we have different stickers. We have gear and beer stickers and we have rock fight stickers. Is that correct? That is correct. That is correct. And if you just please do that, it really, really, really does matter. Both of us stay awake all night. Let's just cooking refresh, staring at the Yes, exactly. Clicking refresh. Constantly just staring for new reviews. And then since we're both doing it all the time, we will tech each other the exact same time. Did you see the new one? Our lives are that sad.
(05:20):
Anyway, they're pretty simple. Yeah, reach out to us. My rock fight@gmail.com is our email address. We love getting those all the time. You can hit us up on instagram@rockfight.co. Tag us on stuff that you think is funny. Tag us on stuff you want us to review, tag us on stuff that you think we would want to talk about in the headlines, all that kind of good stuff. And then you should absolutely subscribe to our newsletter. It's at rock fight.co and you just join the mailing list. There's a nice button there you can click to do that. It comes out every Sunday. It's full of all kinds of fun things and Sunday's a great day to kick back. Maybe at the Trailhead, you just back to your car after doing a nice hike, a nice paddle, a nice whatever you're doing and you're just chilling out.
(06:03):
That's a great time to read our weekly newsletter. So subscribe to that too. Check the latest action figure that we actually Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. Alright, well hey, you know what, Justin? What's that? Colin? I asked you a question right as you took a sip of coffee. Yeah, what's that called? Hey, Justin. You know what? Call what? It's June. It is June. Yeah. I could tell because my ass is sticking to my chair from sweat. Is it humid up in the bay right now? No, it doesn't get humid here, but it gets hot. It gets hot. A little hot. A little sticky out. It's a little, little warm. Exactly. Yeah. Well, so it's here. Summer is here, despite the time sucking vampires that we both live with our children. Yes. Limiting how much stuff we get to do. Definitely our children. We're going to make some commitments.
(06:42):
Commitments today about when September hits. We're going to take a look back at these plans and see how we did. We're calling this more with Themore, the segment sponsored by Themore, the original ingredient brand og? Yes. Who's now a partner here on the show? How do you say that in Italian? I wonder. Original gangster and Italian. I can say it. We probably have a pretty offensive Italian accent. I'm go, no, I'm just going to go ahead and do that real quick. You continue with the re. I'm going to go Google. It's an Italian brand. They make incredible installation products and they're partnering with us here in this segment. We're calling more with third more. And for this edition, we're each going to list three things that we're going to plan to do over the summer gangster or that's not very cool. I figured we could have figured that one out on our own probably.
(07:24):
Yeah. So we're each going to list three things that we're going to do this summer to get back outside and do more than we normally do because our kids are always sucking up all of our time. So you want to alternate or do you want to give me your list? No. Okay, I'll go first. You always go first. I'll go first. Okay. Okay. I'll just give you my full list. Okay. One, I'm going to look at these again. I'm going to say right now my success rate, I'm going to predict it. I think I might do 33% of these things and I don't know which, but the odds of me doing all three of these are almost nil. But we'll see. There is a lot of good intentions in my list. Oh man, I intend on doing all these things every, I could theoretically do all these in one day.
(08:05):
Well, that's not true. That's actually, it's actually geographically impossible, but yeah. Alright, so the first one is go backpack with godda. Just going backpacking with my kids. I still haven't done it. Have you backpacked with your kids yet? I still have not ever done that, no. My daughter's five, my littler one is like two and three quarters at this point. Maybe I just take one of them. The five-year old both say I was say for the sake of the game, do we need both kids for this to be successful when we reflect? No, I think just one. I think even just one. I mean we go camping, but I still haven't gone backpacking yet and I really thought that was going to be a huge, I guess maybe we should take the littler one. She's smaller. I can carry her stuff easier, but I'd say take the five yearold because used do a one nighter and she'll remember it and appreciate it more.
(08:46):
She would absolutely love it, but I don't know why I haven't. It's just hard. It's a lot of work, but I've seen people do it. I've seen people with freaking babies in 10 miles deep in the back country before. So that's my first one and I think that's the one that's probably the most doable. My second one is just catch a goddamn fish in the West Walker River. The West Walker is where I fish every summer. It's a beautiful, beautiful river coming out of the, well, it's on the eastern side of the Sierra, it's up by Sonora Pass. Stunning, stunning, stunning place. You'd absolutely think you were in Montana if you went there and they have some big trophy trout in there and I've hooked a couple but not landed them. And every year I go and I'm just like, this is the year I catch some massive native brown trout.
(09:33):
And I still haven't done it, but I'll start going up there in a few weeks. That's my number two. And my number three is it's time for surf trip. Colin, don't you think it's time for me to go on a surf trip? It's always time for you go on a surf trip, but before you talk about your surf trip, what is it about the West Walker River? What? You just never caught a fish there? No, it's, it's my favorite river. It's just a spectacular place to fish. Oh, so you just want to make sure you have that experience. Yeah, I fish there every year, but I'll catch fish around it. I'll catch fish and all the creeks around the lakes are around it, whatever. But the West Walker, if you don't fly fish, this is like a blue ribbon like fishery. It's all native fish.
