Gear Patrol Magazine, Issue Thirteen: The Summer Preview

Why You Don’t Need Polarized Sunglasses

How to Curb Screen Addiction, for Good

The Rise of Secondhand Outdoor Gear

70

76

86

One Last Lap for American Muscle 112

Behind the New Bond Watch 128

Swim Shorts You Can Wear Anywhere 144

©2020 H-D or its affiliates. HARLEY-DAVIDSON, HARLEY, H-D, and the Bar and Shield Logo are among the trademarks of H-D U.S.A., LLC.

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CONTENTS

Contents The Guide

Wish List The world’s most desirable gear Analogue Pocket

24

Merz b. Schwanen Merino T-shirt

44

Yeti V Series

58

Phase One XT Camera System

68

Audi RS6 Avant

74

A. Lange & Söhne Odysseus

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22

28

Found: Nikon L35AF

Your Questions About 8K, Answered

Just Get This: Dopp Kits, Bluetooth Speakers & More

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46

Gravel Biking Finds Its Legs

The Review: 5G

50

60

66

Testing: Session Beers, Performance Denim & More

10 Years of Singer Vehicle Design

Summer Watch Straps

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80

Counterpoint: Why You Don’t Need Polarized Sunglasses

Small-Batch Scents for the Summer

Less weight.

More trailblazing.

Introducing Trail Series™ – 25% lighter

hyd roflask.com

CONTENTS

Features

86 The Rise of Reuse

Despite a reputation for sustainability and environmentalism, the outdoor industry thrives on seasonal updates and new gear releases. In response, some of today’s top brands are looking back to get ahead.

100 Introducing Greg Metze, 42 Years Later

Greg Metze spent decades making whiskey in the shadows of one of America’s largest and most mysterious distilleries. At Colorado’s Old Elk, the prolific whiskey maker may finally get his moment in the sun.

112 Blaze of Glory

Today’s muscle cars rank among the greatest American-made machines to ever rule the road, but with the era of EVs on the horizon, their days may be numbered. So we took the year’s most powerful examples on a wild trip out west.

128 The Moon Is Not Enough

Since 2016, Raynald Aeschlimann has helmed Omega, the world’s second-largest watch company. We caught up with him to discuss the revamping of a famed watch movement, timing the Olympics and a certain secret agent’s predilection for the Seamaster.

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CLASSIC REINVENTED G-SHOCK has been setting the standard for timekeeping toughness and durability since 1983. G-SHOCK announces the new GM6900 Series with stainless steel forged metal bezels. These new models, which fit right in with both high-elegance luxury fashions and modern street fashions, come on the heels of the GM5600 Series with metal covered bezels.

CONTENTS

Intel

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142

144

KIT: Summer Friday Essentials

In Season: Swim Trunks That Go Anywhere

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Tools of the Trade: Chef Michael Hamilton of Little Ways

Detour: Mister Green Life Store

NOT JUST BOOTS. BLUNDSTONES.

BLUNDSTONE.COM

ISSUE 13

Field Note text by will sabel courtney photo by chandler bondurant

Oatman, Arizona, isn’t the sort of place you stay for long. Once the humming home of an active gold mine, the Oatman of today is part tourist trap, part ghost town. On a strip of ramshackle buildings, we found townies selling tchotchkes like Native American crafts and reelection merchandise in the midst of Wild West gunfight reenactments.

It’s here, on old Route 66, where we also found a sizable population of docile mules wandering around with the kind of freedom reserved for sacred cows in India.

It’s hard to express the surreality of rounding a corner in a trio of superpowered muscle cars only to find a burro smack dab in the middle of town, blocking your path. Stranger still is the scene of more mules meandering over to you once you’ve parked, running their noses over the flanks of a 797-horsepower Dodge in hopes of finding nibbles beneath the fenders.

Behind the scenes of “Blaze of Glory” (page 112)

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LETTER FROM THE FOUNDER

W Eric Yang

founder , chief executive officer

@hashtagyang | eyang@gearpatrol.com

hat does essential mean? Since starting Gear Patrol in 2007, I’ve learned that knowing if a product is, or isn’t, essential is one of the most intimate things we can understand about ourselves. Cars.

Watches. Stereos. Smartphones. Brown leather boots. We have relationships with the products we use, whether we realize it or not.

If you’re reading this letter, there’s a good chance you already have a strong grasp of what essential means to you. You may give in to the occasional deal, but I’m willing to bet you boast a savvy purchase-qualifying matrix — a built-in set of instincts that helps you determine whether or not something is worth the squeeze. Irrespective of editorial instinct, years of experience or even a mountain of data, I’m convinced that Gear Patrol readers are simply some of earth’s most sophisticated consumers.

It’s not about the price, it’s about the value. I get it: you get it.

It wasn’t always this way. Over the last 13 years, our growing masthead has brought a new level of finesse in determining what you might need, and why. What’s more apparent than ever is that things are entirely different than they were when I published Gear Patrol’s first post (about the 2007 BMW X5). In the age of unfettered access to information, consumers’ relationships with products have evolved. A good product — an essential one — propels your life, your passions. Your pursuits.

The version of Gear Patrol you’re holding now is designed for many types of consumers, but it’s sin-

gularly focused on helping them all decide what’s essential. For the spring, we’ve designed that into a quarterly, seasonal preview of what’s relevant in the wide world of products. Our team calls it the Summer Preview, and while the notion of a seasonal compendium is hardly new in the theater of magazine-making, it is fresh for us and how we bring product journalism to your doorstep in a way that’s current, dynamic and insanely informative.

You know, essential.

We’ve endeavored to bring this to print in a couple new ways, but one of my favorites, as a time-poor father of two, is our evergreen series Just Get This (page 28), where we quickly identify which everyday products we deem to be best in class.

On the other hand, our cover story, “Blaze of Glory” (page 112), penned by motoring editor Will Sabel Courtney and captured by staff photographer Chandler Bondurant, made me wistful for what may be a well-qualified end to high-octane, American muscle cars.

Then there’s staff writer Tanner Bowden’s thought-provoking piece “The Rise of Reuse” (page 86) highlighting how the nearly $20 billion outdoor apparel industry — which relies on relentless updates and new releases — is looking at the secondhand market to advance its financial and environmental goals. You know that eight-year-old Patagonia jacket shoved in the back of your closet?

It might just save the planet. That’s exciting.

So which products are essential? Join us as we endeavor to find out.

kind of obsessed

Leica Q2

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photo by leica

I have a large Vitsœ drawer at home chockablock with Fujifilm gear. Lenses, adaptors, grips — ­ you name it. I can capture everything from one-inch away to one-mile out. In other words, I’m a hopeless romantic. But I also have two rambunctious kids, so my kit needs a wholesale rethink. I want a camera that’s robust, nimble and optically excellent to live alongside the always-in-my-pocket iPhone 11 Pro Max. And last year’s Leica Q2, which boasts 47 megapixels, a full-frame sensor, fuss-free 28mm lens and ultrafast touch screen focusing (again, kids), does just that. Call me obsessed. $4,995

Shop the new Nuclei FL Jacket at Backcountry.com

Windproof. Warm. Packable.

Built for what’s to come.

arcteryx.com

MASTHEAD

founder , chief executive officer

ERIC YANG cofounder , chief content officer

BEN BOWERS

deputy editor

senior writer

chief commercial officer

head of commerce

JACK SEEMER

TUCKER BOWE

ZACH MADER

BRIAN LOUIE

editors

staff writers

business development director

content director , commerce

WILL SABEL COURTNEY

GERALD ORTIZ

MIKE BAILEY

JACOB SOTAK

ERIC LIMER

TANNER BOWDEN

STEVE MAZZUCCHI

TYLER DUFFY

senior account executive

commerce editor

ALYXANDER EFFRON

RYAN BROWER

account executives

store operations manager

TIM MURRAY

CHRIS HEALY

ZEN LOVE

associate editors

OREN HARTOV

associate editor , editorial operations

JOHN ZIENTEK

J.D. DIGIOVANNI

assistant editor

editorial associates

WILL PRICE

TYLER CHIN

KEVIN O’BRIEN client success manager

GENEVA AUDUONG

SCOTT ULRICH

editorial coordinator

KYLE SNARR

sales planners

MEG LAPPE

DOMINIQUE GAGEANT NGHI HO campaign manager

art director

deputy photo editor

JOE TORNATZKY

HENRY PHILLIPS

senior designer

staff photographer

SHERRY WANG

CHANDLER BONDURANT

GREG TATE

consumer marketing manager

CAITLYN SHAW sales marketing coordinator

AISHA LOPEZ

pacific northwest advertising director

SCOT BONDLOW southwest advertising director

associate designer

cfo

BRANDON FRANK

JUSTIN PARKHURST

HUNTER D. KELLEY

director of video

multimedia producers

ANDREW SICELOFF

BRENDEN CLARKE

coordinating producer

head of marketing

NICK CARUSO

issue 13 contributors

RIDA ABBASI ALEXA EDGERTON @alexa_letters

KASEY MARTIN

SUBSCRIBE

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CUSTOMER CARE

project manager , gear patrol studios

support@gearpatrol.com

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CAREERS

content producer , gear patrol studios

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STORE

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CORRECTIONS & REPRINTS

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WHOLESALE REQUESTS wholesale@gearpatrol.com

JULIUS TANAG @typeofguy

Gear Patrol Studios is the creative partnership arm of Gear Patrol. Select advertising in this magazine has been crafted by Gear Patrol Studios on behalf of brands to help tailor their message specifically for Gear Patrol readers. These sections are demarcated with GEAR PATROL STUDIOS. To learn more visit, studios.gearpatrol.com or reach out to us: advertising@gearpatrol.com

ISSN 2381-4241 PUBLISHED QUARTERLY PRINTED in USA by AMPER LITHO on SUSTAINABLE PAPER INDEPENDENTLY PUBLISHED IN NEW YORK 236 5TH AVE, FLOOR 8 NEW YORK, NY 10001 © 2020 GEAR PATROL, LLC

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The Guide

Freedom of choice can quickly lead to decision fatigue, a stressful condition at odds with summer vibes. But relax: this edition of The Guide is streamlined to optimize warm-weather bliss, whether it’s the best smartphone internet speeds (p. 46) or lightweight watch straps (p. 66) you’re after. Debating the merits of polarized sunglasses (p. 70) and pellet grills (pg. 72)? We can help.

You’ll also find a thirst-quenching low-cal brew (p. 52) and the perfect cooler for stashing it (p. 58). And if you just want to get away, straddle a bold new offroad bike (p. 36) or slide behind the wheel of a gorgeous customized Porsche 911 (p. 60) to leave any lingering anxiety right where it belongs: in the dust.

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F

FOUND

Nikon L35AF text by henry phillips photo by chandler bondurant

Like vinyl records and mechanical watches, disposable film cameras have won a permanent place in the zeitgeist despite (or perhaps because of) modern tech.

The reason? There’s a joy in not actually thinking too hard about photography while photographing. There is, however, a better alternative to the disposable camera: the upgraded point-and-shoot.

Point-and-shoots take the recipe perfected by disposables and add a better lens, autofocus, an improved flash and additional film choices. But how to penetrate the outrageously dense market of practically identical products? Avoid the really hyped stuff

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unless you have money to blow. There’s just no reason to spend more than $300 on a point-and-shoot, espcially if there’s no fixing it once it breaks (and they all do, eventually).

Our favorite is the Nikon L35AF, a cheapish and cheerful plastic brick from the ‘80s with an excellent 35mm f/2.8 lens, intuitive operation, good autofocus, a big, built-in flash and an ultra-satisfying shutter button. Get one from eBay for a hundred bucks, load it with your film of choice (can’t go wrong with Kodak Portra 400) and pass it around a party — they’ll turn out great.

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FAQ: 8K UHD After years of hype, 8K TVs are finally trickling onto the market. But a screen is only as good as what you can put on it. Here is everything you need to know before you consider buying one. text by tucker bowe graphic by rida abbasi

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So what is 8K, exactly?

The term 8K has long been fuzzy, but thanks to the Consumer Technology Association, which sets the rules manufacturers abide by, we now have an official definition: an 8K Ultra HD Display has a resolution of at least 7680 x 4320 pixels for 33 million active pixels total. In other words, 8K has four times the resolution of 4K, and 16 times the resolution of the HDTV.

Is there anything I can watch?

There’s not a lot! If you were to buy an 8K TV right now, you wouldn’t be able to buy an 8K cable box. Popular streaming apps — like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Hulu — are still plugging away at 4K, in part because 8K files are enormous. And the prospects for an 8K disc format are also fairly grim. However, some broadcasters, specifically those in Italy and Japan, are pushing to capture the 2020 Tokyo Olympics in 8K, and YouTube has had 8K content since 2015.

Do I need it?

What can I buy?

A whole crop of 8K TVs showed up at the CES 2020, and unlike earlier proofs of concept, these models will hit the market ... for a price. Samsung sells some of the most affordable 8K TVs sets as part of its Q900 line, but a 65-inch model still costs upward of $3,500. That’s just the beginning. LG’s jaw-dropping 8K OLED TVs come with an equally impressive price tag — they’ll set you back about 30 Gs.

Is it good for gaming?

Gaming in 4K, much less 8K, is a tricky proposition. Right now, the base versions of Sony’s PS4 and Microsoft’s Xbox One don’t have the horsepower for 4K. But by the end of 2020, if all goes as planned, we’ll see the new PS5 and Xbox Series X, both of which will support 8K. Hopefully they’ll spur on a generation of new console games that make use of that power.

No, not yet. Right now, 8K is an upgrade over what you already have, and TVs that have it can upscale HD and 4K, giving them an extra boost. But this is bleeding-edge tech, and you’d be paying a huge premium for an experience that’s yet to arrive. The only real reason to hop on board now is if you are fixing for a flex.

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Wish List 0 1 /0 6

Analogue Pocket text by tucker bowe photo by chandler bondurant

Now you’re playing with power. The Pocket, available in black or white, is the first handheld device by Analogue, a Seattle-based company that makes retro consoles for the modern era.

Consider it the Game Boy, perfected. The Pocket has a beautiful backlit display, headphone jack, SD card slot, remappable buttons, stereo speakers and a battery that charges via USB-C. There’s even an HDMI dock that you can purchase to play games on a TV, á la the Nintendo Switch.

