Good times at the OR today. Read all about it below the video.
Outdoor Retailer Show 2012 Day 2 from Trail And Ultra Running on Vimeo.
Busy day: Great interviews with Hydrapak, UltraSpire, Black Diamond, Anton Krupicka, Altra and GoLite.
Quick Summaries:
Hydrapak – A quick start to the morning by meeting with Jim Vernon. If you don’t know the name you probably know them anyway. Hydrapak is the company that makes hydration bladder solutions for over 40 different companies. Hydrapak bladders are BPA free and made of an extremely flexible and resilient Thermo TPU… they are tough!
New for 2013 will be a double walled insulated water bottle using Primaloft.
UltraSpire – My next stop. As many know Bryce Thatcher was behind many of the hydration products we use today. Coming in Spring 2013, UltraSprire will introduce 4 new packs: the Ribos, Alpha, Solace and Titan along with upgraded features for other packs. Their new packs come equipped with a large flow valve that they guarantee to make drinking easy on any trail.
Black Diamond – I spent some serious quality time with Roch Horton, the 10 time Hardrock 100 finisher. Roch has been intimately involved with Black Diamond’s headlamp development and delivered an amazing history about BD’s headlamp evolution. Their new product will be the ReVolt ($60 msrp). Black Diamond developed their own AAA batteries that have special contacts. When these batteries are in the headlamp, an onboard mini USB port will allow direct charging. The ReVolt can also use standard AAA’s. The internal USB charger will only charge if the special BD batteries are installed, avoiding potential fire or explosion. At 110 Lumens, it’ll produce a fantastic amount of light for night trail running.
Anton Krupicka – met with Tony for a quick interview session. Hanging around the same booth were Dakota Jones and Scott Jurek.
Altra – A newer shoe company that has a different take on how to make a great running shoe. Looking forward to a full interview session with them Saturday.
HeadSweats – Our Trail And Ultra Running hat vendor… oh, and vendor to the Ironman and Tour De France. I met up with Lisa Maloney, and we wandered back to Altra to watch the vertical treadmill challenges.
Vertical Treadmill Challenges – The treadmills are set to a 15% incline and the runners get to pick their speed throughout a 15 minute running cycle. The person with the most mileage wins and the ultimate winner is the one who went furthest during the day.
Anton Krupicka vs. Luke Nelson – Luke barely edges out Tony, 1.51 miles to 1.50 miles.
Philip Reiter vs. Max King – Max is King. He scores 1.64 miles and is top dog for the day. Max also proves to be hilarious, doing some standup comedy while 50 people stand around and watch him suffer.
