Today on THE ROCK FIGHT (an outdoor podcast that aims for the head) it's time to bust out the headlines!
Come along as Colin & Justin run through the more notable stories to come out of the outdoor industry and community including the following:
More with Thermore! (04:57)
A new article on Outside Online says that fireworks should be banned (11:45)
The Conservation Alliance welcomes seven fishing brands to it's roster of outdoor companies (21:30)
Paddling Magazine lists out everything you need to know about e-SUP's (30:36)
Head to www.rockfight.co and sign up for News From the Front, Rock Fight's weekly newsletter!
Please follow and subscribe to THE ROCK FIGHT and give us a 5 star rating and written review wherever you get your podcasts.
Have a question or comment for a future mailbag episode? Send it to myrockfight@gmail.com or send a message on Instagram or Threads.
Thanks for listening! THE ROCK FIGHT is a production of Rock Fight, LLC.
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Episode Transcript
Chris DeMakes (00:06):
Here we go.
Colin (00:08):
Welcome to the Rock Play where we speak our truth, slay sacred cows and sometimes agree to disagree. This is an outdoor podcast that aims for the head. I'm Colin. True and joining me today, he's back from the Sierra to tell us that trail runners rule and hiking boots drool. It's Justin Houseman.
Justin (00:25):
I tell Colin well, no, but also I will tell you that yesterday on the way home, I fully intended on stopping in Oakdale, California, which is the cowboy capital of the world, which would be surprising to you anytime you go through there because you'd be like, why? It's just a little town. I found out later it was because they produced the most world champions of any little town, I guess whatever in the world. I dunno. Anyway, point being though, they have an epic western store and I fully intended on pulling in yesterday to pick myself up a cowboy hat just to watch your face as you open the zoom call today. But they were, sadly they were closed. Your Patriots. I'm sure we would've walked in and balked at like $200 for a Stetson or something. This is more of a joke thing.
Colin (01:09):
Jesus, is there a dollar store in town? I get
Justin (01:13):
Where's the closest Dollar General or Dollar Tree or whatever the other $5 stores that are? If
Colin (01:18):
You're going to insist on potting without a shirt on and wearing a cowboy hat hat, we're going to accelerate our plans to make this a video podcast because that
Justin (01:24):
Would be amazing. Anything for the viewers, listeners, whatever they're called.
Colin (01:29):
So today we're going to run through some of the more notable or exciting headlines that come out of the outdoor industry and community, including a hot take on fireworks, an important crack in the silo between human powered outdoor activities and the hook and bullet crowd. And lastly, we've gotten an e-bikes E skeletons, and now it's time for e standup paddleboards
Justin (01:47):
Skeletons. You mean the exoskeleton thing? Yeah.
Colin (01:50):
I've always more
Justin (01:51):
Fun to call it e skeleton. I love an e skeleton. That's fantastic. Now I definitely want an skeleton inside where I have all the servo motors and stuff just making me faster and stronger. I mean,
Colin (02:01):
They did it for wolvery. I can't imagine. Could that possibly
Justin (02:04):
Be for real? No. Dead serious. How hard could that be? I saw something today that Jeff Bezos is super mega, outstanding yacht is like 25 million bucks a year just to keep it afloat, which seems about right to me.
Colin (02:19):
Come on. Think
Justin (02:19):
About if we just spent 25 million a year designing, figuring out how to make little motors that we could implant into our bones that made it super fast and super strong, why can't we do that?
Colin (02:28):
So you want to go to the doctor with a photo of the T 800 from the Terminator and say, I want to take this and put it in here and point to yourself. That's what
Justin (02:35):
You want to do. Yeah, basically. Yeah. I don't want the whole, I mean, I still want my organs and stuff, I guess I just want be stronger and faster.
Colin (02:41):
Well, before we get to any of that though, we've got a few housekeeping items. We
Justin (02:45):
Sure do. We want you to follow and rate rock fight wherever you're listening on any podcast app out there at all. If there's a rating system for it, give us a good rating. Hopefully it's five stars. If you can code a six star rating, a seven star rating, a 10 star rating, whatever you want to do. But as long as it's the highest possible rating, whether you feel like it's deserved or not. Right Colin? I mean really. I
Colin (03:06):
Agree. You're really just helping us. You're being nice. You're
Justin (03:08):
Just being nice. Yeah, we
Colin (03:09):
Need more
Justin (03:09):
Nice in the world. If you don't do that, they're going to hurt our families. So please,
Colin (03:14):
We podcast against our will.
Justin (03:15):
Yeah, please. We need
Colin (03:17):
Help. My God. Just
Justin (03:19):
Lift us the five star rating. And if you're an Apple Podcast listener like I am, I dunno what columnist do, but I'm a big apple. I'm deep in that ecosystem. Please leave us a written review on Apple Podcasts from now till the end of
Colin (03:31):
July. Oh, I should have deleted that. Oh no, you know what, go ahead. Let's, let's keep it going. Lets keep going.
Justin (03:35):
Let's keep it rolling. From now to the end of July. You leave a written review, you get a free sticker. We're going to go ahead and mail it to right to your home address or wherever you like.
Colin (03:43):
I have envelopes, I have stamps, I've got everybody from June that's all lined up to get shipped out this week. We've
Justin (03:47):
Got a whole army of people ready to just mail these out for us. We are too big to do that ourselves. That's true.
Colin (03:53):
That's
Justin (03:54):
True. So Colin, I have a question for you. How can our listeners follow along and reach out to us?