Oh, and speaking of games: the Pocket supports cartridges from every generation of Game Boy, from the original 1989 version to the Advance. Get yourself an adapter and you can play your dusty collection of Game Gear, Neo Geo Pocket Color and Atari Lynx games, too. $20 0

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G E A R PAT R O L S T U D I O S / H Y D R O F L A S K

Hydrate with Less Weight Hydro Flask’s New Trail Series™ Is Its Most Advanced Bottle Yet On long treks, every ounce counts. That’s why Hydro Flask is lightening your load.

The brand’s Trail Series ushers in a new era in lightweight insulated bottles — it offers all of the same benefits as Hydro Flask’s original bottles in a lighter package. The engineers and designers were able to radically reduce the weight of the Trail Series without compromising the high quality and durability you have come to expect. They achieved this by thinning the 18/8 prograde stainless steel walls of the bottle to help reduce weight while maintaining durability. All the while, the TempShield® double-wall vacuum insulation keeps your hot drinks hot and cold drinks cold (for 12 and 24 hours respectively). Even the Honeycomb™ insulated cap and perforated strap

cut down on weight, shaving off considerable ounces when compared to its original series of bottles.

The 24 oz Trail Series weighs a meager 9.9 ounces. That stat may be hard to visualize, so we put it next to another object that weighs the same amount, a Slinky. And while that may be where the similarities between the two end, the dropped ounces mean you have more opportunities to pack things you wouldn’t otherwise. You can bring the Trail Series on any outdoor adventure — long or short — and know you aren’t taking a weight penalty thanks to your water bottle. So no matter if you’re going on a day hike or just want to shed a bit of weight from your commuter kit, the Hydro Flask Trail Series can be your companion.

L E A R N M O R E AT G E A R . G P/ H Y D R O F L A S K

9.9 oz Hydro Flask Trail Series Capacity: 24 oz Height: 10.2 inches Color: Obsidian Insulation: TempShieldâ„¢ Double Wall Vacuum $45

9.9 oz

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Best in Class Skip the research and go straight to what’s best. Just Get This is our never-ending, always-updated, no-nonsense roundup of the gear you need, now.

Car vacuum

Dyson V7 Car + Boat Keeping your car clean is a chore, but a necessary one. Dyson’s handheld vacuum makes it less of a burden, thanks to its powerful suction, compact design and myriad attachments.

PRICE $240

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Daypack

Osprey Packs Stratos 24 Like bigger backpacks, the Stratos 24 has a full hipbelt, load-managing straps and an attachment for trekking poles. But the pack’s standout is its wildly comfortable mesh back panel for improved ventilation on the trail.

PRICE $140

Cold brew coffee maker

Oxo Brew Compact Cold Brew Coffee Maker Making cold brew shouldn’t be hard. Oxo’s hardware is simple and small, but it doesn’t skimp on features — such as a perforated “rainmaker” top that ensures beans are evenly saturated and effectively bloomed.

PRICE $30

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Cell phone holder

WeatherTech CupFone with Extension If you’re going to use Google Maps while driving, do it safely. This holder keeps your device below the windshield (so it doesn’t distract you from the road) and away from the vents (so it doesn’t cook or freeze).

PRICE $45

Bluetooth speaker

Ultimate Ears Boom 3 Bluetooth speakers are a dime a dozen but this is the only one you need. It’s waterproof, borderline indestructible and party-grade loud. A physical play button — something weirdly absent from earlier generations of the Boom — is just the cherry on top.

PRICE $150

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Dopp kit

Filson Rugged Twill Travel Kit

Filson’s heavy-duty Dopp kit boasts the same tough fabric, bridle leather and rust-proof hardware as its famed luggage. Backed by a lifetime guarantee, it will carry your toiletries just fine.

PRICE $125

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Water bottle

Hydro Flask 21 oz Standard Mouth This lightweight 21-ounce vessel combines pro-grade stainless steel and double-walled vacuum insulation to ensure your beverages stay cold — or hot — for hours.

PRICE $33

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Hiking socks

Darn Tough Hiker Micro Crew Cushion Darn Tough’s flagship hiking sock comes with a lifetime warranty, but you’ll have to walk thousands of miles of trails before needing it. Beyond durability, the mostly merino knit is comfy, warm when it needs to be and pleasantly odor-resistant.

PRICE $23

Meat thermometer

Thermoworks Thermapen Mk4 The Mk4 is the preferred thermometer for chefs and pitmasters because it’s a workhorse, not because it’s fancy. The device combines a self-rotating display, industry-leading accuracy and lightning-quick temperature reads into a hard-wearing, easy-to-use package.

PRICE $99

Workout headphones

Jaybird Vista Like Beats’s Powerbeats Pro headphones, Jaybird’s take on true wireless sounds great, has excellent battery life and stands up to sweat and grime. The main difference: its companion charging case will actually fit in your pocket.

PRICE $180

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First mechanical watch

Swatch Sistem51 Swatch’s Sistem51 is a series of automatic watches that wind themselves through the motion of your wrist — no batteries required. They’re fun, affordable and come in a bunch of different colors.

PRICE $150+

Radar detector

Escort MAX360C Laser Radar Detector In the age of Waze, a radar detector may seem unnecessary, but no crowd-sourced app can compete with the cop-detecting powers of this Escort. Too pricey? Think of it this way: if it saves you from one ticket, it’s nearly paid for itself.

PRICE $650

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Flip-flops

Rainbow Sandals Single Layer Premier Leather with Arch Support Rainbow Sandals’s flagship flip-flops came out in 1974. They’re still around, and for good reason: triple-glued soles with comfy arch support, premium top-grain nubuck leather and durable double stitching.

PRICE $54

Power bank

Mophie Powerstation Plus Mini A lot of power and a low profile make this one of the best power banks you can buy, but the attached charging cable shoots it to the top of our list. No need to carry (or lose) an extra cable!

Throw one in your backpack or carry-on.

PRICE $60

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Off-Road Warriors The gravel biking scene has exploded in recent years. And now that brands are catching up, it’s easier than ever to join this grassroots peloton. text by steve mazzucchi p h o t o s b y i a n m at t e s o n

Buzzards. Visions of those airborne jackals fill my helmeted head as I navigate Arizona’s cactus-packed McDowell Sonoran Conservancy, tailing a couple dozen riders ripping a 50-mile day over alternately dusty, sandy and rocky trails. We’re all here for Gravel Camp, an annual summit of media, brands and gravel-event organizers. And while I’m easily the greenest member of the group, I’m quickly grasping the appeal of cycling’s fastest-growing segment.

Tackling up-and-down terrain on rugged, unsuspended sets of wheels, gravel biking combines road cycling’s speed and mountain biking’s thrills, minus the dangers inherent

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in those pursuits — think distracted drivers and unforgiving trees.

The sport’s key event, the Dirty Kanza in Emporia, Kansas, got rolling in 2006 with just 36 participants. It now boasts seven sub-categories; around 3,000 riders for the main event, a 200-mile endurance race called the Garmin DK200; and as many as 12,000 finish-line fans, says Kristi Mohn, one of its chief organizers. Jayson O’Mahoney, who runs the publication Gravel Cyclist, estimates the U.S. will host more than 500 gravel events in 2020.

One of those will be the inaugural Big Sugar in Bentonville, Arkansas, which sold

Evil’s new gravel bike is quite a departure for the brand, hence its moniker, The Chamois Hagar.

“It’s a joke,” says COO Jason Moeschler. “No one would believe we’re making a bike like this.”

out its 800 participant slots less than five minutes after registration opened last fall.

Meanwhile, an anecdotal study by To Be Determined Journal calculates that half of first-time participants in Vermont’s Raputitsa Spring Classic will swap road racing for gravel racing within a year.

What’s driving all this action? Along with the sense that gravel is safer than its road and mountain brethren, there are three major factors.

One is organization. While gravel biking is not necessarily new — “In the original Tour de France, they were riding on dirt roads,” notes mountain bike legend Rebecca Rusch, who has hosted her own gravel event, Rebecca’s Private Idaho, since 2013 — it has come a long way in the past 15 years.

“None of us knew what we were getting into, what bike to ride,” recalls MTBR and Road Bike Review editorial director Josh Patterson, who finished third in the very first

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“None of us knew what we were getting into, what bike to ride.

We didn’t know how to gravel.

And now it’s down to a science.”

Dirty Kanza, astride a steel-framed Surly Cross-Check. “We didn’t know how to gravel, at least not for two hundred miles. And now it’s down to a science: the gear, but also the events themselves.”

A second key component is inclusivity. In contrast to the upturned noses one can encounter in the road cycling world, the gravel community welcomes new riders with open arms, literally. “We’re turning the spectator into the main event,” says the director of Stillwater, Oklahoma’s Mid South, Bobby Wintle, who hugs every single person who crosses the finish line.

That sentiment extends even to the terrain.

Gravel riding has become hugely popular in the Midwest and South in part because you don’t need immaculate roads, a bustling metropolis or majestic mountains to saddle up for it. Wintle could be speaking for many areas when he says of Stillwater: “Our roads are sick, our town is small, we’re two miles from dirt in every direction.” Making use of the land you have is part and parcel of the gravel scene.

And perhaps the biggest element of late?

Brand buy-in. A decade ago, the starting lines of gravel events were cluttered with Frankenbikes — weird, DIY-ed fusions of various road and mountain bike technologies. These days, companies big and small have moved beyond slapping “gravel” on existing products to engineering purpose-built items to meet customer demand. For months now, we’ve been testing true gravel rides such as the Allied Able, Ritte Satyr and Specialized

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With more than 200 miles of flowy trails, rocky climbs, thrilling descents ... and endless cacti, Scottsdale, Arizona’s McDowell Sonoran Conservancy is a gravel cyclist’s dream.

Race for Yourself Want to try your legs at gravel biking?

Check out these events across the country.

Mid South

Think you’re tough? Oklahoma’s spring staple includes the Mid-South Double, which combines a 50K run and 100-mile ride. midsouthgravel.com

Dirty Kanza

Gravel racing’s crown jewel careens through Kansas’s surprisingly beautiful Flint Hills for the 15th time this May. dirtykanza.com

SBT Gravel

This second-year summer showdown in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, has already garnered rave reviews for its high-quality aid stations and overall rider TLC. sbtgrvl.com

Rebecca’s Private Idaho

With events for all ages and a range of distances (from the 20-mile Tater Tot to the four-day, 196mile Queen’s Stage Race), this fall festival has something for everyone. rebeccasprivateidaho.com

Peacham Fall Fondo

Hosted by former road racer Ian Boswell, this 50-miler serves a Vermont staple, apple pie with cheddar, at the midway point. peachamfallfondo.com

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In contrast to the upturned noses one can encounter in the road cycling world, the gravel community welcomes new riders with open arms, literally.

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Turbo Creo SL Expert EVO (an e-gravel bike, of all things).

“It took a long time for the industry to catch up,” says Neil Shirley, influence marketing manager for ENVE Composites. “And then products became available, and it just snowballed. They started feeding into each other.”

While most of the development has come from the road cycling side, mountain bike brands want in on the action. Case in point: Evil Bikes’s funky new Chamois Hagar — complete with gravel-specific ENVE handlebars, fork and wheels — which I’ve come to Gravel Camp to ride. Featuring mountain bike geometry, a dropper post, fat 700x50c tires, a 1x12 drivetrain, drop bars and no shocks, it looks like almost nothing else out there — and rides roughshod over pretty much everything I encounter.

Evil’s COO, former mountain bike racer Jason Moeschler, lobbied hard for the bike’s creation. Now hooked on gravel riding himself, he believes the trend is inexorable.

“When you’ve got a parts maker as big as Shimano making a gravel-specific component group,” he observes, referencing the Japanese Giant’s GRX line, “that means there’s something there.”

And although it’s still somewhat under the radar, the sport is already hitting a crossroads. The events arm of mega-gym brand Life Time is buying up iconic races like Utah’s Crusher in the Tushar and Dirty Kanza, and Tour de France riders like Peter Stetina and Ian Boswell are trading in their road slicks for beefy gravel tires.

Even as corporations and pro athletes are migrating over, however, gravel cycling’s charms remain. “I’m not in it for the money,” Stetina points out. “This was a move for fun.

I’m there just like the other thirty-five hundred people at Dirty Kanza to have a damn good time.”

Assuming that ethos sticks around, even as gravel’s popularity grows, the buzzards won’t start circling anytime soon.

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Wish List 02 /0 6

Merz b. Schwanen Loopwheeled Merino Wool T-Shirt text by gerald ortiz photo by chandler bondurant

A white t-shirt on our Wish List? Yep. Since restoring the last loopwheeling machines in existence, Germany’s Merz b. Schwanen has been turning out tees and sweatshirts made of an impressively dense fabric that’s tediously knit without any pesky side seams — a detail connoisseurs prize for durability and comfort.

But this isn’t your run-of-the-mill loopwheeled tee, even by Merz’s standards. It uses premium merino wool from Tasmanian sheep. The result: a tee that’s soft, non-itchy and versatile; and because merino wool regulates body temperature, you can wear it through the winter as a base layer and into the warmer months, too.

All the work that goes into crafting this not-so-basic tee means its price is equivalent to dozens of Hanes tees. But would you rather have one great tee or an entire flock that leaves you counting sheep? $ 1 65

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R

THE REVIEW

5G text by eric limer photos by chandler bondurant

The next generation of wireless internet promises to be the biggest change to mobile computing since the smartphone.

But is it ready for prime time?

On paper, 5G will make your jaw drop. Its highest speeds beat most home broadband connections by orders of magnitude. With it, YouTube videos load in a snap, entire seasons of TV download in seconds. More crucial than any anecdote or benchmark, however, is the answer to a simple question: How will this technology change the way I live my life?

After spending some time surfing 5G’s futuristic airwaves humming with hype, I can tell you with firsthand knowledge: it probably won’t. At least not yet.

Officially, in its broadest definition, 5G stands for fifth-generation cellular wireless.

It’s the successor to 4G and a cousin to LTE. New phones will support it and older phones will not. As far as the marketers are concerned, 5G is synonymous with speed.