(10:06):
It's very clear water. Once it's settles down, the water's super clear. It's big natives hiding under cut banks, which is a very specific kind of fishing and I'm not quite talented yet enough to hand. I think with a guide I'd be fine, but you have to sneak up on them, you really have to dial in what your presentation is like and it's a beautiful place to fish. It's really, really fun. And like I said, I've hooked up with a couple but I haven't landed 'em and that's a huge goal of mine. It's a beautiful, beautiful place. Nice. Anybody in California that likes fishing, likes live fishing will know it, but it's a beautiful, beautiful spot, so go check it out. Alright, tell me about your surf trip. What do you want to do? Last couple years I've planned on doing a surf trip to the East Cape of Baja and for one reason or another it hasn't panned out.
(10:51):
And with those Australian dudes getting murdered this last year in Baja, I just don't know if it's really worth doing, but I just got this amazing book. It's by, it's a collection of essays from Scott Hewlett who edited Surfers Journal for a really long time and he's still there as a creative sort of advisor, but he's traveled extensively in Baja and the book is just a collection of his essays from the surfer journal about being in Baja. And man, you read that book and you're like, I got to go right now. I have to get down there if you haven't spent much time in Baja. It's just such a fascinating, unique place and he captures it really, really well. He's a brilliant writer and a lot of his time is spent on the East Cape, which is hard to get waves. Very fickle place, very unique in terms of the rest of Baja, but when you score, you really score.
(11:37):
I need to get down there, man. You just said a couple weeks ago that you're not going to go there anymore. I know, but I want it so bad, so bad, so bad. It'd be fine. Most likely it would be fine. Of course it would most likely be fine, but alright, so if you also want to a sticker also send your applications for podcast host for the rock fight. We might be looking for somebody in a few months, you might. What's the timeframe of something like that? I mean in terms of how long would you need to go? Well it depends, but I mean can you do it in a week? Oh yeah, easy. The East Cape is sort of a strike mission place. You need a very particular kind of storm in the Gulf of California, so it's like that narrow, narrow gulf. So you have to have a storm track that's focused right at it and so you kind of just need to see that that's setting up and then you book it down there.
(12:20):
But yeah, just to you're going to fly down, you have to fly down. You fly down to Cabo and drive up. Yeah. Alright. So maybe the upside is two out of three is likely two out of three use it. 33 could easily happen, but the fish part is hard. I mean I could try, I'll fish there a bunch, but I don't know. I like that you have a stretch goal. Yours mine. I should have no problem doing anything on my list, but I'm sure something will happen that I don't. Mine's pretty easy. I really wanted to, especially now that school's out and I, it's just so funny. Those two breaks in the day of going to drop the kids off and pick them up and how that can just derail the fun parts of a day. Right? Next week school's out, I'm going to be home.
(13:00):
I want to start getting in some dawn patrols. So surfing twice a week. I could make it a much bigger goal. I really have the ability to go much more often, but I'm like, look, get in the water twice a week. That's a good amount. That's a really good amount. That's the minimum. Honestly, if you're either in yours case, which you've been kind of a beginner surfer for a really long time, or even if you're like me and you've surfed for 30 years, twice a week is kind of the minimum. It's the minimum to maintain your ability and then it's the minimum to not go backward if you're still getting the board under your feet. I surf about twice a month, so that's not great, but I have put enough time into where it is kind of like riding a bicycle for me, but it's still a week is ideal.
(13:44):
I think if between now and the end of August I can average that, it kind gets me back a little bit to where I was. But even then, I guess the side note to that is to just not care as much. Like yesterday I got in the water and I was with my nephews visiting from Pennsylvania and the waves were breaking bigger than I'm comfortable with. Thought you were so rad. They're from Pennsylvania, you actually a great picture of us. It was great, but I'm like, I'm just going to play in the whitewash with him. And then I did catch one wave, which I wasn't expecting to do and because I wasn't out there like, oh, why can't I do this anymore and I suck and blah, blah blah. I was like, oh hey. Oh okay, I got this one and boom, call it a wave and I'm like, this was great.
(14:19):
Thank you. So that's twice a week. Get in the water, very get on the board. The second thing I want to do is mountain bike, noble Canyon, which is, it's an inva epic. Well the Inva epic is cool. It's a larger loop from CCA to Laguna. Where is this? Where is this? Can you describe where this is? This is Cleveland National Forest. This is east, so in Ohio, right? Right. Smack in the middle of Ohio, right on the hoa, whatever it's called River. It's known as a downhill, the Noble Canyon Trail and then you can make a loop out of it climbing up the road. A lot of people shuttle. So my goal was like, no, I'm not going to shuttle. It's a 20 mile loop. Apparently it's an epic trail. I don't know if Noble Canyon Loop, the Noble Canyon Trail is an inba epic or if it's the link up between Laguna and Koya Maco, that's the epic.
(15:01):
But whatever. I've wanted to do this trail since I moved here. I haven't done it yet, so I want to do that this summer, which is then get me on my bike more. And then my last one is just sleeping outside a minimum of three nights more. I've already done two nights when you and I were out, so getting five nights for the summer would be good for me. It's not that I want to sleep outside. Doesn't sound like a big goal. I tend to avoid going camping. Yeah, you hate camping. I'm not a big fan, but if I know that if I hate three nights, that's at least three one night camping trips with my kids or we'll have a really good time and we'll all go camping or one two night and one solo, whatever it is. But I want to get out three nights sleeping outside between now and August.