Colin (03:59):
Well, you could send us an email. In fact, you should send us an email. If you left us a written review on Apple podcast, you can send it to My
Justin (04:04):
Rock. How else are we going to know where to send
Colin (04:06):
Com?
Justin (04:06):
How else are we going to know where to send the stickers? That's
Colin (04:07):
True. Most people send us a review and then I'm like, Hey, great. Thank you. What's your address? Yeah, don't
Justin (04:12):
Put your address, don't put your address in the review. That would be bad. Just go ahead and
Colin (04:15):
Email us out. Yeah, you don't want to do that. You don't want to put yourself out in the world like that. No. You can also hit us up on social media. Our Instagram handle is rock fight.co, which is funny because that's also the name, the URL for our website, rock fight.co, which if you go there, you can click on little button. It says join the mailing list and then every Sunday you'll get news from the front. It's our weekly newsletter. It comes out at 6:00 AM Pacific. We're recording this on Sunday. It just came out a few hours ago. It's a good little newsletter. We had an article in there, which is you can't get anywhere else right now. It's going to eventually go on the website. It's not there yet, but if you got the newsletter, boom, you would've gotten that
Justin (04:46):
Article. You'd be walking around, right. Thinking about it. Right now you're just walking around having your morning coffee, whatever you're doing.
Colin (04:51):
Exactly. So those are all the ways to get in touch with us. Thank you for supporting us and all right man. Well, you know what it's time for,
Justin (04:58):
Right? Please tell me. Please call and please tell me it's time for more with Themore.
Colin (05:01):
Oh my goodness. It is more for Themore. You're about to be so excited more
Justin (05:03):
With Themore.
Colin (05:04):
Excuse me. More with more. More with Moremore. More
Justin (05:07):
For Themore More.
Colin (05:08):
We had the four too. Too much alliteration.
Justin (05:11):
Yeah, I don't care for that.
Colin (05:12):
More with Themore. It's our weekly segment presented by Themore, the original ingredient brand who has been providing installation solutions from Middle East since 1972. Now we're coming off a holiday weekend here. Everybody listening to this is listening to it on Monday the eighth. Surely we both got outdoors this past weekend, and I think, actually, if I'm not mistaken, it sounds like you have a pretty important update to one of your key goals for the summer.
Justin (05:38):
I wish it was a better update.
Colin (05:39):
What was that goal? What was the goal?
Justin (05:40):
Well, that goal was to catch a fish in the fly fishing in the West Walker River, which
Colin (05:45):
You've never been able to
Justin (05:45):
Land a fish, never been able to do. There's plenty of fish there. I talk about fly fishing a lot. It's important. I'm an adequate fly fisherman at best. I don't live in the mountains. I don't get to practice as nearly as much as I'd like to. I'm decent, I can catch fish. But in rivers that are difficult to fish, I'm usually, I don't have the patience. A lot of times fly fishing is very intricate you of not tying a lot of decision making.
Colin (06:09):
You got to dress like Brad Pitt.
Justin (06:10):
You do? Yeah. And I didn't have a white button down. That was my problem. I should have had a white button down that movie
Colin (06:16):
Would better to scared. Wasn't
Justin (06:17):
Thermo anywhere near me? Yeah. How cool would it have been? You know what? We need to start doing more in the world. Just total weird character mashups. I want where the river runs through it, but I want Viper. I want Tom scared as Viper with his top gun hat. I
Colin (06:31):
Was the dad of the two boys in a river run through it. Well, I mean they're They're both pretty strict dudes.
Justin (06:38):
Yeah, that'd be great. They're
Colin (06:39):
Both a little fatherly. He was a little fatherly to Tom Cruise at the end of Top Gun.
Justin (06:43):
Yeah, but maybe it's Brad Pitt from Burn After Reading. Not just same actors, different characters.
Colin (06:49):
No, no. Brad Pitt from Fight Club
Justin (06:51):
Or That makes more sense though. Burn After Reading would be super weird that he fly fishing anyway. Is Benjamin
Colin (06:56):
Button. He's all aging backwards. I never
Justin (06:58):
Saw it. Never saw it. Never will. Yeah. So I was up in the Eastern Sierra this weekend, my favorite place in the whole world, and I was fishing the West Walker yesterday, just yesterday in fact. And I was like, I'm going to do it right this time. I'm going to take my time. I'm really going to think about what I'm going to tie on here. I tied a two, a little, two fly set up there, a dry fly attached to a dropper, which is, we get into what that is, but usually I just want to cast. I don't want to think about it. So I usually don't take the time to do that. But I know we'll catch fish. I'm like, all right, I'm going to do it. And I saw this little riff that was like, there's fish in there, second cast, wham. Like a pretty big rainbow. And I saw it, Colin. I saw it fighting. But the problem is that in this situation, you're kind of shocked at first if you're not used to catching good fish in difficult to fish rivers. It's just like I catch
Colin (07:52):
In a place where you've always wanted
Justin (07:53):
To catch. Yeah, the day before, I probably caught 12 brook trout in this lake. But that's easy. That's so different. You could see 'em like sight fishing is just a lot easier and just ripping 'em out, bang, bang, bang, looking at 'em and like, oh, this is great. Put 'em back. But this fish, I was shocked and I just stood there for a second and that little bit of slack was enough for it to, I pulled again and then boom, pulled the hook right out of it. Mouth.
Colin (08:16):
That's so mean. You did that to that fish. Now he's got a bleeding lip.
Justin (08:19):
No, no, no. I use barbless hooks that
Colin (08:23):
It ripped it out of its mouth.