But under the hood, 5G is a digital chimera — a marriage of two different technological means working towards a similar end.

One half, known colloquially as “sub-6,” is quickly blanketing the nation. In large part a software upgrade, this flavor of 5G operates

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on the same general airwaves your phone currently uses and shares the same general characteristics, spreading far and wide from tall, distant towers that combine to cover a large area.

The other half, often called “millimeter wave,” is the sexy bit. Utilizing extremely high-frequency airwaves never widely used by mobile devices before, it delivers blistering speeds of 1,000 megabits per second or higher. But it comes with significant downsides: these waves don’t travel far; they’re easily blocked by walls, buses and trees; and for now, they’re only pumped out of little black antennas on top of streetlights in a handful of cities across the country.

When 3G and 4G rolled out, they were a revelation because they offered access to something cable connections had created years before: an internet built for broadband. In 2020, 5G is pushing unprecedented speed, so the cart is leading the horse. When I booted up my 5G phone, I excitedly benchmarked its speed, downloaded a few large

files … then went about my day as faster speeds hummed imperceptibly in the background. Millimeter wave, which packs almost all of 5G’s significant punch, is much more like Wi-Fi than the all-encompassing “mobile” networks we’re accustomed to. They act as a series of high-speed islands you need to seek out and find reason to stand in.

In my time testing 5G around New York — primarily with a Samsung Galaxy Note 10+ on AT&T’s network — my experience was almost entirely with sub-6, as your first dabbles with 5G will be, too. That initial test revealed that 5G is still impressive … if not life-altering or consistent.

My daily trek home from midtown Manhattan to the west side of the Hudson River weaves through the heart of one 5G’s beachheads in New York City. With my eyes glued to the signal icon on my phone’s status bar (and admittedly little regard for my own safety), I’d catch the signal flicker between 5G and LTE a dozen or more times. On trips using my phone like a normal human being

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For now, 5G is a fabulous foundation still waiting for the house to be built on top. would — reading Twitter, checking Instagram, streaming music, watching the occasional YouTube video — I never once noticed any change in performance the way I do when, on the bus home along rural stretches to my parents’ house in upstate New York, I instantly detect the occasional downtick to 3G load times and the relief of return to LTE. I noticed 5G most when I was explicitly running the numbers: standing on the corner of 5th Avenue and 28th Street in the bustle of Manhattan, holding two phones for comparison and watching a Netflix video load slightly faster on the futuristic network. Quantitative

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metrics were more definitive: running several speed tests in a row while sitting in the Lincoln Tunnel or walking along the edge of the Hudson River, the advantage for 5G made itself plenty clear in the numbers. But aside from edge-use cases like downloading entire discographies, multiple seasons of a television series or high-definition mobile games (all of which will absolutely demolish your data cap if you have one), the difference between 20 megabits of download speed and 200 is like the difference between a Porsche 911 and a V12 Ferrari. One’s faster than the other, but most people would never notice.

5G Wireless Maximum Speeds: 100x faster than LTE HD Movie Download Time: 5 seconds or less Networks: AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon

I can imagine a future where this is no longer true — and so can carriers and tech companies. It’s a world where airports are blanketed with millimeter-wave radio waves as a matter of course and you can seek out a hotspot to download four gigabytes of video before you take off, or stream 4K PC-grade video games to your phone through a service like Google Stadia or Microsoft Project xCloud. Or, looking even further down the road, loading a terabyte of augmented reality apps onto your iGlasses. But we aren’t there yet. And the arrival of robust 5G doesn’t bring us there; it just sets the stage.

In the meantime, 5G charges on. Samsung’s new flagship S20 is among the first crop of phones to support both flavors of the technology by default (previous handsets focused on one or the other, and charged a premium for the privilege). There’s a good chance Apple’s next iPhones will as well.

Carriers are beginning to roll out 5G data plans using a variety of strategies, from offering 5G access for free on existing unlimited plans to offering it at a monthly premium.

All, of course, are designed in part to lure you off any particularly affordable plan you may have found yourself grandfathered into.

My advice for the meantime? Resist the 5G temptation, so long as you have no particular use in mind. Its most impressive advantages are, for now, few and far between.

Once superfast millimeter wave blankets public spaces as a matter of course and data caps inflate to allow monstrously huge files, the calculus will assuredly change. For now, however, 5G is a fabulous foundation still waiting for the house to be built on top.

While 5G’s potential is undeniable, the current coverage situation leaves a bit to be desired. Sometimes your connection is just going to be mediocre.

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Every year, thousands of new products pass through the doors at Gear Patrol HQ. Here’s a look at the latest running the gauntlet.

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PATAGO N IA STO RM RACER JACKET

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B E L L’S B REWE RY LI GH T H EART ED ALE

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2020 SUBA RU OUT BACK TOU R I NG XT

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V E IL A N C E CA M BR E PANT

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M ACBO O K P RO 16 - I NCH

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text by ta n n e r b o w d e n tucker bowe r ya n b r o w e r will sabel courtney gerald ortiz

photos by chandler bondurant henry phillips

The centerpiece of Patagonia’s most thoughtful running kit to date, High Endurance, is a fitted weatherproof pullover that leaves space to breathe.

Dual diagonal zippers provide adjustable breathability and access to a hydration vest, which is also offered as part of the collection (or you can use your own). The zippers and three-layer construction add up to a lightweight last-ditch layer that maximizes weather protection while minimizing annoying jacket flapping.

Patagonia made the Storm Racer to work with the rest of its new High Endurance running collection, not as an everyday rain layer. Its lone pocket — in the hood — is for stuffing and storage. If your runs don’t take you down long trails or far from shelter, the Storm Racer might be more jacket than you need.

$249

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Bell’s revered Two Hearted Ale is balanced but boozy. Now, its slimmed-down sibling wants to save you from the tasteless macrobrewed light beers of the world.

If you’re skeptical of light beers, rest assured.

Light Hearted Ale packs tropical hop notes with a dry, refreshing aftertaste. In other words, you’d never know it had just 110 calories and nine grams of carbs.

$10+ per six-pack

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The nutritional numbers are impressively low, but calorie counters can find other beers with slimmer figures. And while Light Hearted is indeed delicious, it doesn’t taste much like the Two Hearted Ale you know and love.

It may look familiar, but the latest edition of the lifted all-wheel-drive wagon that pioneered the crossover concept 25 years ago is practically all new.

Most vehicles fail at combining the best of car and SUV, but the Outback packs as much space and off-road capability as many sport-utes without the fuel economy pain. The top-shelf Touring’s interior is cushier than many cars costing twice as much, and the iPad-sized vertical touchscreen is a delightful high-tech accent.

$39,695+

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If you consider Subies playful driver’s cars, the Outback’s dynamics will disappoint; even with the bigger turbocharged engine of the XT version, it drives more like a Buick than a rally ride. And while Subaru’s commitment to safety is applause-worthy, the overprotective active safety features are a buzzkill.

The first-ever denim product from Arc’teryx’s style-centric offshoot boasts high durability without weighing you down.

These look, feel and fade just like really nice Japanese denim. But unlike more traditional jeans, the Cambre Pant features high-tech 3D patterning, ergonomic seams, gussets and roomy pockets — all without adding bulk.

The futuristic fabric mimics the real deal but traditionalists won’t be fans. Performance-wear design, polyester material and the lack of an indigo colorway may be turn-offs for those who favor a classic five-pocket blue jean.

$350

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Apple’s latest computer doesn’t just feature one of its biggest laptop screens ever but a number of critical upgrades over previous generations of the MacBook Pro.

The 16-inch addresses every problem with previous MacBook Pros, including its infamously temperamental butterfly keyboard; the new one is clickier and has a physical Escape key. The laptop also boasts a brilliant stereo speaker system to go along with its big, beautiful display.

$2,399+

It’s expensive, and the combination of size and power, however notable, may be overkill for most users. There’s also very little that feels innovative; ultimately, Apple chose not to bring Face ID to the MacBook Pro like many people were expecting.

Wish List 03/0 6

Yeti V Series t e x t b y ta n n e r b o w d e n photo by chandler bondurant

If Yeti has done one thing right in its 14-year run, it’s to ensure that its coolers — along with everything else it makes — are built like bank vaults. Improbable durability, after all, was the driving desire that led brothers Roy and Ryan Seiders to found the company in the first place. The pair sought a cooler that could double as a sturdy casting platform for fishing.

The second thing they’ve done right is to make sure we all know it. A reputation like that helps when the company’s latest ice chest, a 55-quart behemoth Yeti claims to be its most capable yet, comes with an $800 price tag. Unlike the original Tundra, which Yeti has tinkered with but left largely unchanged, the V Series opts for vacuum-insulated stainless steel instead of rotomolded plastic.

There’s a reason why we haven’t seen a vacuum-insulated cooler until now: the back-end engineering required to make one and the upfront cost to purchase it are equally high. But if you have the stomach for it, you’ll have a Yeti that not only holds more ice per square inch than the Tundra but keeps it longer, too. And the retro stainless-steel paneling will wear appropriately over the years in a way that plastic just can’t match. $ 80 0

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The quality of Singer’s work is practically unparalleled, even in the world of six-figure cars. Whether it’s made of leather, metal, carbon fiber or something else, every piece of this car comes together with an impeccable fit and finish even our pictures can’t truly capture.

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Singer Vehicle Design Ten years and some 150 customized Porsche 911s later, this California outfit has come to represent the pinnacle of automotive restoration and modification.­­ text by will sabel courtney photo by chandler bondurant

A little more than a decade ago, “Singer” didn’t mean much to gearheads. The nerdiest among them might have known it as the surname of a talented Porsche engineer whose friends called him Norbert, but generally speaking, it brought to mind sewing machines, not speed machines. Accelerate to 2020, though, and “Singer” has become shorthand for the créme de la créme of automotive restoration and modification.

You can thank Singer Vehicle Design founder Rob Dickinson for that.

“We’re fascinated by making something as good as it can be,” Dickinson says. “I think the fact that we’ve watched this idea that began in the corner of a workshop ten years ago find a home across the world is testament to the importance of that mission.”

Singer Vehicle Design rebuilds and restores — or, as Dickinson puts it, “reimagines” — Porsche 911s. While the company keeps

many specifics close to the vest, it’s willing to admit that it’s worked on about 150 vehicles since 2009. Every Singer is whipped up from an example of the generation of Porsche 911 known as the 964, manufactured from 1989 to 1994. While every Singer-customized car is still legally (and clearly) a Porsche, each one shares about as many pieces with its original self as the Six Million Dollar Man. Once an owner brings his or her old Porsche 964 to the company’s California shop, it’s then stripped down to its bones and remade piece by piece with upgraded components.

The body panels are subbed for carbon fiber ones; the trim nickel-plated; the vinyl dash reupholstered in woven leather that’s designed to pay homage to an original Porsche pattern. Even the engine is yanked loose and transformed into one of Singer’s blueprinted masterpieces, ranging from 3.8 to 4.0 liters and delivering up to 390 hp. From start to

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It’s stripped down to its bones, then remade piece by piece with the best possible versions imaginable of every component.

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finish, a restoration takes about two years to complete. The company’s motto is “everything is important,” and it’s no empty slogan.

Given the time, cost and depth of personalization that goes into making each Singer-customized Porsche 911, Dickinson and his team welcome client feedback throughout the process. “The relationship Singer has with their customers is the most special relationship of a high-end brand,” Singer client Drew Coblitz says. Singer enables soon-to-be-owners to work closely with the

company as the car progresses, making them feel more like proud parents than customers. “The process [of working] with [Singer’s employees] wound up being almost as much fun as when the car [was] finished,” Coblitz adds.

Almost being the operative word. Coblitz’s dark blue Porsche, which he describes as “the café racer version” of a Singer-modded car, was finished last year, complete with custom dark nickel trim and fog lamps for spotting the deer that dot the roads where

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p h o t o s b y l a rr y c h e n / s i n g e r v e h i c l e d e s i g n

he lives outside Philadelphia. A ride down those roads demonstrated not just how meticulously built the company’s modified 911s are, but how engaging they are to drive; they respond with a directness and connection to the occupants that few cars — new or old — can match.

And while its roots may lie with cars of the past, Singer’s future is poised to be bright.

The company has already expanded into watchmaking, and is working with renowned racing supplier Williams on a new varietal of customized Porsche 911 that’s lighter, faster and more advanced than the machines Singer has been rehabbing for the last 10 years.

“The Singer philosophy is to distill the essential elements of an experience like driving — what makes a car deliver an emotional connection, whether it’s visually or dynamically,” Dickinson says. “Our work in the future will be built on insisting that all these elements are recognized and preserved, so that truly engaging, jewel-like machines are around for a long time yet.”

Turning a regular Porsche 911 into one of Singer’s custom creations is a time-consu ming process, but it’s a labor of love for the SVD team. From rendering the body’s curves in carbon fiber to stripping down and rebuilding the iconic boxer-six engine, every task is conducted with the care and devotion you’d expect from a company that swears by the phrase “Everything Is Important.”

Want to see one of Singer’s restorations in action?

Check out our video at gear.gp/singer

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Summer Straps When the mercury rises, it’s time to ditch that thick leather watch strap in favor of something light that deals well with sweat and water. Here are four classic options. text by oren hartov photos by chandler bondurant

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Maratac Zulu An improved version of the classic British Ministry of Defense G10 specification watch strap, Maratac’s Mil-Nato Band features ultrasonically welded, stitched nylon webbing available in three sizes and five colors. Kit out your favorite tool watch on the cheap. $17

Tropic Dive Strap Perhaps the platonic ideal of the rubber dive strap, the Tropic shipped with many iconic watches in the ‘60s and ‘70s. Made of waterproof, hypoallergenic vulcanized rubber with stainless steel buckles, these perforated straps don’t attract dust or fade from UV exposure. $79

Crown & Buckle Melange Perlon Based on a vintage design woven from wide nylon strands, Crown & Buckle’s Melange Perlon straps are thin, breathable and easily adjustable. Featuring steel buckles and ultrasonic welding, they’re comfortable and look great on vintage and new watches alike. $16

Bulang & Sons Beads of Rice Bracelet Popular in the first half of the 20th century, “beads of rice” bracelets were almost de rigeur when wearing high-end watches from the likes of Rolex or Patek Philippe. This modern example from Bulang & Sons is the perfect alternative to a fine leather strap. ~$167

The Tool You Need Worn & Wound’s Strap-Changing MultiTool ($30) is a must-have accessory to any watch collection. Featuring a unique design, it includes a poker, fork and two flathead screwdriver bits. Use it to quickly change straps, pop bezels off, adjust bracelet links and more.

