Month: March 2019

To get a clear picture of where research is headed, you have to look beyond the easy headlines

The real fun at scientific conferences is in the poster sessions. While the big keynote talks tend to focus on well-established research trends, the posters offer an unfiltered glimpse of hunches, works in progress, and wild ideas. As a science journalist, my pre-conference ritual involves poring over the list of poster titles looking for interesting possibilities, then racing around the poster hall to check out the actual posters, where researchers have laid out their latest findings and analyses, and finding out which crazy hunches appear to have paid off.

It’s fun, but I’m increasingly realizing that it’s also problematic. If the only studies you hear about are the ones that produce seemingly positive results, you end up with a distorted impression of how reliable those results are. At a huge conference like the American College of Sports Medicine annual meeting, there are literally hundreds of posters investigating possible performance boosters. Simple probability dictates that you’re going to end up with some false positives among them—and those results will seem more impressive if you ignore all the negative results.

So, in that spirit, I dug through my notebooks to pull out five studies I’ve seen at conferences this fall that I thought were really cool—but didn’t produce the “right” result. I should make absolutely clear that calling them “failed” studies in the title is completely tongue in cheek: These studies were designed to test various hypotheses, and they’re equally successful whether they confirm or reject those hypotheses.

It’s also important to note that, as is typical for poster presentations, these are mostly small experiments, in some cases intended as pilot or exploratory studies. The results may change as more subjects are tested or as the study design is refined based on the pilot results. What’s interesting to me is the opportunity to get a sense of the ideas researchers are pursuing and the theories they’re considering. It’s not about the answers (at this point, anyway); it’s about the questions.

Do Stronger Ultramarathoners Run Faster?

This was an abstract presented by Michael Rogers of Simon Fraser University at the Sport Innovation Summit in Vancouver in October. He and his colleagues performed a series of strength tests, including deadlift, grip strength, and vertical jump, on 12 competitors in a 50K mountain race. More so than in flat races, climbing up and down mountain trails requires a fair amount of strength. So, after controlling for aerobic fitness (as measured in a VO2max test), would the stronger athletes run faster in the race?

The short answer, in this particular cohort, was no. To be honest, though, the study is too small to draw any real conclusions at this point. This group has been studying participants from the same trail race for a number of years now, so it will be interesting to see what patterns emerge as they accumulate more data. I don’t think anyone doubts that aerobic fitness is by far the most important factor in ultras, and that you also need to have some reasonable minimum amount of strength. But trying to quantify the relative importance of strength and endurance is an interesting project.

Does the “Architecture” of Your Muscles Determine Loss of Strength as You Age?

This was an intriguing presentation by Liam Fitzgerald from the University of Massachusetts Amherst at the New England American College of Sports Medicine conference in Providence in October. In recent years, there’s been widespread recognition that sarcopenia—the loss of muscle with age—can have a major effect on quality (and perhaps quantity) of life. But it has also become clear that there’s more to sarcopenia than simply losing muscle. With age, we also see changes in the connections between brain and muscle and in the function of whatever muscle you’ve got left.

Fitzgerald investigated the potential role of “muscle architecture,” which encompasses three main elements: the thickness of the muscle, the length of the fascicles (bundles of muscle fibers), and the “pennation angle,” which is the angle of the muscle fibers relative to the direction they pull in. There’s plenty of evidence that muscle architecture, which you can assess with ultrasound, is a key determinant of how much force you get from a given amount of muscle. But in Fitzgerald’s study of young and older women, there was no link between muscle architecture and fatigue in a four-minute strength test, suggesting that architecture is not a hidden key to age-related decline.

Can a Running Power Meter Pick Up Subtle Changes in Running Economy?

The biggest conference I went to this fall was the Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology (CSEP) annual meeting in Winnipeg. One the posters I rushed to check out was a University of Guelph study, presented by Rachel Aubry, comparing a Stryd power meter to standard metabolic measurements in 13 recreational and 11 elite runners. The concept of a power meter for running remains new and is something I’m still having trouble getting my head around. Power is a relatively straightforward concept in cycling, but I’m not entirely sure what it means in running—and Stryd’s secret algorithm doesn’t make it easy to figure out.