Justin (08:24):
Well, not literally. They don't have a barb. They don't stick in their mouth. You have to keep the pressure on. That's like had I had a barbless hook, I
Colin (08:33):
Would've landed fish.
Justin (08:34):
You would've landed that fish or a barbed hook. I would've landed the fish. But that hurts the fish and it's bad fish. I'm
Colin (08:39):
Sorry buddy. But you've already made more progress this summer. It
Justin (08:42):
Feels even, it's a weirdest feeling in that situation where you're so pumped that you were, there was a fish there. I did it right. I saw it. I mean it wasn't huge. It was probably 14 inches. That's pretty good size. Maybe a little bit bigger.
Colin (08:55):
Yeah. But you read it and you got it right.
Justin (08:58):
I'm going to do it. I'm going to get one.
Colin (08:59):
Yeah, you're like two thirds of the way there practically.
Justin (09:01):
Right. It's better than just not getting any kind of nibble. And you're like idea,
Colin (09:05):
You got at least one more crack at this because you're going up there with a family in a few weeks. Are you going to try and get back there more than, oh
Justin (09:10):
Yeah. I'm going to go up there, I think a bunch, hopefully in September and October when the fishing gets really good.
Colin (09:15):
Okay. It's
Justin (09:16):
Still pretty hot. There's still water still kind of high. It's not ideal, but it's pretty good.
Colin (09:20):
And you did some hikes while you were up there?
Justin (09:22):
Yeah. Did some fun hikes that I hiked into Lundy Canyon, which is kind of famous, but I'd never been there before. And tried to scramble up to Lake Helen, which is kind of an off trail, sort of scree scramble, but got sort of tired and scared and turned around and went back. That's one the topos. And I'm like, I wish I would've had boots.
Colin (09:41):
What'd you pack on your hikes? Did you take a sandwich with you? Perhaps?
Justin (09:45):
Why do you ask Colin?
Colin (09:46):
Well, I'm curious what you ate. What
Justin (09:48):
Did you have on your I did, I did. Did you have a sandwich? My standard my, I do a salami sandwich on Parmesan or on Parmesan with Parmesan. On Parmesan.
Colin (09:54):
You place the bread with parms crumbling.
Justin (09:57):
I'm just super, super keto. I guess maybe. I don't know. Is
Colin (10:01):
That still a thing? Do people still do keto?
Justin (10:03):
They must. Cause every time I go to the store, there's the cereal I like is right next to the keto cereal, I guess it
Colin (10:08):
Is. So salami and farm. But with bread, not just the par. The par is in the bread. You have it un
Justin (10:13):
Bread. No. Yeah, you can't do that. Think about how gross that would be. First of all, I use Parmesan because it's hard and it's not going to melt, but it gets all oily when it's all hot. Imagine just having two pluses of oily Parmesan and then salami.
Colin (10:24):
It's the salami slipping out.
Justin (10:26):
No, I got to get the cheapest Hogie rolls. You can get at the cheapest grocery store on the way to the mountains. That's what you want. You want that super bleached, super enriched white flour, like the
Colin (10:37):
Peak extra
Justin (10:39):
Rolls. Yes, because it'll soak up all the Parmesan oil. That's the perfect outdoor sandwich right there.
Colin (10:44):
That does sound pretty good. But what else do you use when you go outside? That's kind of like a sandwich. Your favorite insulated jacket. You know what's in the middle of that
Justin (10:53):
Sandwich? Parmesan and salami?
Colin (10:56):
Nope. You want to have some Themore Classic. Oh
Justin (10:59):
Yeah.
Colin (11:00):
And look, we know our audience is packed with folks who work in the outdoor industry, including brands who make apparel. So listen up, product designers and developers. Your next jacket needs to include Oko Tech certified Themore Classic consisting of very fine fibers, themore classic traps in extremely high amount of air and are free from fiber migration thanks to Thermo's patented anti anti fiber migration treatment. Oh, and classic is also 75% recycled. Did you know that?
Justin (11:27):
I did actually.
Colin (11:28):
Yeah. As you can find Themore Classic and jackets like the Obermeyer Tuscany two, which is available over on RE i.com. Great name. So get out there this summer, guys, stay warm. Even when it's warm out, it could get a little cold. It get a little cold when you're camping this weekend. It did,
(11:40):
Yeah. Do more in the outdoors this summer. But there more, let's get into some headlines. Two days before the 4th of July, outside online ran an article by Kristen Hostetter who covers sustainability environmental topics for outside. And article was titled It's Time to Ban Fireworks. In the article, Kristen points to various social and environmental concerns that all seem to be gaining attention every July here in the US at least. And those concerns include pollution and plastic, other litter that comes as a result of fireworks as well as the impact of noise on wildlife and pets. And of course how fireworks are linked to wildfires. Looking at the comments on both LinkedIn and Instagram, the article definitely caused a divisive ripple between those. Happy to see the attention on these issues as it pertains to fireworks and those who feel a traditional way of celebrating various holidays and events are under attack. So look, I admit I definitely had an immediate knee-jerk response when I saw that headline. So what was your take seeing this last week?
Justin (12:38):
I don't like fireworks. I mean that's not true in a vacuum. Sure, fun. Whatever. I do like the big ones over town. That's amazing. That's great. But the ones that you buy, yeah, there are the
Colin (12:53):
People and she's addressing the big displays, the professionally run displays as well as the people who are just out there ripping around with M eighties and shit. Yeah,
Justin (13:02):
I don't know. I don't know enough about the, I can't imagine that the big professional displays are really that. I'm sure one plane flight is like a million times worse than all of the fireworks displays combined in the country. But I haven't lived in a place where you can legally have fireworks for all 30 something years at this point. So I don't even remember what it's like to play with fireworks, but I have no issue with them being banned. Nobody around here seems to miss them. No one's like, oh man, I wish we could still use fireworks. I've never really heard anybody bring that up. And it's annoying as hell when you live in a city or something and it's the fourth and the entire blocks are shut down. People are going off with fireworks. They brought across county lines from somewhere where it's legal.