Wish List 04 /0 6

Phase One XT text by henry phillips photo by phase one

What happens when Phase One, the Danish camera company making the best professional studio cameras in the world, decides to make a travel camera? Well, first, they remove the autofocus. Then they remove the viewfinder. Then they raise the price.

What Phase One has done with its new XT field camera is to prioritize the qualities that make its cameras absolutely superlative and remove anything that gets in the way of image quality. That means there are really only three core components to the XT: insanely highend Rodenstock lenses, an advanced electronic carbon-fiber leaf shutter (drawn from their aerial photography work), and Phase One’s tried and true (and huge) IQ4 digital sensor. The sum of it all is the platonic ideal of a landscape camera, capable of capturing the highest-quality digital image on the planet. $56 , 9 9 0

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C

COUNTERPOINT

Throwing Shade No, polarized sunglasses aren’t the end all, be all outdoor eyewear solution. Here’s why. text by john zientek photo by chandler bondurant

Most people think the best shades come polarized. They are, in fact, more expensive than normal sunglasses. But are they inherently better? Not at all.

“Polarized lenses are great for intense sunny days, the same way it’s great to wear a Gore-Tex coat on a wet winter day,” says Julia Gogosha, founder of independent Los Angeles boutique Gogosha Optique. The technology, a thin film sandwiched between two lens wafers, was developed in the 1930s and channels light in a way that reduces the eye fatigue that triggers headaches.

But just as you’re not always doing battle with cold and rain, you’re not always under a glaring sun, floating down a river or carving up a mountain. For daily wear, turn to something more versatile and, in many cases, more affordable: tinted shades.

Like their polarized counterparts, tinted lenses are treated to block UV rays from the sun. They just omit an extra step in the manufacturing process, meaning companies don’t have to sacrifice frame and lens quality to hit a more comfortable price point.

There’s another, arguably bigger advantage beyond value. Rather than limiting options to the polarized standard gray, brown and green, good old-fashioned tinted shades give you the option of virtually “every chromatic possibility you can see,” says Gogosha.

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How you use the shades, of course, should dictate the color and saturation. “Think of it like how you would choose a band for a watch or how you use laces for a shoe,” Gogogsha says. “Are you trying to use it instead of a sunglass or do you want it more as a layering accessory?”

Early adopters of lighter shades — actors, directors, athletes and musicians among them — lean on them to reduce saturation and quickly turn the world down; or, as Gogosha puts it, to act as “hangover helpers.” Light lenses serve a function for the rest of us, too. “[People who] travel a lot, they’re going in and out of places all the time. They have very late nights,” Gogosha says. “There’s a lifestyle around just wanting to have something that you don’t have to take on and off all the time and keep track of.”

While style can inform usage, and vise versa, the most important aspect of tinted lenses is how you feel when you look through them.

“Certain colors will evoke emotion or they’ll evoke mood or they’ll help calm or they can excite,” Gogosha says. “Colors do things.”

Colored lenses aren’t for everyone, but what product is? Unless your day-to-day absolutely demands a dark-colored polarized lens, it’s high time to consider something that blends functionality and style.

top to bottom

Moscot Lemtosh, $360 Akila Legacy, $95 Jacques Marie Mage Sturges, $625

Which Grill Should You Buy? New technologies and a willingness to break from tradition have resulted in more grill possibilities than ever. What was once a simple task is no longer.

Which grill is right for you? We’re here to help. text by will price

PSA: Most apartments ban live fire grilling.

How do you feel about a grill that might scratch the itch but can’t really grill?

I DON’T ACTUALLY HAVE A BACKYARD

THE STOVE IN MY APARTMENT BLOWS

Sorry, what?

START

Why do you want a grill?

I’M WORKING ON MY SUMMER AESTHETIC

HERE

GRILLING SOUNDS FUN

I JUST WANT ONE, OKAY?

YES

STEAKS, VEGGIES, BURGERS

Are you a control freak?

NO

Got it. What do you want to cook?

RIBS, BRISKET, PULLED PORK

DON’T PUT ME IN A CORNER, MAN

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PSA: no grill excels at grilling and smoking but some can be outfitted to do both

SURE?

SIGH

ELECTRIC

BIGGER

Electric grills are the black sheep of the grill world. They have limited searing power and can’t smoke meat, but they’re compact, affordable and balcony-friendly.

One We Like: Weber Q1400 Electric, $269

What kind of budget?

SMALLER

Gas grills can do it all. Just be ready to drop some dough for one that highlights the category’s strengths: quick heat-up times, strong searing power and easy maintenance.

One We Like: Weber Genesis II E-310, $749

I JUST WANT TO MAKE HOTDOGS AND HAMBURGERS FOR FRIENDS

NOT TOO BAD

How controlling?

GAS

DON’T BUY A GRILL

YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW

CHARCOAL VERY

Warning: this choice will cost you high-heat soaring power.

WHEN I FEEL LIKE IT

How often are you really going to grill?

I LIVE FOR THIS SHIT

The purist’s choice. Charcoal grills can smoke and sear, and good ones come cheap — but you pay for it in time and maintenance. Get one if you plan to grill just once or twice a month.

One We Like: PK Grill & Smoker, $370

PELLET

Modern pellet grills offer smart controls and can smoke ribs with the best of them, but most don’t reach temperatures high enough to sear a steak without overcooking it. Plus, they’re not cheap.

One We Like: Traeger Ironwood 650, $1,200

Wish List 05/0 6

Audi RS6 Avant text by tyler duffy photo by audi

If some cars get labeled as forbidden fruit, the Audi RS6 Avant is forbidden ambrosia. It’s the pinnacle of Audi four-door performance and the company’s answer to the BMW M5 and the Mercedes-AMG E63. It’s also the best of all body styles, the station wagon. You just couldn’t get one in America … until now.

Entering its fourth generation, the RS6 Avant has finally arrived in the U.S. And its spec sheet will have you salivating. The 4.0-liter twin-turbo V8 delivers 592 horsepower and 590 lb-ft of torque. The RS6 Avant can accelerate 0–62 mph in just 3.6 seconds and reach a limited top speed of 155 mph.

Angry, fire-breathing performance is only one of the RS6 Avant’s virtues. It’s also a practical, five-seat family cruiser with Audi’s outstanding quattro all-wheel-drive and about the same cargo capacity as a 2020 Ford Escape. The RS6 is a bonafide supercar that can fit seamlessly into that dad life — assuming, of course, that dad has an extra $100,000 kicking around. $ 1 1 2 ,745

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Curb Your Screen Addiction text by tucker bowe i l l u s t r at i o n s b y e m m a n u e l p o l a n c o

How much time do you waste staring at your smartphone each day? One hour? Maybe two?

Even more? Tech companies have become increasingly aware that they need to help curb screen addiction before we liquify our brains. With the built-in measures to stem these gadgets’ addictive nature, and some committed mindfulness on your part, it is possible to start breaking free in time for nice summer weather.

Here’s some help.

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LEVEL 01

Identify Your Hot Spots Pretty much every modern smartphone comes with a tool to help you look at its screen less. On the iPhone, it’s called Screen Time. On Android, it’s Digital Wellbeing.

These apps deliver stats about your smartphone usage so you can stare your bad behavior in the face.

ATTACK YOUR WORST HABITS What is the worst offender in your screen time stats? Instagram? YouTube? Both Screen Time and Digital Wellbeing can set daily time limits for specific apps. Tackle your worst offenders and turn down the max time allowed bit by bit every day until it hurts — then keep going.

CONSIDER A BLACKOUT With features like Downtime (iOS) and Focus Mode (Android), you can set blocks of time where certain apps won’t work at all. Schedule daily blackouts — maybe first thing in the morning or right before bed — and plan an alternative activity instead.

Books are neat!

CRACK DOWN ON THE COMPUTER If a laptop is your primary problem screen, free browser extensions can help rein in the internet. RescueTime (Free) tracks your browsing habits and calls out the most distracting trouble spots. StayFocusd (Free) lets you limit your time on certain sites just like you can limit apps on your phone.

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LEVEL 02

Set Up Bigger Speed Bumps Whether your biggest weakness is inhaling Instagram or feasting on Facebook, the easiest way to curb your typical timesuck is to make sure you never get started in the first place. By adding obstacles between you and your vices, you give yourself a crucial moment to stop, think and change your mind.

LEAN INTO THE LOCKSCREEN

LOG ALL THE WAY OUT

PREVENT THE PUSHING

Do you unlock your phone with a fingerprint scanner? Facial recognition? Turn it off. Set yourself a PIN — a long one, too. For hardmode, consider an arduous password. This will make you think twice about diving into cyberspace just because you have 15 spare seconds.

Muscle memory may take you to your most troublesome app before you know what’s happened, but logging out will help you hit the brakes. If you don’t have two-factor authentication enabled, turn it on for a double dose of security and login pain.

Notifications don’t just keep you up to date; they also drag you kicking and screaming back into the app you just escaped from.

Disabling notifications from ancillary apps lets you engage with them on your own terms.

LEVEL 03

Bring Out the Big Guns The most drastic solution to a serious tech dependency may just be a little more tech. In the last few years, a new breed of hardware has emerged to help you disconnect when you can’t do it on your own.

GET A ROUTER THAT WILL TAKE YOU OFFLINE

TREAT YOURSELF TO A DOWNGRADE

Scalable mesh Wi-Fi systems were designed to spread the internet to every corner of your house. But they also help you shut it off.

Nest Wifi ($149+) and Eero ($99+), two of the most popular systems, let you schedule times to turn Wi-Fi off entirely or block certain sites through a smartphone app.

We live in a world of folding phones and edge-to-edge screens but dumb phones still exist! The Light Phone II ($350), with an e-ink screen, does messages and calls but will never support social media. Meanwhile, modern flip phones like the Alcatel Go Flip ($90) are an affordable way to productively limit your horizons.

GET A LITERAL LOCKBOX It may feel silly to drop your phone in a timed, locking kitchen container like the kSafe Mini ($49), but it will tear you away from Twitter.

Yes, you could probably rip it out, but the only thing worse than feeling like a toddler in timeout is knowing you couldn’t resist temptation.

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left to right

Claus Porto Le Parfum

19-69 Kasbah

If you value quality and design, then welcome to the cult of Portuguese skincare brand Claus Porto.

This eau de parfum transports you to the treelined Douro River in Porto, granting you a perfect Portuguese summer any day of the year.

For each of its fragrances, Sweden-based 19-69 finds cultural influence across space and time.

Take its Marrakesh-inspired Kasbah, a reimagination of the ‘60s and ‘70s party scene where Mick Jagger and Yves Saint Laurent mingled with other jet-setting guests.

key notes

Bergamot, green fig, cedarwood, frankincense $230

key notes

White honey, amber, sandalwood, sweet orange $175

Singular Scents t e x t b y a d a m h u r ly photos by chandler bondurant

Walk up to the fragrance counter in your nearest department store. What do you find? Big-name, steeply priced labels and fast-fashion, low-grade eau de toilettes. But somewhere between those poles, indie-label perfumers are creating the most inspired, exciting scents in the game.

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Maison Louis Marie No. 04 Bois de Balincourt Belgian perfumer Marie du Petit Thouars carries the torch lit by her ancestor, the explorer and botanist Louis Marie Aubert du Petit Thouars.

This perfume oil is among her best potions, combining woody and spicy notes, with a broody, magnetic pull. key notes

Coqui Coqui Tabaco

Arquiste Misfit

Yucatan-based Coqui Coqui embodies world-class hospitality: a collection of boutique hotels, homegoods stores, tea shops and perfumeries together create a multidimensional brand — one you’ll be proud to rep with this lineup of minimal-ingredient scents. Start with Tabaco, built around that single smoky note.

Mexican-born perfumer Carlos Huber is both an architect and storyteller with his scents. His latest release, Misfit, is built around patchouli, a note that was representative of high taste in 18th- and 19th-century Scotland and France.

key note

Sandalwood, cedarwood, nutmeg, cinnamon

Tobacco

$57

$125

key notes

Patchouli, French lavender, amber, balsam $195

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Wish List 0 6/0 6

A. Lange & Söhne Odysseus text by zen love photo by chandler bondurant

Watches are made to be worn, so it’s a shame when some seem almost too nice for an occasion — a quality that describes many of A. Lange & Söhne’s incredibly refined timepieces of precious metals and leather that never make it to the beach or bar. To rectify the problem, the brand recently expanded upon its established repertoire with the casually intentioned Odysseus.

The watch has a steel case and bracelet, which is lighter and less scratch-prone than its gold counterparts. It can also go $28 , 800

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swimming, boasting 100 meters of water resistance. Together with a solid automatic movement and pragmatic day and date displays, its qualities suggest the Odysseus is truly meant for everyday wear.

Don’t be shocked that a steel watch costs about the same as a gold one: you’re paying for the same extensive craftsmanship that goes into every Lange watch and that is what places the brand in the top strata of watchmaking. Only this time, there’s a chance you’ll actually wear it.

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T H E C LOV I S B L AC K + B L AC K

THEJAMESBRAND.COM

Features

It can be tempting to focus on what’s ahead, but take a moment this summer to look back. After all, the most sustainable outdoor gear (p. 86) may have been manufactured years ago, while James Bond’s new timepiece (p. 128) dives into the character’s naval history. And even as electric cars multiply, we couldn’t help taking one last ride in three muscle cars (p. 112) with over a century of heritage among them. All these products carry us forward, even as we keep one eye on the rearview mirror.

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This used Arc’Teryx Consular Jacket, circa 2012, features a backcountryready Gore-Tex Paclite shell, fully taped seams ...­and a price tag of $134.