Aubry’s study involved having the runners perform a series of tests to measure running economy at various speeds on both a treadmill and an outdoor track. There was a “significant albeit weak” overall relationship between measured running economy and power. Interestingly, the researchers found a significant difference in running economy between treadmill and track running—but the power meter didn’t pick up any differences between the two surfaces. There are some caveats to the study, such as the fact that they used the old chest-mounted Stryd model rather than the new foot pod. Still, the overall take is that power, as measured by this device, doesn’t necessarily pick up subtle changes in the metabolic demands of running.

Does Hard Running Burn More Protein Than Easy Running?

Endurance athletes run on carbs and fat; protein, in contrast, provides building blocks for muscles rather than being burned as fuel. That’s the general pattern, but it’s not the full picture. Studies suggest that between 5 and 10 percent of the energy you burn during exercise can come from protein, particularly during long sessions when your muscles are running low on carbohydrate. But does it matter how hard you’re running? That’s what another CSEP poster, presented by Jenna Gillen of the University of Toronto, sought to determine.

In the study, eight trained runners ran 10K at either 70 or 90 percent of maximum heart rate while the presence of labeled amino acids was tracked to estimate overall protein burning rates. The results: no detectable difference in protein use between the easy and hard runs. It’s possible that a bigger study, or perhaps a longer run that induced more carbohydrate depletion, would have picked up some differences. But the initial conclusion is that you don’t need to make big adjustments in protein consumption based on your exercise intensity.

Can Electric Stimulation Quantify How Fatigued Your Legs Really Are?

Should you push hard in today’s workout, or should you back off to recover from previous training? One of the holy grails of training science is figuring out some way of making that decision objectively rather than relying on athletes’ gut feelings. Jared Fletcher and Brian MacIntosh of the University of Calgary tried a new approach to this problem, using electrically triggered muscle contractions to measure the neuromuscular fatigue present in the legs of 14 trained distance runners during a ten-week training cycle. Then they compared this data to reported training and subjective feelings of fatigue.

The results, presented at CSEP, didn’t reveal any obvious patterns or connections. In fact, neither neuromuscular fatigue nor subjective fatigue changed much over the ten-week study. That may be because they measured fatigue just once a week, at the beginning of the week, rather than immediately before or after key training sessions. Or it may be because neuromuscular fatigue simply isn’t an important factor during normal training for distance runners. I don’t think we can draw any firm conclusions about this yet, but it’s an interesting question to consider.

Anyway, that’s a sample of the kinds of presentations that usually stay buried in my notebook. We’ll probably hear about some of them again in another year or two, when more complete results are published somewhere. Others will disappear without a trace. That’s all part of the scientific process, and it’s worth keeping that in mind whenever you hear about new and exciting results.

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On Tuesday, Fitbit announced the latest addition to its fleet of wearable fitness trackers: the $199 Versa. The Versa appears to be Fitbit’s attempt at a quiver-of-one smartwatch—the sort of device that tracks both your workouts and your overall health, looks fashionable enough to wear everywhere, and does it all at a pretty affordable price. 

The Versa has many of the same core functions as Fitbit’s first full-featured smartwatch, the Ionic: fitness tracking, wrist-based heart-rate detection, guided on-screen workouts, and an automatic recognition system that knows when you’ve begun exercising without the need to press Start. It maintains fan-favorite lifestyle features like sleep tracking, breathing exercises, resting heart rate, music, and text, call, and e-mail integration (the latter is available for Android only). Like the Ionic, it’s also waterproof down to 164 feet. 

But the Versa will retail for $100 less. Why the price difference? Where the Ionic has built-in GPS, the Versa has “connected GPS,” which means that it tracks distance only when paired with a smartphone. However, the Versa does offer a few things the Ionic does not, including a new dashboard, called Fitness Today, that collects activity stats, workout history, and health information, then uses that data to give you daily advice and inspiration. (I have yet to get my hands on a working model of the Versa, but one is on the way. We’ll post a full review of the new features after further testing.) 