(13:47):
But I live in a tinderbox, so I don't want any kind of, I mean all of that freaks me out. So I dunno, I'm pro banning fireworks, but I get, it's hard. I mean, if I lived in a place where fireworks were legal and it was a big part of my experience, I'm sure I would have a, Hey you, I don't want you to take something away from me or whatever. But then after you've not had it for a while, you realize that it's not really that big of a deal. The cons far outweigh the pros. Far, far outweigh the pros as far as I'm concerned.
Colin (14:15):
Yeah, I mean I think because I also live in California, they're illegal. But I tell you what, the other night I heard plenty of people setting 'em off so they're easily accessible. For me, this is a messaging problem. If I have an issue with the article, it was very much a, this is bad and here's all the reasons it's bad. And we're talking about fireworks, which are they pretty
Justin (14:39):
Much enjoy. They only exist for someone to have a good time to be happy.
Colin (14:43):
And they've been around since 1000 ad this is a cultural thing. This is a human culture thing. A global human
Justin (14:50):
Culture thing. Everybody watching things burn and explode.
Colin (14:53):
Yeah, I have no problem if I need to change my opinion on it, but never, it didn't even occur to
Justin (14:58):
Me. Why do we like that? Why do we like that so much? Isn't that weird? Because
Colin (15:02):
Blowing shit up is
Justin (15:03):
Fun. That's what I mean. Why? I don't know. That's weird. What
Colin (15:06):
Is the first thing we did when we got to camp last month?
Justin (15:09):
We pull something up? No,
Colin (15:10):
We started a fire. Oh, we
Justin (15:11):
Started a fire. Yeah. Yeah,
Colin (15:12):
We didn't need to.
Justin (15:14):
Yeah, I love a good fireworks display. Love it. That's great. I would never want those to go away. I think that's amazing. But so I was in the little town of Bridgeport over this weekend and on the fifth I went into town to get a beer and the streets were just loaded with garbage, like leftover fireworks. I guess the little town on the fourth goes off with people. Fireworks are legal, but they just left them in the street. I mean, it was disgusting. It was such gross, such a huge mess. Gross. And I was just like, when you've been removed from it for a really long time and then you drive through the valley and you see all these firework stands, it's like holy crap, people are still doing this. I get it. But again, I haven't lived where it's legal for so long. I've kind of forgotten that that's a thing that you could do.
Colin (15:57):
Yeah, I think basically it becomes two camps. If you read the comments in these things, and this is kind of like I said, it's a messaging deal because it's like there's the how dare you prioritize fireworks over the environment and my dog versus the Hey, lighten up Francis Fireworks or fun factions. Those are the two kind of groups and you kind of tend to fall into one or the other and when you just kind of forgive the pun, but lo ba bomb and say, Hey, these should just be banned even if you have really good reasons. And Kristen's article, she has really good reasons.
(16:30):
To your point about how much they impact, it's like one display, 15 minutes of one display. It's like the equivalent of driving 25 miles or something like that. And that doesn't sound like a lot, but it's like, well pretty much every town in North America or every town in the world has some level of these displays. You have rock concerts that set off fireworks. You have sporting events that set off fireworks. I could see a significant impact being there. Now on the flip side that it's also like, is this the fight we want to pick in the outdoor community when we still have brands polluting rivers in China and stuff like that. By making useless apparel, it felt to me that there could have been handled a little more. There's a better way. I think it could have been handled than just saying, Hey, this is a 100% black or white. It's wrong. We shouldn't have fireworks anymore conversation. Yeah,
Justin (17:14):
I mean it's sort of like someone, I mean I remember once a friend of mine was talking about politics and who you vote for president. He's like, I always want to vote for the person. I would never vote for the person who seems like they're, that's going to give me homework basically. I'm not going to vote for the teacher that's going to make me do homework. These kinds of things. It feels like that a little bit where it's like this is the student who raised their hand is like, well, shouldn't we be having a take home test today? You'd be like, ah. I dunno. I agree with the messaging thing, but I do tend to agree with the substance behind it. I mean it just totally at this point, especially we've had a couple good years without big fires, but it was pretty smoky driving through the valley this time and I was there in Oregon.
(17:58):
I guess it was when that huge Columbia Gorge fire a few years ago. That was all the fireworks I made mentions on the pod and my wife and I are pretty sure we saw the kids that had the fireworks the day they started the firework. We just happened to be hiking there and saw these kids with fireworks. We're like, what the hell? And then two days later, here's this huge fire and it's like, it's wild to me that we give people that level of just, here you go, have fun. I mean it's also wild to me that we just pipe water into everyone's house and you can just have the faucets on all day if you want to. It's just like, here's this resource. It's not renewable that we are running out of and we should probably just like, Hey, hey, you want to just leave your shower on all day? Go ahead. It's just wild to me that we let people do these sorts of things.
Colin (18:39):
This to me feels a little bit like, well, not a one for one, but a little like the gun argument, right?
Justin (18:45):
Yeah. We to shoot guns in the air, no fireworks, but just shoot your guns in the air. That's fine.