THE RISE OF REUSE

Sustainability and environmentalism have become increasingly requisite for outdoor brands like Patagonia, REI and The North Face. But the most disruptive piece of gear might be the one in your closet already. b y ta n n e r b o w d e n p h o t o s b y c h a n d l e r b o n d u r a n t a n d ta n n e r b o w d e n

One evening last fall, I found myself after hours at King Garment Care, a dry cleaner located in downtown Manhattan. Despite a tagline that reads “Fit for Royalty,” there’s nothing remarkable about the store. Like the thousands of other dry cleaners in New York City, it has halogen lights, a white tiled floor, a wood-paneled counter and, at any given time, a conveyor of bagged button-downs, suit jackets and delicate dresses all awaiting retrieval by their owners.

On this particular night, though, the chairs and coffee table that usually populate a makeshift waiting area were stashed somewhere in the back, the halogens replaced with moody neons. And the place was packed. The long counter stood resolute as designers, social media influencers, writers, bloggers and other denizens of New York City’s fashion world bumped up against it, and instead of tailoring services, its attendant offered up cocktails encased in miniature plastic garment bags. At the

back of the room, I popped a plant-based hors d’oeuvre — an imitation of a quesadilla, or perhaps a quiche — into my mouth. “Any good?” a voice to my left wondered. “Yeah, actually, it is,” I sent back, looking up to find its owner to be Alysia Reiner, who plays Fig in Orange Is the New Black.

In 2020, it might come as no surprise that such an event was held in celebration of a new app, Wardrobe. The platform allows luxury fashionistas to rent out the expensive contents of their closets for a small profit. It is, to drop an overused comparison, the Airbnb of fashion (in fact, Nathan Blecharczyk, one of Airbnb’s founders, is an investor).

Unlike similar services such as Rent the Runway, Wardrobe harnesses the sharing economy to put exclusive items in the hands of those who might otherwise not be able to afford them.

Airbnb and Uber may have pushed privacy norms against the wall by letting strangers into our homes and our vehicles, but Wardrobe

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smashes through them by letting them into, yes, our clothing.

As ironic as the dry-cleaner setting was, it’s also key to Wardrobe’s formula. Dry cleaners serve as the “hubs” where lenders drop off clothing, and renters pick it up. They also earn a little dough themselves through cleaning fees.

It’s a win-win-win. The catch? Wardrobe only operates in New York City (for now). The other catch? To lend, you need at least 20 items, each with a retail value of $250 or more. That night at King Garment Care, the only piece of my outfit to come close was my Patagonia Steel Forge Denim Jacket, which retails new for $199.

••• Come to think of it, nothing in my closet meets Wardrobe’s value minimum. Not unless you count down jackets or three-layer ski bibs. And yet, there’s still a place to monetize my Patagonia denim: Patagonia. The company has a program that allows customers to exchange used gear in good condition for store credit. Here, my denim jacket is worth $40.

The trade-in program is part of Patagonia’s larger Worn Wear initiative. Forever cognizant of sustainability issues, Patagonia’s aim with Worn Wear is to create a circular economy in which its gear is used over and again by multiple owners until it’s no longer fit for outdoors adventures. Patagonia isn’t alone here; in recent years, similar programs from other titans of the outdoors have sprung up. The North Face has Renewed, Arc’teryx has Used Gear and REI has Good and Used.

Each of these programs employs the same return-repair-resell model to keep everything from tents and sleeping bags to hiking shorts and technical tees in circulation. And save for The North Face, all of them rely on the same curtain-enclosed wizard to make it happen — an eight-year-old Northern California company called Yerdle.

Roughly 10 miles from San Francisco’s Embarcadero, Yerdle sits in a compact business

park near the water, sandwiched between the Bayshore Freeway and San Bruno Mountain State Park. Its structure is squat and broad with relatively few windows given the roughly 40,000 square feet of its interior space. It is not a stereotypical Silicon Valley dwelling, gleaming with technological promise and replete with on-staff baristas and meditation chambers, but rather a warehouse, and perhaps an unlikely ground zero for the next great shift in how we buy stuff.

Yerdle’s proposition is far less complicated

REI, PATAGONIA AND ARC’TERYX ALL RELY ON THE SAME CURTAIN-ENCLOSED WIZARD TO MAKE THEIR RECOMMERCE EFFORTS HAPPEN — AN EIGHT-YEAR-OLD NORTHERN CALIFORNIA COMPANY CALLED YERDLE.

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than its operation. The company partners with apparel and gear brands — in addition to Patagonia, Arc’teryx and REI, it also works with Nordstrom, Eileen Fisher and Taylor Stitch — to take in unwanted items, refurbish them and ship them out to new owners.

In a typical warehouse, a shipment from a supplier might contain 200 of the same exact thing, such as a green polyester t-shirt in size large. An employee unpacks the box while another stores the shirts together in a designated spot on a shelf, and when an order comes in, a third employee picks the shirt while a fourth packages it and sends it on its way. Nobody has to know where anything is to know where everything is.

The steps to this dance are numbered differently at Yerdle. A box that arrives at 3775 Bayshore Boulevard likely has 200 different items in it, unique not just in brand, model, size and color but also in wear issues like scuffs and blemishes. How does one person organize

Arc’teryx built this Velaro 35 Backpack with its waterproof Advanced Composite Construction fabric. It cost $199 in 2015, but now, lightly used, it’s $139.

You need a big warehouse to process literally millions of reusable items a year, as Yerdle does.

Yerdle doesn’t rely entirely on backend technological innovation. Sometimes there’s a more straightforward solution — like hangtags that communicate whether a bin is full (red dot) or has space remaining (green dot).

IT’S LIKE FINDING A NEEDLE IN A HAYSTACK, IF THE HAY WERE ALSO MADE OF NEEDLES. a warehouse filled with tens of thousands of unique items so that another person, let alone an entire staff of other people, can locate one specific thing at any given moment? It’s like finding a needle in a haystack, if the hay were also made of needles.

That’s why brands as established as Patagonia and Eileen Fisher come to Yerdle; not for its endless stacks of boxes on shelves that call to mind the warehouse at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, but for the invisible technological infrastructure the company has built to manage them.

Here’s how it works: Boxes — large ones — arrive at Yerdle filled with used gear. These go to receiving stations, where employees begin the inspection process by scanning each item’s tag. That taps them into the digital catalog of whichever brand, be it REI, Arc’teryx or Taylor Stitch, manufactured the item. It’s a complex integration between Yerdle and the companies it works with, and crucial to how the system works, particularly at the outset. It allows a

Yerdle employee to quickly answer the question: what am I holding in my hands right now?

Inspectors check clips, zippers and other functional elements, making a note of anything amiss. (These observations eventually pass through to the item’s online description for customers to see before making a purchase.) Then the employee assigns the item a grade, from A for new to F for, well, very wellloved.

Next, gear that needs repair or additional cleaning goes through those processes. And then, in some situations, an item goes to Yerdle’s on-staff photographers. Individualized photography might serve to align with one brand’s way of displaying a piece, or to highlight defects.

After it’s patched up, cleaned and photographed, a piece of gear goes on the shelf to await its new owner making that fateful click.

Yerdle uses what it calls flexible binning — employees can put any item anywhere and, by scanning its tag and the bin it’s in, it can be

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As part of its Renewed program, The North Face has clothing designers turn damaged and used items into unique pieces. This one-of-a-kind Thermoball Eco Snap Jacket costs $100.

They typically cost $349, but this pre-owned pair of TNF’s Everest-worthy down Nuptse bibs goes for $175.

quickly found later, when a picker goes to fill an order.

Yerdle’s unique strength in the recommerce process is that it has untied the knot that forms when you reverse warehouse logistics. “We’ve managed these things at half a trillion dollars,” says Andy Ruben, Yerdle’s CEO. “Oftentimes, you see overly complex systems that don’t provide the value you’d expect.” What Ruben downplays is the bespoke technological systems that underpin the entire thing.

••• Before visiting Yerdle as a guest of REI, I placed an order through REI’s Good and Used site to gear up for a two-night camping trip in nearby Pinnacles National Park as though I were starting from scratch. Nothing about Good and Used belies that it’s anything but another page on REI’s site — it looks the same and has similar menus to sift through the pile of gear available.

I quickly found myself digging deep through the digital bins in search of something unique or rare that I might not purchase at full price.

It became a treasure hunt, an experience akin to sliding hangers at my local Brooklyn vintage store. After some time — the filters aren’t quite as granular as they are on REI’s main site — I checked out with my loot, which included an

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insulated jacket from The North Face that I’d seen Conrad Anker wear on an expedition to Antarctica. Nothing beyond a slight fading of its canary-yellow hue suggested that it had ever been worn, and it was available for $50 less than its original price.

tarantulas, coyotes and a threatened species of frog. We chased raccoons out of our camp and observed a flying insect called a tarantula hawk that, somehow, looks more menacing than its name already implies. The strange and thriving wilderness could be a set location on Avatar.

THE PARK FORGES A SHARP CONTRAST TO THE SURROUNDING FARMLAND, A HIGHDESERT LANDSCAPE DOTTED WITH NARROW TALUS CAVES AND PILLARS OF STONE LEFT BEHIND BY AN ANCIENT VOLCANO. It proved to be the ideal layer for chilly nights in Pinnacles National Park, which consists of 26,000 beautiful, federally protected Salinas Valley acres. Only miles from Steinbeck’s vision of Eden — endless avocado, citrus and garlic fields — the park forges a sharp contrast to the surrounding farmland, a high-desert landscape dotted with narrow talus caves and pillars of stone left behind by an ancient volcano and carried 200 miles north by the San Andreas Fault.

It is, by definition, an island, home to more fauna than any tropical paradise in the Pacific. Over two days, we spotted quail, lizards,

Still, there remains an overhanging feeling that its proximity to California’s mill of technological industry, just a few hours’ drive away, leaves it fragile and exposed. Unfortunately, this situation isn’t as unique as Pinnacles itself.

REI knows this. Its identity is wrapped in the belief that “a life outdoors is a life well-lived,” and it asserts its purpose is “to awaken a lifelong love of the outdoors, for all” — two mottos found on REI’s “Who we are” page online. The company is known for symbolic gestures such as closing on Black Friday, and more tangible actions, like setting concrete sustainability standards for every item it sells, forcing brands to comply or set up shop elsewhere.

Recommerce — collecting and re-selling used gear — is the next, and perhaps grandest, step in this mission. In the outdoor industry, sustainability initiatives like donating profits, repairing products for free or planting a tree for every item purchased abound. They are noble and worthwhile objectives, but none fully live up to their Earth-saving promise.

Using recycled materials to make gear is at the top of the list, but still doesn’t prove to be the ultimate solution. For instance, a jacket made of recycled materials may still require a harmful manufacturing process — and may not itself be recyclable. That circle is broken.

To “optimize the life cycle of a product with recyclability at the end of life is an important point on that closed loop,” says Peter Whitcomb, who spearheaded REI’s used gear initiative before recently becoming chief of staff at Yerdle.

Ruben agrees, adding that he doesn’t believe consumers are going to put up with rosy, ultimately empty claims much longer.

“There’s an increasing expectation, especially with younger customers, that pushes on

This classic blend of style and performance, Patagonia’s Lightweight Synchilla Snap-T Pullover, normally goes for $119. In used form, it’s $52.

more innovative business models,” he says.

Innovation, not in business but in the creation of new gear, might also be a result of recommerce. Shoddily made items that fail or break easily drop out of a circular economy, whereas the best things remain, like lumps of gold in a pan. “It keeps higher-quality gear in people’s hands,” observes Ruben. Recommerce highlights the things that are made well and the brands that are making them, drawing attention to the seemingly contradictory notion that something used might actually be better than something new.

••• During his tenure as REI’s director of new business development and circular economy,

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Whitcomb says he was often asked how the brands that REI carries react to its Good and Used program. His response: “They generally love it, because it keeps their product in use longer.” A better question might be: how does REI react to it? Isn’t the goal of any retail operation to sell as many things as possible? “[REI] is kind of disrupting [its] own business model,” he admits. “Optically, systematically, process-wise, it’s truly disruptive and uncomfortable for a lot of people. This type of transformation is a huge challenge.” REI’s mission of promoting lifelong access to and enjoyment of the great outdoors, as well as its status as a member-owned cooperative, helps it clear that obvious barrier. According to Whitcomb, REI’s used-gear program has yet to threaten the company’s in-line sales.

That surface-level concern exists across the movement, but it’s as deceptive as a thin sheet of ice. Not only does the secondhand market not affect sales of new items, it’s also a backdoor for shoppers to access reputable brands.

“By offering our Restitch items at a lesser price, the program also works as an introduction to Taylor Stitch to those who might not be able to pay the full retail price, so it’s expanding our customer base,” observes Michael Maher, CEO and cofounder of the menswear brand. “It has created an exciting way for us to follow some of our favorite pieces year after year, throughout their lifespan as they wear in, not out.”

It also doesn’t hurt that the fashion industry has already proven that selling used stuff is a pretty damn good way to make money. According to a 2019 Fashion Resale Market and Trend Report by

THE SECONDHAND MARKET HIT $24 BILLION IN 2018.

BY 2023, IT’S PROJECTED TO MORE THAN DOUBLE TO $51 BILLION.

Thredup, a digital secondhand marketplace offering clothing from over 35,000 brands, the secondhand market hit $24 billion in 2018. By 2023, it’s projected to more than double to $51 billion.

Thredup, StockX, Poshmark, Rebag, Grailed, Stadium Goods, GOAT and Yerdle are in fact the freshmen class of companies participating in the surging secondhand wave. Long gone are the days when the only online places to save a buck on a used pair of Redwing boots or some vintage Levi’s were eBay and Craigslist.

Before founding Yerdle, Ruben worked at Walmart as a corporate strategist, then as chief sustainability officer and finally as VP of global e-commerce strategy. “In the late Nineties, I was part of these conversations when e-commerce was just starting,” he says. “And I remember the conversation when Walmart was deciding whether it would have its own e-commerce platform or be on the Amazon platform.”

With hindsight, the answer is obvious.

That’s where Ruben believes recommerce is today. He compares the value and convenience that it provides to Spotify and Airbnb. “Ten years from now, it’ll feel the same way as me looking back at e-commerce in 1998; of course it’s that big, of course it’s the way it’s gone.”

Perhaps fittingly then, Yerdle shares its parking lot with The RealReal, a marketplace for secondhand luxury goods, and the first such business to go public.