Arguably, the Versa’s most interesting capability is what Fitbit calls female health tracking. This cluster of functions allows users to record menstrual cycles and symptoms, among other, more health-oriented stats, and to keep tabs on fertility windows. Fitbit claims that its new app will allow wearers to see how their weight and sleep patterns change throughout their menstrual cycle. The Versa isn’t the first to include this kind of functionality—Bellabeat makes a jewelry-inspired women’s health tracker that logs menstrual cycles, among other things. But Fitbit’s is the first fitness watch to offer a broad menu of women-specific health tracking. 

I’m not sure yet how I feel about taking training and reproductive advice from a watch. I’m much more inclined to trust a human—say, a running coach or gynecologist. But I’m intrigued by how tracked data could inform the advice I’m already getting from the good old-fashioned people in my life.

Fitbit is also launching its first kid-specific product, Fitbit Ace. The device will count steps, activity time, and sleep stats, provide reminders to move, and reward users with merit badges for goals met and challenges won. A family-account option in the app will allow parents to track their kids’ activity patterns and will give kids their own app interface, which displays only certain types of data. (They won’t see calories or body fat, for instance, just activity time, number of steps, and badges earned.) 

The new launches seem to indicate an attempt by Fitbit to do what the Apple Watch does—integrate sport and lifestyle tracking into a device you never have to take off—at a more affordable price and in a family-friendly package. I look forward to getting my hands on the Versa to see how it fits in with my daily life, both athletically and otherwise.

Give the gift of adventure

Holiday shopping for the adventure-loving people on your list is tough. Many either already have all the outdoor gear they need or are too particular to let anyone else shop for things like skis or running shoes. Instead of one more pair of wool hiking socks or yet another headlamp, how about giving an outdoor experience? Nowadays, you can find gift cards for things like cool guided trips, credit toward campsites and off-the-beaten-path vacation housing, or a chance to learn a new skill.

For Foodies

Need a gift for someone who loves food and travel? Check out Conscious Course. On its guided backpacking trip through California’s Sierra Nevada foothills ($400), a wilderness chef leads you on farm tours, serve up multicourse meals, and do cooking demonstrations on hand-built backcountry stoves.

Or give an Heirloom Mail subscription ($25 per month) from the Recipe Hunters. Every 30 days, a box will arrive containing one surprise ingredient from around the world, along with stories, traditional recipes, and cooking techniques.

For Hikers and Campers

The National Park Service may be increasing entry fees to some of the country’s busiest playgrounds starting next summer, so a gift card to enter national parks isn’t a bad idea to help loved ones offset the price spike. An America the Beautiful pass ($80) lasts an entire year and gives access to more than 2,000 federal recreation sites, including all national parks. Or pick up a gift card to Hipcamp (from $75), and friends and family will be able to book unique campsites on private and public land around the United States.

For World Travelers

Give the gift of travel by starting with an Airbnb gift card, which recipients can use to book lodging in any corner of the globe. For full-service trips, REI Adventures leads everything from rafting in Costa Rica to kayaking in New Zealand to hiking through Arizona’s Sonoran Desert. You can purchase an REI gift card to cover all or part of any of those adventures. For the women on your list, consider a trip with AdventureWomen a mother-daughter-run company that leads all-female trips like biking in Chile, trekking in the Himalayas, or skiing in Montana. Give yourself peace of mind with a Medjet membership (from $99), which offers travel protection for medical emergencies that’ll ensure your loved ones get transportation to a hospital, no matter where in the world they are.

For Water Lovers

For the surfers or aspiring surfers on your holiday list, score a gift certificate in any amount to Tofino, British Columbia’s Long Beach Lodge Resort, a plush waterfront hotel with a surf school in Cox Bay that offers instruction and surfboard rental. Or spring for an OARS gift card (from $25), which can go toward more than 100 guided river trips, from Green River to Grand Canyon.

For someone who has always wanted to learn to scuba dive, you can now give an online course that marks the first step in completing the dive certification process. PADI’s eLearning program (from $179) can be taken at any time and any pace. Once the recipient is certified, you can start chipping in for dive trips to places like Tahiti, Thailand, or Hawaii.