Colin (18:51):
That's right. Then only one or two people get hurt and everything's fine. You don't see it. But in a vacuum, I understand why shooting guns is fun. I understand gun culture. I understand why people would want to be a part of that. I understand hunting all of those things, but then there's this whole other side of all of these problems and come with it. Then also the people on the other side are like, we need to ban it entirely. It's like, well if you say that now all the people who love it are going to push back. Or even people, the same
Justin (19:15):
People don't care are going to push back. Nobody likes being told what to do.
Colin (19:18):
Well there's that part of it too. It's like, do
Justin (19:20):
You over? That's really what it comes down to at the end of the day. I mean, if it's something I don't really care about and someone's like, you can't do that. I'll instinctively be like, oh the hell I can't. And that's, there you go.
Colin (19:32):
I think what the article did a good job of doing for someone like me who reading some of the actual hard facts and be like, oh, I get it. I see that. I think there's probably needs to be a solution to this at some point that isn't just, well, we'll keep doing
Justin (19:44):
It. Wrong country for that my friend. If facts were able to actually dictate policy or what people thought it would be a much different world.
Colin (19:53):
But if you read about where fireworks is set off, it's everywhere in the world. It's not just even us, but then there's also, but if you wanted to get more people on board, I think the messaging, it was a little too stark, I guess. Hey, this is the way it should be. Now I do want to talk for one minute about what I'm calling the growing dog problem in the outdoor community because 90% of the comments were my dog, my dog, my dog. And I have three dogs. I've owned multiple dogs who don't like thunder or fireworks. Sorry. If people are doing something, unless it's something that's illegal or it's violating a noise ordinance at two in the morning, they're doing something they shouldn't be doing. That's not my problem. You chose to bring this animal into your house. It's same thing of crag dogs. Yeah, it is like kids. No, it is because it's like if my kids would get woken up if they're babies at 11, you're setting off in a eighties. Am I going to be pumped about
Justin (20:46):
That? Dude, my kids setting off M eighties though. My little girls, my 2-year-old, huge fan.
Colin (20:51):
They've got this lab in their bedrooms and they're making stuff blowing, making up old sweet. This is also on the heels of some other things I've seen on crag dogs and people just demanding tolerance for their dogs and I have no time for it. I
Justin (21:07):
Say that as three. They're barking because they're stoked. They're just like, yes, he has more louder like that maybe. How would we know?
Colin (21:15):
I just think there's a lack of personal accountability with some dog owners out there and you kind of need
Justin (21:19):
To, well, I'm not one so I can't really speak
Colin (21:21):
For that. Yeah, you shouldn't weigh in. Fine. I'll on. I'll bring on a dog. Bring a dog.
Justin (21:23):
Argue about it.
Colin (21:28):
You blow fish and frogs, that's what you do. That's right.
(21:30):
Alright, well next up. According to SGB, the Conservation Alliance, which is the nonprofit that describes itself as a coalition of like-minded businesses working to protect North America's wild places in outdoor spaces is expanding its membership to include the fishing industry. Seven fishing centric brands have joined the conservation alliance including able airflow merger strategies, Dina King, rare Waters, Ross Reels and Sims. Connor MI believe I said his name correctly, the Conservation Alliance senior director of membership was quoted in the article and said Fishing ranks second when it comes to annual outdoor participation and having this group of reputable fly fishing brands join our membership as a key moment to improve representation from a segment that has long been absent from our membership. For those who aren't familiar with the Conservation Alliance as an organization of brands whose member dues and donations are handed out in the form of grants to support conservation efforts across North America and pretty much every major human powered outdoor brand that you can think of is in the Conservation Alliance. Initial thoughts, what did you think? Especially as a guy who just got done fishing yesterday?
Justin (22:37):
Well, I actually, what's interesting when I saw this, I didn't really look at those brands. It's interesting that they're all fly fishing brands, which actually that's not that surprising. I mean, part of fly fishing is I think compared to other kinds of freshwater fishing, there is something you just have to be more immersed in the environment when you're fly fishing. It's just a different ballgame. So I guess it makes sense. I hadn't realized that it was just going to be fly fishing when you first mentioned this. I mean, dude, all I can say is about time. I mean this is fantastic.
(23:10):
I came into the outdoor space because of fishing. I fished long before I hiked or backpacked or anything like that. I fished in the ocean, I'd fish in freshwater lakes and stuff like that long before I cared about camping or anything. So that was part of the way that the door opened to me for caring about the outdoors. And I've said this before with surfing, I never really thought about it as an outdoor sport. I could almost say the same thing about fishing to a degree I was fishing in, I dunno why it's different, but the ocean. I was just sitting on a pier with a line in the water trying to catch something I could eat. It just didn't feel like I was an outdoor sport. But fly fishing absolutely is. So I mean, gosh, I don't know. To me it's an integral part of all of this. I mean, I'm a big fan. I'm a huge fan of the way that hunting and fishing licenses go to pay for programs to deal with conservation. I think, I'm sure I've said it on the show, I think there should be an excise tax for hiking products and camper products too to help support that sort of thing. So I think it's weird. Oh, I know why I brought up the fact that I started fishing. I've always thought it was odd that there's a line between hook and bullet and
Colin (24:17):
Yeah,
Justin (24:18):
That's what I want to get. The sort of running, hiking, camping thing. It's weird to me, but I don't know. I suppose if I just came into the outdoor space as a climber and never fished or understood that culture, I might think it's weird. I might think it's hurting an animal. I don't know.