••• Ruben says that in 2018 he could count the number of applications to Yerdle’s program “on one hand.” Within the first half of 2019, he had 50, and whereas in the past, those applications were filed by sustainability managers, now it’s executives grasping the benefits. And since they began working with Yerdle, Taylor Stitch has taken in over 5,000 articles of used clothing, Patagonia has resettled over 130,000 items and REI sold nearly one million pieces of used gear in 2019 alone.

In a 2019 equity research report, Wells Fargo jumped on board with numbers of its own, stating that it estimates that by 2022, 40 percent of the contents of our closets will be secondhand buys. Surely, this is a future that neither eco-conscious outdoors enthusiasts nor trend-watching fashionistas expected. And perhaps partying at a New York City dry cleaner makes just as much sense as spending a night in the California wilds, kept awake by invading raccoons and hellish insects.

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Introducing Greg Metze, 42 Years Later

had a hand in crafting some of the most popular whiskeys of the 21st century, though few people have heard his name.

Thanks to Old Elk Distillery, a tiny whiskey-making operation backed by the founder of Otterbox, they’re about to get their chance. gr eg metze

t e x t b y s e a n e va n s photos by chet strange

G reg Metze is the reason you drink craft whiskey, even if he can’t say why. He can tell you that, as a former master distiller at MGP in Lawrenceburg, Indiana, he presided over the production of whiskey, but he can’t explain how his creations ultimately filled the bottles of more than 120 brands. He certainly can’t mention any of those brands by name, nor can he discuss the role he played in the creation of any of the mashbill recipes that begot award-winning bottles, such as Bulleit 95 Rye. An iron-clad nondisclosure agreement Metze inked when he departed MGP in 2016 compels his silence.

When building a profile on the man who underpinned a wide-sweeping movement, the inability to probe about his stint at the helm of the distillery where said movement began proves daunting. But it’s also fitting. Metze shares a number of traits with his erstwhile employer, Midwest Grain Products Ingredients: a preference for shadows over spotlights and substance over flash, and a belief that quality products need not be spoken about; they can speak for themselves.

That’s why MGP doesn’t talk much about what emerges from its Indiana distillery, where Metze lovingly labored from 1978 through 2016, through four ownership changes. When MGP took the reins in 2011, it quickly brokered deals to sell scores of aging whiskey to the various microdistillery upstarts springing up across the country. Most of the outbound barrels were filled under Metze’s meticulous eye and palate, and selected by buyers at various brands for their superior taste. (Rumor has it that George Dickel, Smooth Ambler, High West, Hirsch, Angel’s Envy, Rebel Yell, Redemption, Widow Jane and dozens more have all bought juice from MGP, but mutual NDAs prohibit official confirmation.)

Metze found his way to whiskey through “dumb luck.” He graduated from the University of Cincinnati with a degree in chemical engineering and quickly landed a job at Seagram’s, the time-tested distillery in Lawrenceburg, Indiana. He was 23 years old and eager for work.

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During the modern American whiskey boom, the title of master distiller became more of a marketing ploy than a description of one’s duties. Metze, who has worked at every level of the whiskey making process, is one of few who fully own the moniker.

“All I knew about Seagram’s was that the distillery smelled real good when you drove past it,” Metze says.

Seagram’s distillery is old and storied but it doesn’t trade in heritage and folk tales. In the ‘40s, it had a cadre of Ph.D. scientists who researched every aspect of whiskey-making, from the grain harvesting through the maturation process, condensing the sum of that knowledge into two books dubbed the Blue Bibles. “I think I still have copies somewhere,” Metze muses.

“Once those methods were established, it was up to the earlier generations to teach the new generations.”

The training program commanded that employees like Metze work through each department, to imbue them with a broad knowledge of how the whole operation worked, before settling into a specialty. For Metze, that was production.

“The plant had three coordinator positions — dry-house coordinator, fermentation-cooking

coordinator and distillation coordinator — and I rotated through those three stations while the production manager taught me all I should know about those jobs.”

Then he met the legendary distiller Larry Ebersold, who would go on to become Metze’s mentor for the next 24 years. “Larry taught me about grain quality and all the specific proprietary yeasts that Seagram’s had developed. I was well suited to the process part of the whiskey, in terms of heat transfer and distillation, from my chemical engineering degree,” Metze says. “But the art of making whiskey is in the water selection, the grain quality, the mashing techniques, the fermentation of the yeast, and other things that aren’t in the recipe. Those are what Larry showed me.”

Under Ebersold, Metze also learned the importance of quality control. “Seagram’s had a fanatical eye for quality control, and a research and development budget that blew everyone

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else away,” says Jay Erisman, the cofounder and master blender at New Riff Distilling, who worked closely with Metze after MGP took over the distillery. “[Seagram’s] oddly made a bunch of blended things, so you don’t think of them as legendary. But they were. They made Four Roses but never sold it in the USA. All their master blenders were aces, not by coincidence. Drew Mayville, a former master there, went over to Sazerac. Larry would come to consult with us on New Riff. And Greg is a fantastic distiller, one of the best in the business.”

Around 2001, Seagram’s was sold to Pernod Ricard and Diageo. Metze stayed on, helping Ebersold create high-profile mashbills like the famous 95-5 rye, a recipe with 95 percent rye and five percent barley that would become a smash hit for brands like Bulleit, Angel’s Envy, George Dickel and more. In 2006, the distillery found itself for sale again, this time going to a holding company who simply renamed it Lawrenceburg Distillers Indiana (LDI).

Around that time, one Brent Elliott took a journey up to tour the LDI facility. “It was an educational trip,” says Elliott, who now works as the master distiller at Four Roses. “Greg was our wonderful host. He took us into the distillery and treated me like an old friend, though the guys I was with were actually his friends. I was a quality manager at the time and probably peppered him with bottling questions. I was just in awe of the size of the operation, and how generous and humble and gracious Greg was.”

When MGP acquired the distillery a few years later, it wisely recognized the worth of Metze’s vast knowledge, gleaned from Ebersold during his Seagram’s days. The new management empowered him to create more ryes, since America’s palate was warming up to that spicier flavor

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profile, and they even launched a 6,000-bottle limited-run bourbon with his name on it. Metze’s cookbook reportedly held as many as 13 mashbill recipes, covering the bases from ryes to corn whiskeys to bourbons. That range further afforded Metze — and MGP — to work on custom batches and mashbills for clients who wished to source their juice.

The craft distillers came in droves, seeking barrels upon which brands could be launched.

Nicolas Palazzi, owner of PM Spirits, was primarily importing and distributing brandies and cognacs when the bourbon craze began to spin up. Palazzi knew he needed an offering within that category, but wasn’t sure where to begin. He worked with a guy who brought him various samples to blindly try over the course of a year. “The first batch around, I picked what I loved the best and it happened to be MGP juice,” Palazzi says. “The second batch also happened to be MGP. I thought they were great, the best of the bunch.”

Palazzi had heard of MGP, and Metze, but he didn’t have any firsthand knowledge. His edification process culminated in his belief that “these guys really know their shit,” Palazzi says.

When you’re going to launch a brand with someone else’s whiskey, you want to know the juice is coming from a place that has mastered the process so there won’t be any discrepancies. MGP was solid.” Palazzi bought a slew of barrels and launched Mic.Drop Bourbon, which became a monster hit and sold out of its first two releases. “Both batches that put us on the map were distilled under Greg Metze’s supervision. That guy can make some incredible whiskey.” Mic. Drop’s third release, also a Metze by-product, is on shelves now.

In 2012, a startup called Old Elk Distillery based in Fort Collins, Colorado, came knocking.

Backed by Curt Richardson, the multimillionaire founder of Otterbox, the nascent outfit initially came to Lawrenceburg looking to source whiskey. Metze was tasked with creating a custom mashbill from scratch, something he’d not yet been able to do under MGP’s watch.

Old Elk sought to make a world-class whiskey for a middle-class price, a challenge very much within Metze’s wheelhouse. Creating premium whiskey for the masses was second nature at

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MGP, in part by virtue of the grain selection and in part by lowering the proof to make the distillate stretch further, techniques likely culled from Seagram’s Blue Bibles.

But Richardson’s financing allowed for greater creative leeway within the recipe, something Metze had not had before. “We went with a high malted barley mashbill, with fifty-one percent corn, fifteen percent rye — for the spice which I’ve always liked and that’s always been a part of the products I’ve produced — and finally thirty-four percent malted barley,” says Metze of the first 13,000 barrels he produced for Old Elk while at MGP. The mashbill was expensive. Corn is the most common cereal grain in the U.S. It’s the most abundant, the cheapest and has the highest starch value. On a yield basis, it produces more alcohol than any other cereal grain and costs $4 per bushel. Rye, on the other hand, is about $8 a bushel, and it has much less starch, which means less alcohol. The third part of the recipe — the unusually high 34 percent malted barley — costs $24 a bushel. “With barley, you’re suffering effects of two things: a much higher-priced grain and lower alcohol yield. But the flavor profile is worth the expenditure,” Metze says.

After three years working with the upstart distillery, talks evolved from highly customized mashbills and contract distilling to becoming

Palazzi had heard of MGP, and Metze, but he didn’t have any firsthand knowledge. His edification process culminated in his belief that “these guys really know their shit,” Palazzi says.

part of the venture more permanently. Metze, who managed an undisclosed but undoubtedly monstrous whiskey operation at MGP, was lured to Fort Collins, Colorado, in 2019, initially as a consultant, then as the company’s first master distiller.

Metze’s unenviable task is guiding Old Elk — a four-year-old company whose distillery isn’t finished yet — through the myriad headwinds new whiskey makers face. Those without significant fiscal backing are strapped to make revenue, and fast. They can get squeezed into bringing products to market before they’re ready, or they’re forced to create vodkas and gins to drive revenue in the meantime. “I think there are great products out there, but if you launch early, you’re ruining your brand from the getgo. People try them, and they’re too young, and not ready. That’s going to leave a bad taste in the mouth,” Metze says.

And so new money — like Richardson’s — has started seeping into the craft distillery scene because it can buy the one thing that all good whiskey requires: time. “[Curt Richardson] gives us the latitude of being able to wait for the products to properly age,” Metze says, “to create custom mashbills that are more expensive and unique. On the outside, Curt’s probably willing to sacrifice the margins a bit to bring these products to market. It’s a wonderful thing. He’s

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Metze and Old Elk are in the midst of building a new, 40,000 square-foot distillery and barrel-aging warehouse in Fort Collins, Colorado. Once completed, the new facility will be 10-times larger than its current operation.

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worried about the customer more than himself.

I don’t think you’ll see that in the market anywhere.”

For new brands, that patience is key. “I understand the rush to get to market,” Brent Elliott echoes. “Even if you have a clear-spirits model, people are under pressure to get the age statement stuff. I’ve tried stuff I could tell was okay with a shortened age, but it would’ve been much better had it sat down for a couple of years.

When micros lay down some whiskey for longer aging, the positive results are readily apparent.”

The craft market has had a tangible impact on commercial distillers, pushing behemoths like Buffalo Trace, Jim Beam, Heaven Hill and Jack Daniels to embrace trends like cask finishing, barrel-strength expressions, non-chill filtration and so on. For Old Elk, pushing the envelope meant flexing Metze’s prodigious recipe-

crafting ability, a subject the otherwise mildmannered distiller can’t talk enough about.

“We’ve got a very high-wheated bourbon mashbill, that’ll be about five years old when we launch it,” he shares, noting a high-wheated whiskey is currently available through a barrel-pick program but will have a wider push later this year. “I’ve got a malt whiskey and a rye whiskey that’s currently aging. All mashbills, with the exception of the rye, are different than anyone else in the market or on the shelf. It’s all the small extra things we do to achieve something different.”

The smooth and easy characteristics dictated the path for Metze. Tapping into the suite of bourbon mashbills utilized during his time in Lawrenceburg, he came away with two different options with varying amounts of rye.

“I knew the characteristics of the grain and what they did to the flavor profiles,” he shares. “‘Smooth and easy’ requires a minimum of fifty-one percent corn. I knew I had to get the malted barley content way up but I knew I wanted a little rye in there for a hint of spice.

I did some math on that mashbill, dropped the corn [percentage] and it took fifteen percent rye to carry over the spice to the distillate. If I had room for more malted barley, I’d have taken it, but this mashbill hit the hallmarks and we’re really proud of it.”

Old Elk’s flagship whiskey, Blended Straight Bourbon, clocks in at a lower proof — 88 to be precise. It’s markedly below cask-strength whiskeys and other modern bourbon offerings, but Metze says it is very much intentional.

“When we got to the point of deciding launch proof ... I tasted this at one-hundred proof and it overwhelmed the balance of the whiskey,” he says, shrugging off any indication that it was set to stretch inventory and lower overhead costs. “It’s affordable and the flavor profile is perfect at eighty-eight proof. I don’t have any problem standing by that.”

And stand by it he does. At Old Elk, Metze’s name and signature are printed on every bottle. It’s a seismic shift for someone who spent decades mastering his craft just behind the curtain, shielded from the eager public that rabidly enjoys the fruits of his efforts. But a deserved one.

“People have asked me over the years if I feel bad that I wasn’t recognized for the great products I helped create,” Metze surmises. “When I left that distillery every day, I knew we were producing world-class whiskeys and that was enough for me.”

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BLAZE OF GLORY

The advent of electric vehicles and a looming climate crisis mean American muscle cars may soon go the way of the dinosaurs. So we took three of today’s mightiest examples and let them run free across the West. by will sabel courtney photos by chandler bondurant

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2020 Dodge Challenger Hellcat Redeye Widebody Price: $78,790+ Engine: 6.2-liter supercharged V8 Horsepower: 797 Torque: 707 lb-ft 0-60 MPH: 3.4 seconds Top Speed: 203 mph

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WESTWARD HO Go West, young man, goes the old saw ascribed to Horace Greeley. It was meant to encourage 19th-century Americans to pursue their dreams in the vast, untapped land beyond the Mississippi River. But it’s a saying that applies just as well to today’s road trippers. The West (capital W) has been emblematic of the rugged independence at the heart of our national identity practically as long as we’ve had a nation. It’s a land of breathtaking beauty, soul-stirring silence and abundant peace.