(15:37):
You ever think about how you kind of always are sleeping outside? I mean, yeah, you have a roof over your head, but it's just like a thicker tent. It's true. Yeah. With air conditioning. Yeah. I mean it seems like you're in this, I don't know, something that really isolates you and separates you from the outside world, but are you Alright, so today's episode of the Rock Fight is presented by the original ingredient brand thermo. Who wants you to get more out of your outdoor adventures with products like Eco Down, which is a sustainable synthetic alternative to down and available in products like the Steel Sky crest jacket, which looks dope by the way. It's a six jacket. Yeah, perfect. For cool summer evenings in the mountains. And you know why? Because of Thermo Eco down? Because of Thermo Eco down. I was going to, yeah, I thought I knew that, but I was embarrassed.
(16:26):
I wasn't sure if I get the right answer. So do more in the outdoors this summer like Justin and I are going to do with Themore. Do you think that one person came up with the term shack it once? That's a great question. What is the ophthalmology of the word shack? Because every brand uses it. Did they also workshop jt? Yeah. That one doesn't work. It doesn't because it's not as obvious. Shat is very clear, but JT could be. JT should be a word. Well, it's like jts, right? I think the jorts is very obvious, right? Shat is one. The first time I heard it, I knew exactly what it was. Exactly what it was. Yeah, but a J that'd be like a jerk. A jerk almost sounds like, I don't know why, but it sounds like a cod piece type thing. It sounds like something you would wear in your nether regions area. Don't forget your jerk. Get your jerk. Ooh, I don't want to wear that. Somebody else's jerk. Is that like the combo cup and jock kind of something like that could Yeah. Jerk. Yeah. Yeah, the jerk. Make sure you're protecting the things with your jt. Yeah, Shaq is a better word. Alright, let's take a quick break and then we're going to get into headlines.
(17:28):
This episode is brought to you by Switchback Spring, the new outdoor industry gathering for education, networking, and business. Coming to Nashville June, 2025. That's Nashville, Nevada, Nashville, Oregon. It's Tennessee. Obviously I've never heard of it. Connect with peers and players in gear, footwear, apparel, hiking, camping, trail running, and more for three days of learning discovery and celebration. You got a joke there? No, switchback. Spring is the new go-to meetup for specialty retailers, brands, media and outdoor organizations. Real quick. Switchback Spring does sound like a really potentially good outdoor scent. Like a deodorant flavor. Like a deodorant. Actually going to, as soon as we're done here, I'm going to buy that URL. Oh, they probably already own it. Dang it. Yeah. For a backing specific deodorant, I think there's something there. You could launch it at switchback. I think I will mark your calendars for June 16, 18, 20 25.
(18:18):
Visit switchback event.com for all of the details and start planning your new outdoor industry adventure. And don't forget to wear your switchback spring deodorant, which will be available at all of the finest Crunchiest granola yeast natural food stores coming 2025 if I can get my act together. Alright, our first story today, per gear junkie. Earlier this week, red Bull put out a short statement teasing that women may finally be able to compete at Rampage. The famous, difficult and dangerous free ride mountain bike event held in October in Virgin, Utah. The statement simply read, the women are in Red Bull rampage. Last year, red Bull received plenty of criticism from our community when despite mounting pressure to do so, rampage still did not feature any female riders at the time. Red Bull put out a statement that said, I'm quoting this here. Red Bull Rampage is the most difficult free ride mountain bike competition in the world.
(19:10):
For this reason, a selection panel invites the best 18 riders to globally compete. We are exploring with industry experts on how we might develop a women's category at Red Bull Rampage. That is a well thought out little pressor blurb there. We know we did it wrong. Yeah, A selection panel invites the best 18 rider globally. So they're kind trying to say, look, it doesn't really matter if they're men or women. Yeah, there's no gender bias here. If you're one of the best 18, you're going to be included. But I mean still a little tone deaf, right? So this is definitely overdue. You'd love to see it. I dunno, what were your thoughts when you saw this? That surfing? Probably set the tone here. I mean, in all honesty, the big wave, the big wave, big wave surfers, the women participants, the big wave surfing really wrestled controller of that from the powers that be in the big wave surf competition world.
(20:03):
And it's been pretty cool. I think this is pretty unique. I mean the WSL though governing body of surfing pays the women now the same as the men in terms of prize money, which is a big deal. And that's kind of separate from the big wave surfing category, but the big wave surfers, the women big wave surfers of the world really aggressively kind of put everybody on blast. It's insane that we're not being invited. We're surfing mavericks, we're doing this. I mean, I dunno, maybe rampage is a little different. You just sort of show up and build your line and write it. I presume women probably were already doing that, I would think. But in the big wave world is like you can't really deny that we're out there. We're doing it. And so there's been some that actually don't even separate gender with big wave competitions, but for the most part they do.
