In the middle of our fifth week of working on our Encyclopedia of Gear, I got embroiled in an e-mail thread that now, with 24 hours of distance, seems a little fanatical. The other parties involved were copy chief Sean Cooper, senior executive editor Michael Roberts, and senior editor Jonah Ogles鈥攖he latter being the designated point guard, dishing out sidebars and revisions for three months to make this issue a reality. The debate, which spanned 800 words, involved whether we should cut what seemed鈥攖o Sean and me鈥攍ike an extravagant amount of verbiage on kite design to make room for what seemed鈥攖o me, at least鈥攁 criminally overlooked entry: Knife, Swiss Army. The ex颅change wasn鈥檛 heated, but I think fervent and sweeping are fair descriptors. Which side won isn鈥檛 important. (See for yourself.聽Pwned!)聽The point is that, at 颅国产吃瓜黑料, we obsess over gear.聽
But you knew that already.聽If you鈥檙e a subscriber, you鈥檙e aware of our two exhaustive Buyer鈥檚 Guides. If you read us online, you鈥檝e seen our steady stream of reviews, lustful product shots, and camper-van porn. So why dedicate an entire additional issue to the stuff? Because there鈥檚 an untold story behind every piece of gear we use. That was the organizing principle behind all 119 entries鈥攁nd what makes our coverage this month different from our normal review-and-drool approach. Many of the items we cover may seem banal: Nalgene bottles. Vibram soles. Energy gels. Jogging strollers. But we celebrate these things because either their origins are fascinating or their arrival in our world miraculously opened up new possibilities, improved our fitness, helped athletes set PRs, saved lives, or simply made being outside more fun. (For me, the jogging stroller did every one of those things.)聽
For those of you encountering this concept on the web, we hope you will consider going to your local newsstand and buying a copy. If you do, you may notice that there's not a single photograph inside. When our creative director Hannah McCaughey floated that idea, I initially thought I needed to start looking at r茅sum茅s. As usual, however, her vision was way ahead of mine. The gorgeous art颅work provides the issue with a seamless quality that, combined with its timeless stories, we think will make it worthy of your coffee table for the next decade or more.聽