It’s also a perfect venue to uncork seriously powerful cars. Here, you’ll find constant elevation changes, sweeping curves, four-mile

straightaways and, most importantly, barely any other vehicles or people to pass. Speed limits are higher, and drivers seem more likely to push beyond them than in other, denser states.

(Montana actually abandoned highway speed limits for a few years in the late ’90s.)

This landscape calls for speed, and not just any variety of it. European exotics and Japanese sports cars, though they have the chops, would seem incongruous here. No, these roads were made for American muscle. And 2020 turns out to be a serendipitous year for a threeway shoot-out between the best — and perhaps last — of the breed.

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2,207 HORSES, NO WAITING Less than a decade ago, people spoke of the late ’60s and early ’70s as having been the golden age of American muscle. How times change.

Today, each of Detroit’s Big Three offers up a two-door four-seater with the sort of power even the wildest hot-rodders of the wonder years couldn’t have dreamt of.

Chevrolet’s Camaro ZL1 is the least powerful of the bunch, but that’s like being the worst player at the Pro Bowl; it makes a mere 650 horsepower and 650 pound-feet of torque. The new-for-2020

Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 is down 25 lb-ft to the Camaro, but it kicks Chevy’s ass in the horsepower race with a stunning 760 ponies.

Yet it’s not even the most powerful horse in this race. That would be the Dodge Challenger Hellcat Redeye, a true brute that screams out 797 horses and 707 lb-ft.

Each car gets its power from a supercharged V8 and each channels it to the rear wheels alone — but that’s where they part ways. The Camaro is the only one to offer a manual transmission;

there’s a 10-speed automatic available, but we opted for the six-speed stick because, well, of course we would. The Redeye comes only with an eight-speed automatic, presumably so you never have to put down your coffee to shift. And the Ford packs a newly developed seven-speed dual-clutch automated manual gearbox, just like the speediest European cars do. That comparison isn’t a stretch; Ford’s new gearbox is every bit as fast and smart as the ones in those super sports cars.

EACH PACKS MORE PROCESSING POWER THAN THE MIGHTIEST COMPUTER ON EARTH IN 1970.

YET AT A GLANCE, EACH STILL BEARS A RESEMBLANCE TO THOSE CARS THAT ROAMED THE ROADS HALF A CENTURY AGO.

THE LONG ROAD HERE Neither this land nor these cars are strangers to change, yet you wouldn’t think it looking at them. Somewhere outside Tuba City, we flash past a sign advertising dinosaur footprints, stamped into mud that turned to stone then disappeared beneath the ground for 200 million years before the wind carved them loose.

Less than 15,000 years ago, mammoths, saber-toothed cats and two-ton sloths wandered this earth, before climate change and humans brought in by the end of the Ice Age wiped them all out. A few hundred years back, tribes like the Navajo, Hopi, Paiute and Ute lived all over; then the U.S. government marched in and decimated and isolated them to make room for American settlers, who used the land for cattle grazing.

Nowadays, cell coverage stretches across the deserts and prairies. But even if solar panels pop up here and there, the West looks much as it did when cowboys roamed freely.

Ford, Chevy and Dodge have come a long way, too. The Mustang was the first to arrive back in 1964, a stylish compact car that made just

105 horsepower in basic form; the first Shelby GT500 arrived in 1967, making 355 horses. The Camaro debuted that same year, out to steal the Mustang’s thunder; the sportiest version, the Z/28 that serves as the ZL1’s spiritual forefather, cranked out around 360 horses, though Chevrolet quoted it at a mere 290 for insurance reasons. Like its modern-day descendant, the first Challenger that arrived in late 1969 was a bigger car than the Mustang and Camaro — and like today’s Redeye, it came with the most power, packing a 7.0-liter Hemi V8 delivering 425 horsepower.

But even today’s incredible engine outputs undersell just how improved today’s muscle cars are. The 2020 models deliver quality, reliability and comfort that no car made in the ’60s could dream of matching, let alone the mass-produced rides turned out by the Big Three. Each one packs more processing power than the mightiest computer on Earth in 1970. Yet at a glance, they still bear a resemblance to those cars that roamed the roads half a century ago.

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2020 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 Price: $72,900+ Engine: 5.2-liter supercharged V8 Horsepower: 760 Torque: 625 lb-ft 0-60 MPH: 3.3 seconds Top Speed: 180 mph

INTO THE GREAT WIDE OPEN Maps can’t capture the scale of the West.

Towns that seem neighborly on the map turn out to be half an hour apart, even at the whatwe’re-dealing-with-here-is-a-complete-lackof-respect-for-the-law speeds these cars are all too happy to lope along at. Add up the West’s 11 states and you wind up with 1,174,143 square miles; if it were its own nation, it’d be bigger than all of Argentina. Yet apart from the dense cities that cling to the Pacific Ocean, it’s largely empty, long stretches of road connecting tiny dots on the atlas. And the road to our destination of Monument Valley, perched on the border of Arizona and Utah, is emptier still, carving a path through the Navajo Nation — a land half again as large as New Jersey but with four percent of the population.

On the flip side, the blank spots between those thin lines on the map hide the grandeur of the place. Every bend in the road reveals some new wonder to be discovered, the scenery rendered

in HDR crispness in the clean, dry air. Words like awesome and epic have long been overused past the point of cliché; the sights and scale of the West, though, remind you what they really mean.

The West has always been larger than life.

That’s been central to its appeal, for as long as it’s been sold to us. And it has, indeed, been sold to us — ever since America bought it from France in the Louisiana Purchase and started selling it off again in the form of Manifest Destiny and the Homestead Act. By the time John Ford first filmed John Wayne riding past Monument Valley’s mesas, Americans had already considered the West some sort of promised land for more than a century. The West was, is, and likely always will be a commodity, promoted as the embodiment of freedom. The same goes for muscle cars. All cars represent independence, but muscle cars epitomize it; they’re fourwheeled freedom distilled to its sharpest form.

Hurricane, UT Kanab, UT

Oljato-Monument Valley, UT

Las Vegas, NV

Laughlin, NV Flagstaff, AZ Johnstons Corner, CA

Oatman, AZ

Adelanto, CA Distance: 1,387 Miles

Venice, CA Los Angeles, CA

Duration: 4 Days

Joshua Tree, CA

Fuel Consumed: ~ 300 Gallons

STEEL PONIES 2020 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 Price: $62,995+ Engine: 6.2-liter supercharged V8 Horsepower: 650 Torque: 650 lb-ft 0-60 MPH: 3.5 seconds Top Speed: 198 mph

Every mile of open road reveals more about these machines. The Mustang is the newest of the trio, and it’s the one with the boldest goals: it seeks to deliver all-around supercar performance. An impossible task, it might seem — yet it delivers, serving up not just Ferrari-rivaling acceleration but Porsche-like handling. It picks up speed with a ferocity that boggles the mind, then clings to it through every turn, tracking flat and smooth even as its fat tires howl while sticking the beefy car to the ground. Yet it’s no penalty box; shock absorbers filled with magnetic fluid that adjusts its viscosity in milliseconds serve up a comfortable ride no matter how bad the pavement turns.

The Camaro feels even lighter and more nimble on the road, an épée to the Shelby’s saber.

Its six-speed manual means you’re forced to take command of the big V8 in a way you aren’t with the others, appreciating the nuances of the power as it flows past your right hand on its way astern. Still, it’s not as quick as the Mustang; the Ford’s gearbox shifts with a speed and intuition no manual can match, and the extra 110 horsepower feels like 200 when the Shelby’s ire is up.

(Part of that is due to the red-blooded howl that spews from the GT500’s exhaust pipes, which could make a Formula 1 car tuck its tail between its legs.) And even the ZL1’s biggest fan among our cohort complained about the lack of visibility from the pillbox-like cabin.

The Challenger feels like the third wheel here.

It wallows and bobs where the other two tuck and weave; as a result, it falls behind in the turns, depending on its absurd power to close the gap on the straightaways. Between its body motions, its squared-off hood that stretches halfway to the horizon and its atomic power plant, driving the Redeye feels like helming a nuclear aircraft carrier.

It has plenty of appeal, though — especially from the curb. The group’s opinion is unanimous: not only is the widebody Challenger the most chiseled of the trio, it’s the best-looking. Period. It’s also the roomiest, with a back seat actually suitable for adults (albeit not for multistate trips). And while all three of these cars can vaporize their rear tires without issue, the other two don’t do it quite as happily as the Hellcat.

IF THE BEAUTY OF THE WEST IS TO SURVIVE, CARS LIKE THIS MAY WELL NEED TO DIE. POWER COMES AT A COST, AND IN THIS CASE, IT’S AT THE EXPENSE OF THE ENVIRONMENT.

THE LAST COWBOYS If the beauty of the West is to survive, cars like these may well need to die. Power comes at a cost, and in this case, it’s at the expense of the environment. Over the course of our 1,500-mile road trip, our trio of muscle machines burned more than 300 gallons of gasoline — each working out to 20 pounds of carbon dioxide. That means our four-day jaunt was responsible for adding three tons of CO2 to the atmosphere. (For context: the average American creates 16.1 tons of CO2 per year.) Climate change is already impacting the West, much as it is everywhere else.

Temperatures are higher, rain is less frequent.

Cars that average 15 miles per gallon rank high on the list of the last things the planet needs.

They may not be long for this world anyway.

The Camaro’s sales have fallen each of the past five years, and rumors suggest it may not be replaced when the current model ages out of the lineup in a couple years. The Challenger’s sales have held steady, but at 12 years old, it’s long been eligible for automotive AARP, and a successor remains a question mark. The Mustang seems the most likely to stick around, but it may well evolve in the process; the next vehicle to wear the badge, after all, will be a Tesla-fighting electric crossover.

One day, perhaps sooner than we imagine, electric cars will be the ones racing along under these Western skies. They may be faster, even more fun than these; they’ll certainly be better for the winds and waters. But the canyons and buttes will no longer echo with the roar of the muscle cars’ engines. Just like the cowboys, they’ll be left to legend.

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The Moon Is Not Enough The president and CEO of Omega Watches talks James Bond, timing the Olympics and why celebrating your past — even when it involves the historic moon landings — shouldn’t stop you from looking ahead.

by oren hartov

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Raynald Aeschlimann’s rise is not surprising. Watches are, if not his destiny, then at least his inheritance.

A Swiss native and the grandson of a watchmaker, Aeschlinmann can trace his connection to timekeeping back generations. He’ll be the first to tell you, however, that none of that can erase the pressures of helming the second-largest watch company in the world.

With a tenure dating back to 1996, Aeschlimann has been with Omega through many initiatives and eras, having overseen the launch of online sales in the United States, the company’s continuing partnership with the James Bond franchise, the construction of a new museum in Switzerland and, now, the development of new technology that will time the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo down to an unprecedented millionth of the second.

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This interview has been edited and condensed for space and clarity.

Switzerland is generally a very idyllic place to grow up, especially in the beautiful area around Saint-Imier. Of course, the region also has a special history, totally unique in the world, and so I grew up with a great appreciation of its extraordinary past. Watchmaking was always a part of our lives. It was all around us. Even my grandfather was a watchmaker, so the ideas of precision and craftsmanship were passed onto me from a very young age.

You joined Omega in 1996, about a year after GoldenEye was released and James Bond started wearing Omega. Were you able to imagine the significance of this partnership at the time?

It’s funny because the idea didn’t come from Omega. It was the costume designers on GoldenEye who chose the Seamaster for James Bond. We were delighted, of course, and we knew that it would be great for our marketing. To be associated with such a stylish and adventurous character really suited our brand’s strengths. But at the time, we didn’t know how far it would go. It’s a credit to EON Productions and the producers for making the 007 franchise so successful, and enabling Omega to remain a part of the journey, right through the Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig films. It’s one of those things that happens naturally and then becomes an essential part of who you are.

Word is that Daniel Craig was very involved in designing the new Seamaster watch worn in the upcoming No Time To Die. How did his feedback impact the final product?

I had an incredible discussion with him, because he wanted [a watch that reflected Bond’s naval background]. That was quite important for Daniel.

Light, comfortable, obviously, but also at the same time a watch that looks very good, with vintage features as well.

From our many discussions, Daniel’s idea was very clear.

And we could be on that level, because we manage very many technical materials and new technologies.

We had the broad arrow, [a sign of Crown property], on many of our watches because we have a huge history with the British army, but we wanted a watch that is for James Bond in particular. A mesh bracelet in titanium never existed before in our history of military watches. James Bond would love that!

The Omega Seamaster Diver 300M featured in No Time To Die is crafted from Grade 2 titanium with a matching titanium mesh bracelet. Built like a tank and water-resistant to 300 meters, the non-limited timepiece is available from $8,100.

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s e a m a s t e r d i v e r 300 m p h o t o s b y h e n r y p h i l l i p s . a l l o t h e r p h o t o s c o ur t e s y o f o m e g a .

You grew up in Saint-Imier, a town with a significant watchmaking heritage. What was that like?

Bond has been wearing an Omega for twenty-five years now. In the long run, what would you say that monumental presence has done for Omega’s sales, and its reputation in general?

I couldn’t give you a definite figure over the past twenty-five years, but there is always an immediate impact on sales around the James Bond films. Spectre was the perfect example. We launched a comprehensive marketing campaign for the Seamaster 300 across all our channels and witnessed an incredible spike in global purchases. People absolutely loved that watch and its connection to Bond.

Customers know our Seamaster Diver 300M as the Bond watch and it certainly enhances our credentials for style, quality, precision and an adventurous spirit. It is definitely one of the best-ever collaborations in the industry — and it’s much more than just commercial.

“It was the costume designers on GoldenEye who chose the Seamaster for James Bond. We were delighted, of course.”

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The Omega Speedmaster Professional Moonwatch Caliber 321 Platinum is powered by the revamped caliber 321, the movement that powered the very first Speedmaster in 1957.

Omega has released many historical, vintage-inspired watches over the past few years. Do you think that these re-releases hamper creativity? Or do reissues and new models exist comfortably side by side?