Colin (24:35):
No, I think coming into the outdoor space around probably at the same time you did, it seemed like there was two paths of, there's the general outdoor sports that we all either dabbled in and we have our favorites. And then there was a group that went more endurance with it and there was a group who went more like mountainy and including fly fishing with it. And most of my friends who didn't do races and stuff like that, they were climbers, but they also went fly fishing and they skied and then went fly fishing. So I think to start breaking down that wall and use fly fishing makes the most sense already. So many people in doing the sports that we cover the most here on the rock flight that do fly fishing, and I'm with you, I was talking with Connor actually at the GOA show.
(25:10):
He was there. I got to say hello. That's why I feel bad if I messed up his last name. And it's the Conservation Alliance had been historically the outdoor retailer show. The brands that exhibited that show during its peak are the ones that are in the conservation alliance. It's keen Patagonia, the North Face, Marmon, all those types of brands. And his thing kind of coming in to I guess succeed, John Sterling who ran the Conservation alliance for a long time, I think he was thinking, why aren't we not kind of reaching out more? Let's expand the efforts here. And that's kind of what we've talked about a lot with all the different silos within the outdoor community. I was like 90 different categories and for some reason we don't cross pollinate between all of
Justin (25:48):
Them. No, and it's such an obvious freaking thing mean, especially when you live in places. I do coastal, sort of liberal enc enclave. I never say that word out loud. And then you kind of cross cultural borders on the way to the mountains and you get to the mountains and now there's people from all walks of life, all political persuasions, all economic spectrum, everything. And we're all just there. We fucking love the mountains and we love the lakes and we love the streams. And it's like why would, this is probably the only thing that we have in common at this point anymore, is just that we love wild places and it just to me seems like this tent needs to get both bigger and smaller at the same time. Let everybody in and then let's make sure we all realize that we're after the same stuff here.
(26:37):
I mean, I remember going out to drive the new Bronco a few years ago at Ford hosted like an off-road. They still do. It's like a permanent off-road facility where you buy a Bronco, you can go learn how to drive it off-Road. The first thing they tell you is don't be an asshole. The very first thing is leave no trace drive on established trails. Don't bring a bunch of crap with you. Don't shoot guns, don't be all this sort of stuff. And partially is like, or we'll lose access. But also the big part of it's because these are fragile places. There are people that don't have anything to do with off-road stuff who are working to make sure you have access to this. It means a lot to us have access to public spaces and these kinds of things. So it just unites people in ways that nothing else quite does. I mean, I can be out there driving my pickup truck, drinking beer, listening to country music, and it doesn't matter what my political persuasion is, it doesn't matter what the person that's across the river from these is we're both out here doing the same things. We love this. I mean, I dunno, I'm preaching to the choir here, but this stuff
Colin (27:38):
Fires me up. This is leadership, right? And this is what we praised the outdoor rec roundtable for doing too. Someone needs to take up the mantle of these things and show that there is crossover between all of these groups because we are going to get to an actual place where there is some Bristol, like the Sierra Club folks who, many of them who don't want anybody to go anywhere or even create trails in the back country all the way through to, hey, we need wider roads so that RVs can go there, is happy, medium, sort. Everyone can sort of coexist. And unless we have that sort of the conservation, environmental protection sort of being the unifying force between the groups and showing the common areas between all of these groups and hey, I'm a snow sports enthusiast. Are you a snowmobile or a backcountry skier? It's like, well, you still have a common interest and there being fucking snow around in the winter,
Justin (28:22):
Right? Is there snow? Can I get to it?
Colin (28:24):
Great. Exactly. So that's where I think it's important for groups like this to not just be like, ah, we focus on hiking and backpacking. It's like, well no, fishing matters too.
Justin (28:33):
And clearly, I mean Producer Dave just threw in a stat here, 30,638 environmental organizations in the United States. Yeah, it's a lot. Dude, that's a lot. This is something that people really care about and that we're like
Colin (28:45):
Producer Dave is in every one of 'em.
Justin (28:47):
Yeah, he's founded all of them.
Colin (28:51):
He's actually mucking up the words. He just keeps making new organizations just to fuck with
Justin (28:54):
People. Now it's 30,639, God, he's grooving
Colin (28:57):
Quick over there.
Justin (29:00):
This show isn't really about this sort of thing, but I mean the recent Supreme Court ruling on that Chevron case is going to make this kind of thing a lot more important because if we're going to strip power back away from government agencies who have the expertise to actually manage public lands and what goes in them and what takes place on them, which is what it sounds like is going to maybe come down the road here, we're going to need to work together to make sure these places are protected, that we have access to them and that trout can live. I mean that's the thing with fly fishing, for the most part, it takes place in places that are really pristine because trout don't tolerate fouled water or water that's too warm or whatever. So if you're fly fishing, you're most likely in a place that's very pristine and very beautiful. And so you have a natural reason to sort of protect that. And we all want that same sort of thing. And if the government agencies aren't going to be able to have this sort of teeth to stand up to Chevron and other big companies that want to pollute everything anymore, alright, then we're going to have to do it together. And that's going to mean uniting with people that you might not agree with about anything else. And that's fine and that's totally
Colin (30:00):
Fine and we need to focus and we need leadership and this is how leadership happens. This is by making good decisions like this and by a group that has been historically the human powered sector saying, look, you know what? Everyone's fly fishing anyway, let's start there. And talking to Connor, it sounds like they have plans to bring more in and there's going to be people who get pissed off what we do. We're human beings, we just get mad about shit. It's what we do, but it's like what's the bigger goal here? And making sure that we're all kind of aligned towards that.
Justin (30:26):
Speaking of human powered, Colin, talk about these non-human powered standup paddle boards. I'm excited about this.