(20:53):
But I have to think that that has something to do with this. That Red Bull saw. I mean, red Bull has big wave surfing athletes. They probably saw that and said, I don't understand why you would keep women from doing it. I don't. I don't either mean, and they obviously got a lot of flack last fall when they didn't allow it last year. I don't really even understand the statement like, oh wait, the best 18 writers, like you said, they're sort of saying like, oh, if you're the best 18, you're going to get invited regardless of gender. It's like this is your event. You can create the rules. You could be like, Hey, we're changing it now. It's nine and nine. The best nine men and the best nine women. Yeah, exactly. That's what we're doing now. Make the change. It's weird that you wouldn't, I mean it's so tough. To me. It's the idea that it is just peer on peer best in the world. That's fine. But so have the best nine men and the best nine women. Why wouldn't every other sport does that? It doesn't make any sense to me.
(21:49):
It is also just such a slap in the face to half of your fan base. It makes Absolutely, totally. Obviously your kids are all girls. Mine are too. And it is amazing watching things with my daughter, the five-year-old. Because if I'm half surfing on, she'll immediately say, dad, I want to watch the one with the girls every single time. Of course. And with baseball dad, I'll be watching a Dodger game. Dad, can we watch a baseball game with girls and I'll have to explain Will we can watch softball? Which for absolutely no fucking reason is what women play versus men for the most part. Although a woman did just start or play in a college game for the first time a few days ago. She was a pitcher, or I'm sorry, a semi-pro game maybe, which struck out the side. It was pretty cool. That's awesome.
(22:31):
Yeah, so I don't know. I don't understand why it ever seemed like a good idea other than it being like an old boys club. Just a bunch of dudes that put it together and they just picked their bros. I don't know. It's another good example of just how far we still have to go. I mean this is people back in the day or probably even still today being like, well we can't create a black Santa Claus because Santa Claus is white. This is how it's being done. This is what people expect. So little black kids where they see the black saying, oh my God, that looks like me. How stoked would they be? Right? And it's like dumbest thing. People getting so principled over stuff that we've made up also. It's insane. This is all stuff that we made up. Writing the lines on the Red Pole rampage is already a totally insane thing to do.
(23:12):
It's insane. It's not like there's logic. Yeah, if you're willing to do it, you should just be allowed to do it. Speaking of which, what would it take Colin to get you on a bike to ride one of those lines? Even if you can, I mean I guess you make up your own line, but I'm sure picking the easiest possible line is still I would die. It would literally be the threat of if you don't do it, we are going to kill you. So your best chances to try to ride this, you might die anyway. Lemme take that. There's no positive motivation. Like $10 million, $20 million. Well, there's a number for everything at some point. I know for a fact I couldn't do it. That's a good point. I'm like a pretty good chance. Is it worth, I think about the end scene in office space all the time where the guy got hit by a truck or whatever and he is all stoked because he doesn't ever have to work again.
(23:56):
I mean, I wouldn't trade walking, I don't think for anything. But breaking all my bones and knowing that I eventually will heal again. It's like, yeah, that's probably worth 20 million bucks probably. Lemme ask you this. So you're on record as a pretty much lifelong surfer as not interested in big wave surfing and how terrifying that is. Would you rather go surf like Jaws or Nazare or ride a line at Red Bull Rampage? What would be scary question? Holy shit, I can't even answer this question. What a great, well, so this is interesting. I think about this quite a bit where surfing is so goddamned hard. I often think, okay, I've surfed for about 30 years at this point. I've been riding a mountain bike very seriously for roughly a decade. I'm probably a better mountain biker than I'm a surfer. Yeah, maybe that makes sense.
(24:44):
Or maybe I might on the same, might be about the same surfing. I think I would surf. I think I would surf really because I think, well, you're probably less likely to die on surfing. I'm far less likely to die. I think it would be scarier in some ways. But yeah, no, I have a better chance of, I mean I physically can, my body knows what to do, I think depends on how big the wave is. But I could surf mavericks. I have the ability to surf mavericks at not horrifying size, but I wouldn't even do the babiest littlest part of any of the rampage lines. So I guess surfing, I guess it depends on how much time you have because if it could literally be hire me a coach and someone could actually teach me the stuff that the mountain bikers do at ramp, just start learning actually to jump.
(25:31):
I don't jump anything. I'm like keep the rubber, keep your wheels on the ground. So if you could get coached up, you spend a year working with somebody to, my palms are sweaty by the way. I took that question very seriously. Hypotheticals I get very serious about. But my God, if you went with our skills sitting here today, it's a different answer than if you could coach me up. But that's a different question. Just like today, right now, no, I guess I would be very terrified of both. It would do everything I possibly could to get out of doing either one, but I would end up choosing to start. I mean it's like they're going beyond vertical when they're going down somehow. I don't know what's happening. I don't understand the physics. I dunno how they stop. I wouldn't know what to do. Gravity. I don't think they're choosing their brakes.
(26:08):
Gravity, they're doing other things. I feel like there's things on a bike that maybe these people know how to do that I don't, that can't even occur to me, oh, you have to shift your weight here and do this or else you will pitch forward and fall like 500 feet to your death. With my limited experience, zero experience with anything that anybody at Rampage does and my incredibly limited experience still in the water, I still might choose the surfing and throw caution that way because I have a tough time If it's a narrow manmade optical, like a little ramp or something like that, I don't like that. And now you're on something that wide, but it's dirt and there's drop-offs on either side of you. I just don't think I could do it. I think I would panic immediately at Ramage. Yeah, panic would be the main issue for either of them.