For Skiers

Nothing beats freeskiing, so consider a Liftopia gift card, which can be redeemed for lift tickets at more than 250 ski resorts across North America, including spots like Aspen, Snowbird, Jackson Hole, and Big Sky. For a gift no skier or snowboarder will ever forget, purchase a pass good for one run of heli-skiing at Colorado’s rugged Silverton Mountain ($179), or splurge for a full day of six runs of heli-skiing ($999). As far as heli-skiing goes, that’s about the most affordable you’ll find.

The Winter Nights and City Lights package at Denver’s upscale Crawford Hotel (opened in 2014 inside the city’s restored Union Station) is ideal for folks who want to stay the night before jumping on Amtrak’s Winter Park Express for direct service to the base of the ski area. The offer includes accommodations for two, two winter-themed cocktails, breakfast credit at Snooze, and two travel coffee mugs ($269). Buy a Crawford Hotel gift card to cover the package.

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Recently, we’ve seen a rise in performance jeans which fit better and have features like four-way stretch fabric that make them more comfortable to wear adventures outside. While many performance jeans provide more freedom of movement than your standard pair, most are still too stiff to effectively climb or bike in. Enter the new Meridian Line Gravity jeans, which launched on Kickstarter last week and are already over 200 percent funded. 

I’ve been wearing a pair of the Gravity jeans nearly every day for the past two weeks and have been blown away by the comfort and flexibility they provide. They’re made from an organic cotton-polyester blend with a touch of spandex so they're as soft as my favorite pair of jeans but more durable and quick drying. My favorite part is the stretch: The pants don’t hinder my flexibility whatsoever, no matter the activity. I also have yet to wash them and they’ve retained their form nicely and haven’t stretched out. 

The jeans come in two fits, slim and regular, and three washes, granite, dark indigo, and regular. On the inside, the cuffs and inner pockets feature artwork by professional climber, artist, and Meridian Line founder Jeremy Collins. 

The jeans will retail for $99 but are currently available on Kickstarter for 20 percent off. 

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To find solitude in the wilderness, skip the weekends, consider the off season, and look for places without the obvious appeals

Last week, Jen and I drove our Aistream, Artemis, northeast to a remote mountain basin in the Sangre de Cristo range of New Mexico called the Valle Vidal. Abutting Ted Turner’s Vermejo Park Ranch, this valley buzzes with animals and is thus regarded as some of the top public land in the state for chasing elk and casting for trout. We went there to fill the cow elk tag I was lucky enough to draw, but the lessons in solitude and isolation—and how to pick good places to camp—were as rewarding as the hunt.

The last time we were here was in November 2012, when Jen drew this same tag. The place was as silent and spectacular as I remembered. A narrow slot canyon of serrated granite and gneiss guards the northern, easier-access entrance to the Vidal, and Costilla Creek, which sees little sun in the winter, was already papered in a thin, crunchy wrapping of ice. Once through the valley, the land opens into expansive meadows golden with Parry’s oatgrass fringed by dark, shady walls of Douglas fir and ponderosa pine. We immediately saw two huge bucks laboring under heavy antlers, and a flurry of bald and golden eagles circled above.

A friend of ours, Bruce, was along for the trip, and as the landscape unfolded, he lamented how long it had been since he came here. Bruce has lived in Santa Fe for nearly 30 years, yet the last time he made it to the Vidal was over a decade earlier. Likewise, the fact that Jen and I hadn’t come back in the five years speaks to just how forgotten such spaces become. Our fourth friend along for the weekend, another Aaron, visits the Vidal at least once a year for his job as an ecologist. “It’s a long way up here, so not that many people come. I never see anyone,” he told us. “Just means more for those of us willing to make the trip.”