Colin (30:34):
Well, good segue. The growth of e-bikes has been happening for about a decade now, and we saw, as we saw an outdoor retailer a few weeks ago, exoskeletons are coming along to eight bodies. It comes to walking
Justin (30:44):
Needs used to work. Any excuse to work that
Colin (30:47):
It. I'm not saying no exoskeletons a real thing.
Justin (30:51):
I know. I know. It's just a fun word just, but it is a fun word,
Colin (30:55):
So it should be no surprise that last week Paddling magazine ran an article titled Everything You Wanted to Know about ESOPs. That's right. The electric standup paddleboard movement is here. There are some similar benefits to the ESOP that also made by e bikers like the ability to go further in today, but the biggest upside is probably safety and the ability to get an assist if the wind or tide changes and a paddler can get caught in unexpected conditions. I can speak from experience that a couple days I would've been pretty sweet to throw all a little propeller and zip back to where I put in. Where are you though on standup paddleboarding kind of as an activity these days?
Justin (31:33):
I love it. I mean, I've always been a stand paddleboard fan. I mean, yeah, there's a lot of animosity when it comes to surf zones and that's,
Colin (31:41):
That sounds like the ski versus snowboarding thing A little
Justin (31:44):
Bit. A little bit. I mean there's some legit qualms there about ability to see and catch waves that nobody else can see or catch because you're standing up sense, but at the same time it's like, yeah, we're all just so beyond getting mad at people for enjoying riding waves differently than me. It just seems so absurd.
Colin (31:59):
Surf has animosity for everyone. Exactly. Just be
Justin (32:01):
Honest. I think it sounds great. I think it sounds like fun. I mean, yeah, if you are out there because you specifically are trying to get a great workout. Well yeah, don't use it. I mean that's fine, but I can't imagine anyone, I feel like the standup paddleboard community is pretty chill. I don't think anyone's going to be mad that someone's out here just standing without a paddle. I presume that's the point, right? I guess maybe you can still paddle if you want. I would think that you're just standing there though. That seems pretty dope. And I should say motorized surfboards in some form have been around since the forties. People have been working on this. We've
Colin (32:31):
Talked about that before
Justin (32:33):
Forever. So it's not like this, I dunno. People like the idea of moving quickly while standing on water. I think that's dope. I think it'd be really fun. I
Colin (32:41):
Mean, I don't know the power of these things or I don't know if there's a one for one comparison between e-bikes and these or if it's truly more just maybe. I'm sure there are different models where you can just zip around in the water on them, but I can't imagine it's probably more of an assist than it is now. You're flying around a cove on this massive engine.
Justin (32:56):
Totally, yeah.
Colin (32:58):
But as someone who has had a tough time, especially with e mountain bikes, it's not something that I'm interested in doing, but kind of understanding and it was really driven home with that exoskeleton thing we saw at or right. It's like the idea that you have people who you're getting older now, it's getting harder to go hiking and there might be a device that can help you get out into nature. This just makes sense. I get it. Like I said, I have been caught in those days when I misread the tides or didn't even know the tides and all of a sudden it's flipped and I could not get back to where I was. It was so strong. That would've been a good safety precaution. It's not something you want to rely on, but something that'd be good to have.
Justin (33:32):
I was thinking about that the other day when I was floating in the middle of lower Twin Lake pretty far out a certain point. I got far enough to where I was like, if I had to swim back, I'd make it, I think, but this would suck. It'd be a little rough. This would really suck.
Colin (33:43):
That's would be a bad day.
Justin (33:44):
Yeah. I mean if I dropped my paddle, I could have reached over the side and doggy paddled in. But there's that little moment where ding, oh, I'm a really strong swimmer, and the water wasn't that cold. I think I'd be okay, but I've rescued somebody in that lake in a situation to where they were on, what were they on? I don't think it was a standup paddle board, but it might've been, no, I don't remember. Some kind of floating thing and the wind pushed them out into the middle and it was this family, it was like a mom and their daughter, and the dad was just next to me just drinking beers. And me and my wife were like, does this guy know? Does he not see what's happening? And eventually I grabbed, I don't remember what I grabbed, I might've just swam out. It was clear that they weren't super comfortable
Colin (34:29):
With this. Did he say Shazam first or did you just
Justin (34:31):
Yeah, and got to the point where I was just like, I had to help direct a houseboat over to them that picked them up and they couldn't paddle against the wind and And then
Colin (34:42):
You drowned. You went out in the middle.
Justin (34:43):
I did. Yeah. I, yeah, I died during this. No,
Colin (34:47):
But to your point, you can get yourself in trouble quick when you think that you're fine, right?
Justin (34:51):
I mean, I think that there's a million uses for it. I think that I'd rather have a bunch of subs than a bunch of actual gas powered boats on the lake. I'll tell you that right now.
Colin (35:04):
But it does make the question though, what's left in the outdoors to electrify What's next? Are we going to get e skis? Oh, I guess we kind of did Remember that weird snowboard thing? Yeah, snowboard was that called? That's right.
Justin (35:13):
I don't remember what it was called.
Colin (35:13):
Had that tread on the back to push you up the hill? Yeah. Yeah. We're going to get an e juma so you can slide up the rope faster.
Justin (35:20):
Honestly. Probably. Probably. That seems, that actually seems like a actual logical possibility. What about
Colin (35:26):
Like E ice
Justin (35:27):
Axes? E canoes exist or e kayaks exist. I don't know how an ice ax would be electrified into the, we can figure it out other than with cool lights on it and stuff.