(26:48):
And I think I would probably vertigo myself into a terrible situation on the bike, but I could probably, it's also if you're surfing like Jaws or something, it's beautiful. So there's a slight chance that you might be like, yeah, the water's 75 degrees, I have an inflation vest. Plus the question is, where do you want to die? What do you want to be looking at when you die? That's true. I think I'd rather die falling than I would drowning. So that's a good point. If you're really looking at it from the pessimist point of view, I'd rather just fall and break my neck instantly than go over the falls and be panicking to surface I'm not drown or be paralyzed because maybe you don't die in the rampage. Well, you know what, we're never going to know. We're never going to know, never going to know.
(27:34):
Alright, well I got off on a tangent, but congratulations to the women. I definitely, criticism is earned I think on Red Bull for how they've handled this historically at the same time, excited to see it when it does take off this fall. There also hasn't been a lot of information about it. By the way. I went to Pink Bike to read about it. It's like, hey, they're going to be in it. It's like, oh, at what level? One of them two people. I still don't know what's going on. We created this little kitty course over here. You can ride that. It's a completely like FL October I believe. Yeah, we should go. Alright next. Well actually we have a couple of tech related stories this week. The first one you sent this one over to me, gear Junkie earlier this week, published a review of the coast, RL 35 R.
(28:10):
Another one of your favorite naming conventions. There just it's terrible random string of letters and numbers, internet password got into the naming of some of these products. You couldn't have put the coast headlamp like talkie or something. It's or something. Anyway, so it's a headlamp that responds to voice commands and apparently you say the name of the brand coast and then you fill in the command, so on off red blue or whatever. And then the thing does what you tell it to do. According to Sean McCoy who wrote the review for Gear Junkie. It works really well. It is a solidly built headlamp and a good price at 60 bucks. I generally hate voice command stuff You do. I understand. I'm a big fan of Siri and stuff in the house, but you hate it. You always make fun of me when you hear me doing it.
(28:52):
I guess I don't mind it, especially in the car when you have CarPlay on and it's like you want to respond to text messages and stuff like that. It's getting better. Or if you're out on a hike and you just have my AirPods on, it's definitely better than it used to be. But if you and I were camping, we were a camping ship a couple weeks ago and you woke me up in the middle of the night, you're like coast on because you're trying to find your headlamp. I'd be so pissed off at you. I was thinking about being at a campground and you just hear a chorus in the background all the time. Coast on, off coast, blue, red, blue pulse, coast off, just silent, just constantly the entire time, assuming everybody in the campground owns one. Of course, the best part was Sean McCoy, who wrote the articles about his buddies basically fucking with him like coast off.
(29:29):
Of course. Yeah. I'm taking a leak. You have good friends. Sean is, that's exactly what they should be doing. Yeah, of course. Anytime my wife picks up the phone, I'm just saying very obscene things to Siri to see if it'll get her browsing history all screwed up. This just seems like every product should have a problem to solve. I feel like from an out outdoor perspective, and this doesn't seem like this is a problem that needs to solve solved. Have you ever once been like, oh shit, I can't touch my headlamp? No, that's never happened. That's what I mean. There's a disabled element to this that I get that makes sense. But even then they said there's still a button on it that actually started. So you still have to press a button to turn it on. Wait, wait, what? Are you fucking serious? You sent the article?
(30:09):
Yeah, there's still a button to turn it on, but then you can use voice. So it actually adds complication because my headlamp, you push the button, it goes on, you push the button, it goes off. It's already on or off. I just don't think we need everything to be easy. This is just a thing where, oh yeah, sometimes you cycle through too many times and now you got your headlines flashing. But you know what you do then you push the button again. Well, I guess there are times where I try voice commands, even though I know that it doesn't actually work for some reason. I feel like headlamps, they're very intuitive until you start to get to the other things that they can do and you're like, oh, I'll just turn it on. I'll turn it off. I think if I hold it down, maybe it'll get brighter, but then sometimes it turns red.
(30:45):
You're like, oh, okay. Then you push it again. Now it's red flashing. And then at that point the voice commands start, the hopeful voice commands like turn the fuck off. And obviously that doesn't work. You're just yelling at your, maybe that was the impetus behind it, but let's play, let's run through some use case scenarios. Okay? Okay. Say you are coming back to camp, right? And it's gotten dark and your arms are full because you are carrying a lost hiker that you found on the trail. You're carrying them back to camp and you can't set them down and turn your headlamp on and now you're losing your trail. So you got to turn your headlamp on. I mean, that happens to us all the time.
(31:25):
Nightly. Or remember go's travels where they get tied. He gets tied down by the little people and you have your headlamp on. You can't reach it. And you know that maybe turning on the headlamp will blind them or somehow incapacitate them, but you can't. Your hands are tied down. Boom. That makes a lot of sense. See it. Those are the only two I can think of because the headlamp is too big for the little institutions to take the headlamp off. Yeah, totally. Yeah. Is there a real application here? Is there a real use case that we can think of or Actually that'd be pretty awesome to have. I'm being genuinely sincere.