Though our visit fell during one of the prime seasons in the Vidal, Cimmaron Campground, the first of two in the valley, was only half full, and we easily found a spot large enough to accommodate both Artemis and our friend’s second pop-up trailer. And while a few hunters’ trucks patrolled the roadways early each morning and in the evenings, we discovered that we were the only ones interested in exploring the depths of the Vidal’s backcountry. For the first few mornings, we’d slip past locked forest gates onto disused dirt roads, and over the course of a full day, we’d bike and hike—alone—through some of the most spectacular high mountains in New Mexico. Just over the bald canine of Little Costilla Peak to the north, Vermejo sells access to property just like this for hundreds and thousands of dollars a day. Here in the Vidal, it’s free for those of us willing to visit.

Aaron and Bruce returned to Santa Fe on Monday. Jen and I went out again that morning, and by the time we came back to Artemis, all but a few other campers had cleared out of Cimmarron. By Tuesday afternoon, when we returned from filling my tag, we were almost completely alone. The wind sizzled through the ponderosa and aspen that night, and we sat, completely alone, under a moonless sky pregnant with stars. Elk bugled somewhere in the distant dark woods, and coyotes cackled their sinister-sounding replies. The land was black and silent, and we felt insignificant and connected in that way you only get when you’re alone in huge, powerful places.

Records aren’t kept or available for the number of people who enter the Valle Vidal each year, but I’d be willing to bet that, after Jen and I, only a slow trickle of daytrippers make their way through before the end of this year, and then only on weekends. That means there’s over a 100,000 acres of prime mountains just sitting quietly, free to be enjoyed and explored. It made me realize all over again how much land like this is out there waiting for us. By using all the tools at our disposal, such as Strava heat maps and the roadless overlay from OnX app, it’s possible to quickly distill areas that are seeing very little use. And even if you want to visit marquee attractions, say, the national parks, do some searching for visitor statistics to improve your trip. For instance, Carlsbad Caverns, got 90,000 visitors during its peak July season last year, but less than 15 percent of that in January and February. You can bet that Jen and I, who have heard the hiking trails there are outstanding but completely underused, will point Artemis that direction this winter.

We could have left the Valle Vidal immediately but instead we decided to stay and savor the solitude. As the valley settled back to its natural rhythm, the only sound of a day was the persistent wind, and we began seeing elk and deer again from the road. For the price of a long, slow drive, we had what felt like our own private game preserve for a few glorious days. And, at least for now, our country is rich with such places.

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Recently, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke employed a bait-and-switch defense of President Trump’s bait-and-switch budget proposal for the Department of the Interior.

The bait? An $18 billion fund for fixing the National Park Service’s massive maintenance backlog. The switch? It’d be paid for by deregulating oil and gas extraction on public lands, firing NPS employees, and empowering Zinke to sell off any public lands he wishes. Make no mistake, this would be a disaster for America’s national parks, and it probably won’t even fix the damn potholes.

That’s all part of the White House’s fiscal year 2019 budget proposal. As a recap for those of you fortunate enough to not have to closely follow Washington’s political machinations, the White House budget isn’t law. It’s more a piece of science fiction about how the president and his minions hope the government might work next year. This being the Trump White House we’re talking about, this particular budget proposal is a little more fictional than usual—Forbes calls it “pure fantasy.”

Still, as a statement of how the executive branch wishes it could govern—or, more appropriately, how badly it wishes it could screw the American people—the budget proposal is telling. It’s the first time we’ve seen an outline of exactly what Trump and Zinke plan to do to our national parks.

The big proposal here is the creation of that $18 billion infrastructure fund for the NPS. Like the $1.5 trillion in national infrastructure spending Trump called for in his State of the Union address, the vast majority of that total will need to come from private industry. Specifically, the budget calls for the federal government to contribute only $257 million over the next ten years, while the remaining $17.743 billion would come from the energy extraction industries.

That sounds pretty good, right? The NPS currently has an $11.6 billion maintenance backlog and is desperately in need of repairs to its roads, trails, visitor facilities, and other infrastructure assets. Placing the majority of that burden on private industry operating on public lands seems like a great way to fix all that without raising taxes or visitor fees.