Colin (35:36):
Maybe it's like the, for your arms it's like, yeah,
Justin (35:40):
You don't want to climb, but your arms are just like, I don't want to
Colin (35:42):
Climb this. You're like an eman villain at that point. Just going like this.
Justin (35:46):
I've gone. So, I mean it's funny, I've gone from the total purist about this sort of thing. The idea of motorized surfboards appalled me. The idea of e-bikes when they very first came out of appalled me. But we're having fun here folks. I mean, if you want to be pure human powered, great. That's fantastic. You
Colin (36:03):
Still can,
Justin (36:04):
No one's stopping you. I don't
Colin (36:05):
Know any bike. Guess what? It's
Justin (36:07):
Fine. But you know what, I don't think I would use an esep because if I'm supping, I'm, oh, I feel like getting an arm workout today. I'm doing that for a reason. But you know what, if I had a cabin on one side of the lake and the resort was on the other side, you know what? I'd have an ESOP in a heartbeat. You rather do that than fire up a little outboard and cross.
Colin (36:28):
Those are kind of fun too though. Those are kind of fun. Yeah, they're pretty fun. Yeah, we'll get an electric version of that.
Justin (36:34):
I do want an EIS ax though. I'm thinking about more about this.
Colin (36:38):
How do you make that work?
Justin (36:39):
I don't know. You watch, I watched the New Kong versus Godzilla movie and he has,
Colin (36:44):
I keep seeing it on Max. I haven't
Justin (36:46):
Considered it up yet. It was so fun. Watch it. It was actually way better than I expected. But he had, Kong has this some sort of power ax. It's kind of like that. Maybe it just has more oomph behind it than it would otherwise.
Colin (36:55):
So you get to King Kong delivers your Eax, and now you get to hang out with King Kong. I don't want to
Justin (37:00):
Hang out with King Kong. He looks, I mean,
Colin (37:03):
Can ride around on his shoulder. No,
Justin (37:04):
It's not how it works, man. You said the wrong thing. He just squashes like a bug. I don't know. He wants, it won't be
Colin (37:07):
Worth it until then. You never know.
Justin (37:09):
I think if you saw a, first of all, can we get some standardization on the height of King Kong please? Yeah,
Colin (37:14):
It's pretty all over the place, right?
Justin (37:16):
I mean, I have no idea how big he's supposed to be.
Colin (37:19):
God, no
Justin (37:20):
Clue. Sometimes he's almost as big as Godzilla, which is bigger than skyscrapers. Other times he's like 20 feet tall. I need to get some standardization here on this. But if I saw 150 foot tall gorilla walk up to my house, it wouldn't be pleasant. No matter what he was doing, I would probably die of fright.
Colin (37:38):
You know how some movies, and I know you got to go, but you know how some movies, there's a little, there's plot holes and things like that that you either care about or you don't care about, but you don't even notice. If somebody points it out to you, then sometimes it's hard to kind of forget about them.
Justin (37:50):
Did I just do that to you?
Colin (37:51):
No, but you may remind me. Have you watched Godzilla minus one yet? Not yet,
Justin (37:54):
No.
Colin (37:55):
This doesn't spoil anything about the movie, but there is a scene where they send Godzilla way down deep in the ocean and then he's able to come back up and he just went down like hundreds of feet underwater. But then, and he comes back up and he's kind of facing off against these boats again. But now he's standing and someone pointed out on Threads. Is he just kicking his little feet Water?
(38:16):
Can't,
(38:17):
Trying to water now. Anything else? Did they move? They didn't move to Shallower Water. What's going on there? I
Justin (38:22):
Feel like that one of the Godzilla versus Kong movies, they're basically the same size.
Colin (38:27):
Oh yeah. Like that.
Justin (38:27):
And you're just like, dude, come on.
Colin (38:30):
You kind of have to turn your brain off a little bit with this stuff, I
Justin (38:32):
Guess. Isn't it weird? I am willing to accept of that, but I'm not willing to accept the fact that they don't seem to be able to decide. Surely the designer who's doing the CGI is like, wait, how big was he in the last scene? Fuck it. It just, it's weird.
Colin (38:46):
Alright, E ice axes. Come on. Black Diamond or somebody out there. Let's make that a thing. So
Justin (38:51):
I'm assuming there's some going to be some, oh wow. Look at all these stats about Kong 24 feet. Yeah. See that's, come on.
Colin (38:59):
Alright, we can wrap it up there. Man. You're back from the Sierra. You're ready to take on the week. You're refreshed. You got your salami and your palm. My
Justin (39:07):
Parmesan salami sandwich. You
Colin (39:08):
Got your thermo jacket.
Justin (39:09):
I'm good to go. My
Colin (39:10):
God, you're just rock fighting. Out it out.
Justin (39:12):
Yeah, I need a break.
Colin (39:15):
Well, the Rock fight's a production of rock Fight LLC. Our producer today was David Kasad. Art Direction provided by Sarah Genser. For Justin Hausman. I'm calling Tru. Thanks for listening. And he's back to take us out again. It's Krista makes, he's going to sing the rock Fight fight song and will see you next time. Rock fighters. Rock
Chris DeMakes (39:32):
Fight. Rock fight. Rock fight. Rock fight. Rock fight. Rock fight. Here we go into the rock fight where we speak our truth, play sacred cows and sometimes agree to disagree. We talk about human power, outdoor activities and pick bikes about topics that we find interesting. Black culture, music, the latest movie reviews, ideas, aim for the head. This is where we speak our truth. This is where we speak truth. Welcome to the the.