(32:01):
It makes sense to me that I can walk into my house and say, Siri, play Calexico or whatever. That makes sense. Not having to go to a stereo and turn it on and push five buttons. Or I can be in the other room and decide I don't want to hear it anymore and yell at it. Love it. I've thought about that since I was little kid. I've never once been like, it's too hard for me to what? Oh, what if you had T-Rex arms? That would suck. Okay. That's what I disabil people. Disabil makes sense. Yeah, but I mean, is that big? Maybe that's a much bigger market than I thought. I don't know. I just want to hear the pitch meeting of they're inside like, Hey, we want to do some voice command technology with our outdoor gear. What do we think we want to work on?
(32:38):
And they're like headlamps. I can think of way better uses for that though. Like sleeping bag where you just, you get inside, you're like zip and it just zips you up. Yeah, it'd be like Martin Mcflys shoes and back to the future too. Totally. Yeah. That would be cool. Or same thing with a tent. Tent doors open. Let's get on tent set up. Can we get on that please? Yeah. What other, okay, there's really a question. What are some things that we should have voice command for? Yeah, that would be great. Fire start. That's why I like building fires. Beer open. Yeah. Yeah. I kind of like opening beers, fish bite, all these things. That's right. Colin, to the summit.
(33:15):
I love the idea of tent doors opening and closing. That'd be great. I like that. I like your sleeping bag one too. Yeah, I mean, I guess you could just become a Jedi and do all that sort of shit. So our next bit of tech news, Justin's favorite publication this week, athlet Tech News. Ale Tech reported that wearable tech maker Fitbit is releasing a new wearable for kids. A two $30. The $230 Fitbit. Ace, LTE is a connected smartwatch for kids seven and up. That promotes physical activity while also keeping them connected to their families. The device will motivate kids by providing games that are unlocked by physical activity. The more a kid does, the more games they receive. So I'm mostly a tech defender. I don't like being the doomsday person who's like, ah, tech and social media. I'll be that person. Yeah, this thing is just a disgrace to me.
(34:05):
This totally. The children are rats who are pumping the morphine drip. Give me more. Give me more. Oh, you want more games? You got to go run around a little bit. Go give me more. I'm really angry about this one. So the other day I was walking around and I live like a block away from a Montessori preschool and a woman came out and I was just kind of curious in a position where I might want to switch to preschools for one of my kids. And I was just like, Hey, how much you guys pay? And she told me the absurd amount. This is the Bay area and it's hilariously high. I'd never have paid rent that much in my life, I don't think.
(34:43):
And she was saying that she likes it because the other two preschools in town that she had her kids go to were too play oriented. The kids did too much playing outside, too much unstructured time to playschool. These are daycares and preschools basically. Yes. And the phase of a child's life when all they typically are doing is playing. They're learning through that play so much from it. And I remember, I've read this before, this is a thing with some parents where they want their kids to already have some school elastic training when they're one and two years old. And I remember just thinking, well, I'm definitely never coming here.
(35:19):
I'd literally rather my kids just run around the street all day. That's what they should be doing. Yes, I'm horrified by this, Colin. I'm horrified by this. And it's not even so much the, I'm horrified by this in lots of ways. I mean, I'm really moving down the, I don't want to ever be tracked where I go anywhere place. I don't use Strava anymore. And that's not why I don't track any of my outdoor stuff as mostly because a Luddite, but also I can't be bothered to, that's just a complication. That's another thing. Yeah, I get that. And it doesn't really add anything to my day or my experience being outside and doing things. And frankly, we literally did all these things for modern humans have existed for about 150, 200,000 years without ever fucking knowing any of this shit. And we were just fine.
(36:06):
So I'm not a fan of it. This is insane to me for two reasons. One, I don't want my kids feeling like playtime is a thing that needs to be measured or calculated or that you've done or that you've done it not, or that you've done it too little. I mean, I think one of the major problems that we have in this country is trying to quantify every fucking thing as if there's a better way to do it or something like that. My kids are three and five. They don't need to know what time it is. They don't need to know what day it is. They don't need to know jack's shit. I don't want them thinking that they have or haven't ran enough in a day or whatever. That just seems like it's setting you up to be a monumentally confused adult. Also, also, I hate the idea that kids need to be connected to me all the time.
(36:49):
I don't want to know where they are. We live where we live on purpose because there's neighbors all over the place on this little street and the front door is open. I don't know where my fucking kids are. They're the backyard front yard. They might be the neighbor's house. I don't know. That's good. I like that. I hate all of this. When I say I, I'm usually a tech defender. I think it's like, well, you have those right now. You have the apple, what was that Apple Vision Pro? No, that guy Lando. Ian's buddy on the cloud, city of Best Spend, I forget his name, shaved my head. Yes. And he had the permanent headphones stitched in. Yeah. Yeah. It's getting ahead of what Elon's got planned for us. But when I say that, it's mostly because I think it's really easy for history. You go back and look at anything new comes out and then there's the people like, oh my God, this is going to ruin everything.
(37:38):
And then everything kind of works out to be fine. And there's definitely huge advancements that need to be figured out and managed. And we have a lot coming up that needs to be figured out and regulated. And I'm not unaware of that, but also ignore some of the benefits that come with the, I feel like we're overall in a better place with a lot of the technology we have these days. And what I see this though, it's like part of that is teaching kids responsibly about how to use this, of how to integrate it, not going away. Oh yeah. Okay. No, that's true. Okay. That's actually a good argument and one that my wife makes all the time when she hears me just ranting about this sort of thing. And the answer for both things is you are right and she's right as well. Right?