The trouble is that the money earmarked for the fund is essentially fictional. The budget proposal says it will be derived by taking 50 percent of any energy leasing receipts that exceed the 2018 budget projections and that are also not otherwise allocated. In order for it to pay out as planned, we must assume that other allocations won’t require more money than planned, that rates for energy leases (and energy sales) will remain stable, and, of course, that the the number of leases will massively expand.

In reality, the Trump budget provides only a tiny fraction of the money needed for park infrastructure—just $257 million over ten years—and the rest may nor may not turn up. Fun fact: That ten-year total number doesn’t even match the annual rate at which the backlog expands. The NPS’s maintenance backlog is growing $275 million a year.

The other news here is even worse. The budget calls for firing 1,835 NPS employees, at a time when national park visitation is at its highest level ever. It would also remove 559 people from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 1,209 from the U.S. Geological Survey, and 330 from the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The only two DOI offices the budget plans to increase? The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the office of Natural Resources Revenue.

The budget also suggests selling off the George Washington Parkway and Baltimore Washington Parkway, two D.C.-area roads that are owned by the Park Service. That may sound practical—toll roads make a ton of financial sense—but in so doing, the budget gives the DOI the authority to sell off any other public lands that “demonstrate an increase in value from the sale” and “optimize the taxpayer value for Federal assets.”In short, if he can make money from them, Zinke can sell public lands willy-nilly—the language giving him authorization to do so is hidden inside an otherwise practical provision.

While that’s going on, the budget calls for what the Washington Post says is a 23 percent cut in the budget for the Environmental Protection Agency and eliminates that department’s programs related to climate change. It also removes funding for renewable energy development.

If the Park Service does get the money it needs to fill its potholes, then it will come at the expense of the staff it needs to serve the public, and keep them safe, and at a terrible environmental cost. The beautiful scenery and incredible wildlife the NPS was created to protect could be destroyed by the budget Trump and Zinke are claiming is pro-park.

And none of this is actually being done to save money or prioritize small government. The New York Times calculates that the budget will add $7 trillion to the national deficit over the next ten years.

Discussing the budget, Zinke states, “We are putting an emphasis on rebuilding our national park system, making sure our greatest treasures are protected. This budget is all about rebuilding our park system.” That is a damn lie.

Our national parks aren’t being loved to death. With this budget, the Trump administration and Zinke’s DOI are purposefully setting out to destroy them.

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Leave the stinky rentals behind and invest in your very own climbing setup at Moosejaw’s Climbing Sale which is happening March 5 through March 11 with hundreds of products at least 25 percent off. We picked out our favorite beginner essentials to help you build your first kit.

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The non-aggressive turn of these shoes makes them perfect for your first pair of climbing kicks. Paired with a great front edge and extra sticky rubber, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a beginner-friendly shoe at a better price.

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Made from EPS foam with a webbing suspension system, the low profile Half Dome offers comfort and protection at an affordable price.

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Handy for beginners, Petzl’s latest belay piece has an anti-panic function that automatically brakes if the belayer yanks too hard on the release, stopping the climber’s descent.

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If you don't want to splurge for the GriGri+, this simple to use belay device is an age-old favorite. Climbers commonly choose this option to avoid adding extra weight a burlier belay device brings.

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Keep gym holds clean and grippy with this brush set. 

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The Mojo Chalk Bag has a simple design that doesn't distract from your climbing. Tools fit nicely in the side brush holder.

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This simple mesh bag is an invaluable piece of equipment that keeps your chalk contained and your bag clean.

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Designed to be operated with one hand, this carabiner uses magnets to stay locked. And it makes a satisfying click, so you’ll always know when it’s secure.

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If convenience is key, the Momentum and Primrose packages have most of the gear you need to get started at a great price. Included is a climbing harness, locking carabiner, belay device, chalk, and chalk bag.

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Sales of trucks, SUVs, and crossovers are booming right now. While huge, inefficient vehicles make terrible transportation for the vast majority of drivers, the fast pace of innovation in that space benefits us adventurers. Here’s a list of the best new-for-2018 vehicles that are capable of carrying you, your outdoors gear, and your dog off the beaten path.