They can absolutely exist together. In fact, I would say they must. Omega is special not just for where we’ve been, but for the designs that changed the face of watchmaking. Those things deserve to be celebrated. We want to share those stories with fans and our vintage-inspired timepieces allow us to do that. Not everyone can buy a real vintage Omega, especially the early Speedmasters. The new releases give them a chance to own an almost-identical timepiece and continue the legacy. But we can’t remain in the past. Omega is about innovation and pioneering spirit. We need to continue the story of our famous collections by introducing new designs and materials — and by giving them their own personality for a new generation of customers.

When Buzz Aldrin set foot on the moon in 1969, his Speedmaster carried a calibre 321 movement.

When you resumed production of the 321 last year to power certain new Speedmasters, I understand you had to copy an original movement part for part, correct?

It’s not that we had to, it’s that we wanted to. It was my decision that either we do every single part like we had it in the original one, or we don’t do it — except for the coating on some of the bridges which, after so many years, is of course totally different.

There has been huge demand for these new Speedmasters that feature the revamped calibre 321.

Would you ever consider amping up production?

Production will remain exactly as we have planned. There is, of course, a learning curve for our watchmakers, because while they are very good, it’s a movement that they’re not used to producing. Even though we’ve got thousands of orders and a long waiting list, there is no intention to increase production. The 321 will remain the Speedmaster movement, which was already decided before we had all the success we’ve had with it.

The average price of an Omega watch has tripled during your tenure. What has this meant for Omega as a whole, and how is it changing your relationship with younger buyers?

Omega has always been aspirational. That isn’t something new. But it’s important for us to establish a relationship with customers at a young age. These people are savvy. They are from the internet generation, where they have instant access to information, blogs, reviews, photos, videos and opinions. They know what’s true and what’s just “marketing.” So we need to establish genuine trust and love for our products right now. Maybe they can’t purchase an Omega straight out of college, but they can develop a respect that will stay with them. Then one day, when the time is right, they can own the watch they’ve always wanted. Also don’t forget, with all the technological improvements we’ve made in recent years, the average price of an Omega is still an incredible asset.

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You’ve been with Omega for nearly twenty-five years — how would you describe the enduring appeal of the brand? What is it that makes a buyer walk into your boutique instead of the one next door?

I think it’s very important to talk about our brand as a genuine brand — there’s a lot of substance, and of course, great values. An Omega is an achiever’s watch, one you wear with pride. Not only for superficial reasons, but also because of the aspirational value of it.

There’s a lot of history, like the moon exploration, like James Bond, and now of course the Olympic Games. This brand that I’m wearing with pride, I wear it not only (for these reasons) but because I truly want to have it, and it’s the official timekeeper since 1932 of the Olympic Games, the biggest sporting event in the world.

During your tenure, you’ve spearheaded a whole host of unique initiatives, like revamping old calibers such as the 321, helping establish the #speedytuesday hashtag with Fratello Watches that’s added to the Speedmaster’s ubiquity, and updating the brand’s museum.

What’s your favorite kind of challenge to undertake?

Can I say that I love every project? It’s true, because each one ignites my passion for a different part of the brand, whether it’s celebrating history or the excitement of launching a new timepiece. I enjoy them all for different reasons. One thing I’ve loved recently has been the projects that are true to our pioneering spirit. For example, in 2019 with the Five Deeps expedition, our new Ultra Deep diving watch was taken to a world-record depth in the ocean. It went deeper than any person or any watch in history. That is a real story of watchmaking that shows who we are. That sort of thing gives me a lot of pride.

Opened in 2019, Omega’s new museum in Bienne, Switzerland, features a nine-meter running track complete with the brand’s Olympic timekeeping technology and a giant replica of watchmaking legend George Daniels’s important coaxial escapement.

What can a watch enthusiast expect to find at Omega’s new museum in Bienne?

Omega is more than a watchmaker. So our museum should be more than just showing watches. We wanted it to be interactive and immersive, where visitors can actually feel what the brand is really about. Some of my favorite exhibits include a walk-in Speedmaster case, so you can appreciate the inner workings of a watch, and also a running track to give visitors an idea of being an athlete and the role Omega plays at the Olympic Games.

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Timekeeping technology developed by Omega for use during the Olympic Games has come a long way since its humble origins in 1932. Starter pistols and mechanical stopwatches have since been replaced by 450 tons of equipment, including electronic starter guns and something called the Quantum Timer, which has a resolution of a millionth of a second.

“Can I say that I love every project? It’s true, because each one ignites my passion for a different part of the brand, whether it’s celebrating history or the excitement of launching a new timepiece. I enjoy them all for different reasons.”

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Omega’s arsenal of timekeeping gear for the Olympics can measure down to the millionth of a second. How does the development of atomic clocks, starting guns and other equipment trickle down to Omega’s mechanical watch offerings?

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Obviously the mechanical watches are handmade. They’re hand-produced in our industrial manufacture, where we’re producing more than two thousand watches a day...and all of our three hundred and fifty watchmakers are crucial to producing them. The development that we do in timekeeping for the Olympics obviously doesn’t have as much of a connection, but still, if you have to have this kind of spirit, have to develop these kinds of technologies, then you have to have engineers who can work on new materials. You have to have new physicists, new chemists, people to make sure that not only is the timekeeping very, very accurate, but that it is accurate in any condition.

We are paid for being the official Olympic timekeeper, but we go beyond what it’s in the contract. Watching these athletes, you can imagine the incredible effort that goes into being first, and that’s the same effort that goes into our watches.

“E-commerce is a vitally important part of our brand today, and it’s really the future of luxury sales in general. I’d say nothing is lost online.”

Omega began selling watches directly to buyers on its U.S. website in 2017, ahead of many other large watch brands. How has this affected the watchmaking landscape and sales for the company?

Is something lost when someone buys online and can’t speak to someone at a boutique?

What does the next five years look like for Omega and for you personally? You’ve given so many years to the company — what are some of the things you’re excited about in the immediate future there?

E-commerce is a vitally important part of our brand today, and it’s really the future of luxury sales in general. I’d say nothing is lost online. The boutiques are still essential to what we do. This is where you can go to try on the watches and get expert advice. But the online tool is there as a support and an extra choice for making your first discovery or your final decision. It’s going extremely well so far. We began in the United States and sales have been very encouraging.

Now we’re in the U.K. and will expand further in the near future. You have to recognize that this is the way that many people shop now, not just young people. We are all connected. It’s natural to our everyday lives, so a modern brand needs to embrace that.

I spoke about e-commerce. This has been a very rapid and exciting development even in my short time as president. I expect it will grow even further in the next five years, with more opportunities to enhance our business.

For me, I really want to help take the company to the next level. I’ve been the president for the opening of a new production factory and a new museum. I’ve overseen innovative new materials, new projects such as #speedytuesday and the incredible development of Master Chronometer certification. We are at the forefront of an exciting era at Omega, and I feel very proud to see how far we can go. Directly ahead, we are already planning for the next Bond film, No Time To Die, the Olympic Games in Tokyo, then the Ryder Cup in golf. Isn’t this the most dynamic program within the industry?

left

The Speedmaster Racing Master Chronometer features a vintage “racing dial” and the Co-Axial Master Chronometer 9900 movement.

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Our friends at Gear Patrol are as passionate about the grill as they are the steak.

Flipboard’s The Tastiest gets that. From professional knives to cast-iron everything, having the right equipment is key to elevating your cooking game. The Tastiest collection offers recipes, how-to videos, deep dives and more with an expert take on tools to use in the kitchen and hacks to share with your friends.

THE TASTIEST Curated by Flipboard and friends

Feast your eyes on the food featured in The Tastiest, hand-picked by Flipboard’s editorial team.

INTEL

Any product can lure you with specs, but if it doesn’t work in the real world, who cares? That’s why we filled a rugged adventure pack with actually useful weekend essentials (p. 142), spoke to an up-and-coming chef about the gear he uses (p. 158), took the season’s best swim shorts (p. 144) to Los Angeles and stopped by one of the city’s hottest boutiques (p. 160), a head shop with street cred among streetwear’s elite.

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KIT

SUMMER FRIDAY text by oren hartov photos by chandler bondurant

Checking out early before a long weekend is one of the blessings of the modern workplace.

And whether you head down the shore or simply hang out around town, you’re gonna need a few key items — kit that’s light but robust, sleek but comfortable and makes the transition from the office to the beach as streamlined as possible.

left to right

AESOP ARRIVAL TOILETRY KIT $35

MOPHIE POWERSTATION MINI (FABRIC) $40

HILL CITY TRAIN ½ ZIP $88

COTOPAXI ALLPA 42L TRAVEL PACK $220

PELTON JEFFERSON SUNGLASSES $150

NIKE ACG MOC 3.0 $90

DOSIST DOSE PEN $40+ SVENS MINERAL SUNSCREEN $11

IN SEASON

SHORE LEAVE styled by john zientek photos by chandler bondurant

Easy-wearing, nondescript and tough as nails, today’s best swim trunks can go from the beach to the bar — and everywhere in-between.

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the shorts

Alex Mill Pull-On Tech Shorts, $88 the rest

Gitman Bros. Vintage Camp Shirt, $205; Rancourt Horsebit Loafers, $340; Miansai Necklace, $175; Timex Giorgio Galli S1 Watch, $450; Eyevan 7285 329 Sunglasses, $590 l o c at i o n

Ace Hotel, Los Angeles, CA

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the shorts

Patagonia Wavefarer Shorts, $69 the rest

Todd Snyder Shirt, $198; Dan Henry 1970 Worn & Wound LE Watch, $290; Akila Legacy Sunglasses, $95 l o c at i o n

Salazar, Los Angeles, CA

the shorts

Filson Green River Shorts, $79 the rest

The Elder Statesman Hoodie, $1,665; Lady White Co. T-Shirt, $55; Wrangler Denim Jacket, $49; Battenwear Travel Cap, $55; Eyevan 7285 329 Sunglasses, $590; Birkenstock Boston Sandals, $145 l o c at i o n

Point Dume, Malibu, CA

the shorts

Onia Calder Swim Trunks, $130 the rest

The Elder Statesman Italy Smoking Jacket, $1,795; Industry of All Nations Camp Shirt, $155; Unimatic U1-FM Watch, ~$632; Jacques Marie Mage Reynold Sunglasses, $895; Vans Slip-Ons, $50 l o c at i o n

Vasquez Rocks Park, Agua Dulce, CA

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the shorts

Outerknown Volley Shorts, $68 the rest

Battenwear Zuma Shirt, $190; Levi’s Trucker Jacket, $90; Nodus Sector Dive Watch, $425; Jacques Marie Mage Sturges Sunglasses, $625 l o c at i o n

General Admission, Venice, CA

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TOOLS OF THE TRADE

MICHAEL HAMILTON, LITTLE WAYS text by will price photos by henry phillips

Michael Hamilton sits impatiently — but politely — on the edge of a maroon velvet sofa on the second floor of Little Ways, his new restaurant in downtown Manhattan. Hamilton would rather be downstairs, eating his spicy-noodle lunch and preparing for service. This isn’t to say the restaurant is without charm. Like its popular sister restaurant, The Flower Shop, Little Ways is an ode to 1970s New York City. But Hamilton, an English chef who trained under Gordon Ramsay, Daniel Boulud and

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Raymond Blanc, is more at home in the kitchen.

An eclectic menu that includes schnitzels, tuna conserva, deviled eggs and venison tartare belies Hamilton’s no-bullshit approach to cooking. Like his mentors, he focuses on execution over flair, a trait that informs the gear he uses during service each night. From a $6,000 ice-cream machine that doubles as a meat grinder to his no-nonsense apron, here are the tools Hamilton wouldn’t cook without.

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PACOJET 2 PLUS, $5,990 “At Little Ways, we use it to spin ice cream, sorbet and sherbet to order. No need for churning every day. Also, from a production standpoint, we can just put raw products in the beakers, freeze and spin to make a sorbet. It saves us a lot of time. You can purchase different blades, too, which can grind or spin up meat for use in sausage and stuffings.”

2

BENRINER MANDOLINE, $29 “Lots of kitchens have those big fucking donkey mandolines that take up half the kitchen, but we use these little Japanese mandolines that keep a better blade and are a lifesaver for cooks in a small kitchen. This is Benriner’s updated model, which keeps the blade at the exact same level no matter how much you push through it.”

3

MORTAR & PESTLE, $20 “The old mortar and pestle. We like using it as it allows us to mix serrano chili and limequats for a crudo dish we’re running. We feel that it’s a better way of mixing ingredients together, capturing more oil out of the two ingredients that would otherwise be lost in a traditional blender.”

4

CHANG BEER (SIX-PACK), $7 “I’m a wino by trade and the restaurants have great lists, but after five or six hours in a bloody hot kitchen, we just want cold beer. Chang’s a good Thai beer that hits the spot. We keep it in the back of the fridge for the end of the night.”

5

ULTRA BAG FLEXIBLE SIEVE, $35 “It’s a handy tool for straining sauces, consommés and nut milks. It’s a far tighter mesh than a standard chinois, allowing for a clearer product. Super handy and easier to store than a bulky chinois, too.”

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CARHARTT APRON, $40 “I don’t wear this heavy fucking thing because I think it looks cool. I lose my car keys, pen, cake tester, everything all the time. This apron has so many damn pockets it is impossible to lose anything, because I’m always holding it on me. I sweat like mad every night in it.”

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DETOUR

MISTER GREEN LIFE STORE “ANNEX” Opened in 2015, this East Los Angeles cannabis haven is a far cry from the dusty Rasta-themed head shops of yesteryear. The airy, minimalist shop, decked out in natural wood, offers everything but the flower — think investment-worthy home goods and the kind of clothing you’d find in a streetwear blog, not a middle schooler’s closet.

3019 Rowena Ave. Los Angeles, CA 90039

In Stock Mister Green, Alterior Design, Maaari, Satta, Summerland Ceramics

green-mister.com @shopmistergreen

— ARIEL STARK-BENZ, FOUNDER

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photo courtesy of mister green

“FOR PEOPLE WHO HAVE MORE INTEREST IN DESIGN, WE OFFER SOMETHING THAT THEY MAY BE ABLE TO TAKE HOME VERSUS SOME PLACE LIKE A BONG SHOP ON HOLLYWOOD BOULEVARD.”

Monday to Friday: Noon - 7 p.m.

Saturday: Noon - 6 p.m.

Sunday: Noon - 5 p.m.

@gearpatrol

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