(38:16):
Your concerns aren't invalid. They are. They're completely, and I think this one leans completely into what you are saying because it's like, listen, the social thing with technology and phones with kids is real. I've gone through it with my kids. They have to learn how to use it. That's on me to teach them. And I also don't want them to be left out, so guess what? They're going to get a phone. But also now I have to manage that just like my parents had to manage how much I played video games, just like their parents probably had to manage how much they listened to the radio. It's all kind of the same thing sort of. I'm not saying that the downsides of all those things are equal, but when it comes to something like this, it's like what are we doing? This isn't teaching them anything other than, oh, I get to play more games when I go do pushups.
(39:07):
Right. It's teaching you, it's like, it feels like it's getting the grind set mentality for my kids. I don't want that. I don't see the upside of that. And then on the other side, Fitbit, you're a second rate technology company relatively speaking. I mean, I don't really understand. You're not going to be the draw. Kids aren't going to be going, oh my God, I got to get the Fitbit with the games on it. No, but I could see parents doing that. I mean, I could easily see that, but that's a problem in itself because the parents who do that are the ones who were adverse to getting the kid like the iPhone or the Apple watch. This would be the solve for that. Is this a genius bit of cementing brand awareness or whatever to the really young kids that they're always going to, well think sounds desperate.
(39:48):
Everyone's forgetting about us or older something, but they're always going to want to have something that's tracking what they're doing. It's just an absolute LI feel like on every level from a brand strategy for the product. Well, I bet it sells really well. I mean, I think it will. I think the mom that you dealt with at that school, she's the type that would buy it and then they'll still end up getting the kid an Apple watch. A year later. We found these free pretend smart watches in a free pile a few weeks back. They look like Apple watches and they have a touchscreen. They have a little tiny, horrible camera on them. All those sort of stuff. We're like, oh, the girls will love this. This will be so cute. Plugged them in, turned them on, gave it to 'em within 30 seconds, we looked at each other.
(40:30):
What the fuck are we doing? Just staring at it like beep, beep, beep. And I'm like, I didn't even think, honestly, I thought they'd maybe leave my phone alone for five minutes. It hadn't even occurred to me. No, there's something said for how do we balance our own insecurities with it? I have to. Oftentimes, if I see my kids sitting there just looking at their phone, I'd be like, hold on, what else have they done this weekend today? Right. It's like everybody had lessons, everyone and rode horses. They all went out and they went on bike rides with their friends. They went to school and they had an hour of PE every day. You know what? It's okay. That would've been me just sitting in my room reading comic books and listening to music. And again, not a one-for-one comparison, but there are the people that shouldn't be on technology.
(41:07):
You were in Pennsylvania, going outside was very dangerous. It was humid. Humid and just gloomy and just not that cool. You may as well be inside. There's so much cooler where you grew up. I feel like there's times where I'm open-minded about this kind of thing. Me too. I've experimented. I mean, I do own an Apple Watch Ultra, which I don't use anymore, even though it's a very good piece of equipment and there's lots of cool things about it, but I'm going to take a firm stand on this and with you, we don't need this. We don't need to do this. I more and more every day feel good about my stance of just no electronics in the back country. If I can get away with it, I'll bring an inReach. I use Gaia on my phone, but honestly not that much. Most of the time I'm just, I'm using an actual map or just my own brain.
(41:51):
I'm just think we don't have to acquiesce. We don't, you don't have to do it. It feels like you have to. It feels like it feels, if you don't, you're going to be, you don't have to. You don't have to. And you'll be better off if you don't. I mean, how many of us, just the other day I was walking down the street talking to my neighbor and there's just nonstop construction going on and he's on his phone doing some sort of business deal and I'm taking a break from writing all day and we both look at each other. We're like, how much would you rather be swinging hammers over there right now than just staring at a goddamn all another office space reference. Right. We all know this intrinsically, but we don't have to acquiesce. Last thing, the cicadas are coming out, man. Have you heard about the cicadas?
(42:28):
I've heard about the cicadas, but only heard about them. I live on the west coast, so every summer apparently it is relatively normal for them to come out someplace. 16 or 17 year cycle of the cicadas emerge, but in place. How cool is it that someone's keeping track of that? Someone is, someone looked back and like, okay, wait a minute. They came out 17 years ago. I mean, it's great. I mean it, it's probably in the, is that kind of thing in the Farmer's Almanac? Maybe I need to start getting those, which is funny actually, pretty fun. But the article about the reference talks about how they don't really know what the cicadas are doing when they're underground yet they still know when they come. They're obviously tracking enough over time that they know when they're going to come out. So I would look into the science behind the cicada.
(43:08):
What's happening with cicadas? Is there a worse word in terms of making you feel kind of creepy crawly in this situation than brooded? Oh, the worst. I mean, brood is a pretty good word. I'm going to brood over this for a while or whatever, but a brood of insects. Cicada Brood is a horror movie title. Hundreds of millions of them just underground just being, just waiting to come out completely impenetrable. We have no idea what they're doing or thinking or if they're even, I mean, holy smokes. This is like love crafty and gross. Scary to me. Well, the reason we're talking about this, because in Illinois this year, there are two broods of cicadas that are emerging simultaneously for the first time. This is the first time this happened in 200 years. This might be civilization ending, could be, we don't know, two years ago, CADA ago.
(43:53):
Is Locus, are they the same? I don't have any yet. What do I look like? They've got to be at least related, I would think. They've got to be, yeah. Yeah. So literally trillions of bugs that are this loud buzzing sound, which is a mating call so they can mate and then go back underground. They're coming out mass to engage with the folks in the Midwest. You said actually an article over, which is really fascinating to read about it, but then if you look on things like TikTok and Instagram reels, I mean, it's cicada TikTok is popping off right now. Everybody's posting videos about the cicadas. I would like to get TikTok just for this because the videos that you sent me are insane. These bugs are huge, but the best is there's the people I told you about what I saw, where it's a woman with literally a bag overhead who's afraid to run to her house of all the bugs that are out there.
(44:36):
I love bugs. I can't imagine it being scary to me. Bugs are so cool. Those are biting you. Yeah. Well, then there's another woman who's holding one and talking very gently about, this is a cicada. This is what we're dealing with, and you can see the wings, and I'm going to put this guy back outside now, should we be capitalizing on this and making cicada flour? Is that a thing? Well, cricut flour is what we're all supposed to eat. Right? Eventually, because the liberals are going to take us, liberals are going to take all the meat away or whatever. So we're going to force everyone to eat crickets, right? This is a big fossil. Is this a conspiracy theory that's happening? Oh yeah. Big time. Yeah. Yeah. We're going to make everybody eat crickets because beef is bad for the planet, but why aren't, well do crickets taste good?
(45:15):
I'm okay with that. If it tastes good, if a cricket burger tastes, I think I had one. The Mariners have the thing where you can get the crickets, you can buy them. Yeah, I've had that. It tastes like popcorn A like, so burger tastes pretty good. I think if you could shut the part of your brain off that made you realize you're eating ground up crickets. I mean, what's the difference between eating a ground up cricket burger and eating a crab cake? Right. So I don't, it's all own. I'm open minded about it. I feel like you and I should be in Illinois now with giant Nets, just capturing all these things and then starting a frozen cricket burger company. No, but then the other labels will come after us. Now we're not have enough cicadas that we're going to decimate the species. Right. They come out once every 17 years it sounds like.
(45:59):
There's plenty. Yeah, that's true. We have to follow the different broods around every year and collect brood. This is also where I will defend living in modern times where we know stuff. Because you imagine five, 600 years ago and you're just hanging out and obviously wouldn't be like a white person hanging out in Illinois that long ago, but you're calling the Earth opens up and these things. How could you not think that God was just taking you all the way? I think things may have made more sense though back then. Just the simplicity of it kind of. It's like, I don't know. Pissed, pissed off God again. Yeah. It's like, you know what? Honestly, that makes it just as much sense as these fucking broods of insects that for whatever reason every 17 years come out and just like, okay, whatever tornado hits on the same day as the cicadas come out, you're like, Jesus, we did something wrong.
(46:41):
Nice tidy explanation for everything. That sounds nice. They're not researching it. They're just like, well, I don't know. The smartest guy I know says it's this. So clearly that's the, that's what it is. All right, man. Well, I guess we could wrap it up there. What else going on? Anything? I got a big music festival in town, Colin. Did the outside festival go on tour? Yep. They're here. Yep. Me and Wes Tyler are hanging out talking about trucks all weekend long at the debate stage if you want to check it out. Do people come from other towns that hang out? Yes. I will spend most of my weekend. It's going to be a beautiful weekend. I should be surfing and hiking and riding bikes. I'll spend most of my weekend yelling at people that they can't park on my side of the street. That was my next question.
(47:22):
Does your parking situation on your street? Yeah, so yesterday I went out and got a big giant piece of orange poster board and I will be attaching it to one of those orange and white sandwich boards that you see every construction company has that they put in the street to tell you no parking or whatever on the end of the road. And hopefully that works this year because last year there's nothing you could do to keep people. One person parks on this side and then everyone thinks they can park here and then you can't leave because it's like a narrow road. So there's not really room to drive in between the cars. Is there a movie in there where when you start doing these things it accelerates your aging where you're like, isn't that get off of my yard? I mean there was like a Tom Hanks movie like this a year or two ago, but he softened, but I agree it would A man called Otto. Yeah, exactly. But it would be kind of cool if it was just you're turning an auto. I was just 30 years old and a year later I'm 80 because I'm just yelling at people to stop parking here. But that's my weekend. Alright. The Rock Fight is a production of Rock Fight LLC, our producer today. It's David Carstead, who's the guy who makes all the action figures. That's the guy.
Chris DeMakes (48:21):
Yeah, that's the
Colin & Justin (48:22):
Guy, bro. For Justin Oman, I'm Colin Truth. Thanks for listening and here to take us out. It's Krista Makes, he's going to sing the Rock Fight Fight song, and we'll see you next time. Rock fighters. Bye-Bye.
Chris DeMakes (48:33):
Fight, fight, fight, fight, bike where we speak our truth. Stay sacred cows and sometimes agree to disagree. We talk about human power and outdoor activities, and big bikes are about topics that we find interesting. Black five, culture, music, the latest movie reviews and ideas in for the head. This is where we speak our truth. This is where we speak our truth. Welcome to.