(Who am I to be telling you which cars to buy? Well, I’ve been reviewing vehicles in a professional capacity for 15 years, meaning I’ve driven virtually every car and truck on-sale. Despite that experience, my daily driver is a notoriously unreliable old Land Rover, on which I perform most of the maintenance and repairs myself. I also travel off-road most weekends, and sometimes even get to call doing that my job.) 

For seemingly forever, the Toyota Tacoma has been the only mid-size pickup available to drivers who wanted a truck, but didn’t want to deal with the unwieldy, inefficient proportions of a half-ton. But with basically no competition, Toyota has had no reason to spend much money on innovation, and the Taco they want to sell you today is virtually the same as the one they probably did sell you back in 2004. Chevy tried to compete a couple years ago, but the Colorado hasn’t been able to take on the Tacoma’s vast aftermarket—you need parts like suspension lifts, steel bumpers, and other accessories if you want to get serious off-road.

The new 2019 Ranger, which goes on sale this year, addresses those issues. Fitted with Ford’s excellent new 2.3-liter, twin-turbo four-cylinder motor, it promises to deliver a huge boost in torque over the competition, while the 10-speed transmission should take both performance and fuel economy even further. Because it’s based on a platform that’s been on-sale in Australia since 2011, and because Australia is a market with exceptionally high demand for legit off-road capability, there’s already a thriving market for aftermarket upgrades. When it goes on-sale late this year, you’ll be able to upgrade your Ranger with all manner of proven parts. 

Starting at just $21,795, the Crosstrek is one of the most affordable new cars on-sale today. It’s also one of the best. Despite its low price tag, this Subaru seats five adults in comfort, is fun to drive, returns very good fuel economy, and is surprisingly capable on rough dirt roads. If you live in a city and need to parallel park on weekdays, but want to escape for camping trips on the weekend, this car has been purpose-designed for you. Did I mention it’s one of the safest vehicles around? And that it’s one of the few new cars still available with a manual transmission?

In stock form, the Crosstrek is nearly perfect. But a few bolt-on modifications can really boost your ability to take it to faraway places. Ditching the stock tires for a set of lightweight all-terrains will help make the most of Subaru’s awesome all-wheel drive system, while protecting you from punctures. A roof basket or box will free up room inside the car for your dogs. A basic vehicle recovery kit will enable you to get out of trouble when you can’t call AAA. And all those things are lease friendly. Which is great, because one of those starts at just $179 per month, making this brand-new car a much better proposition than buying anything else used.

This is Land Rover’s first car-based vehicle (it shares a platform with the Jaguar XE), but surprisingly, that doesn’t really limit its capabilities off-road. In fact, the all-wheel drive system is capable of locking its center differential, equally splitting torque between the front and rear axles. Add in the optional rear locker, and this thing is capable of finding more traction than most traditional body-on-frame SUVs. It also has hill-descent control, to help keep you safe on steep stuff.

Why choose the Velar over other Land Rovers? Well, because of the way it looks, obviously, but also because its car platform creates a very spacious interior and a very smooth ride. On a dirt road, with the rear diff locked, the air suspension soaking up bumps, and the low center of gravity helping to keep the car planted, the Velar is about the closest thing to a rally car you can buy.

Ford used to own Land Rover, and it appears that the sophisticated terrain management system developed by the latter is being installed in new trucks made by the former. The system works by tweaking individual brake calipers on-the-fly, mimicking the wheel speed-matching benefits of locking diffs to maximize traction. It does that automatically, through modes tailored to different environments, thereby asking very little of the driver. Combine that with four-wheel drive, low-range gears, and a locking rear diff, and you have a formula for a very large, eight-seat workhorse that’s actually very good off-road.

The other big advantage the Expedition has over rivals is independent rear suspension. Not only does that create a smooth ride, and make this giant handle like a much smaller vehicle, but it also leads to a lower floor inside the cabin. That means loading stuff into the trunk is way easier than it would be in something like a Chevy Tahoe. Plus, it makes the third row genuinely comfortable, even for six-foot-plus adults. The motor’s awesome, the gearbox is better…this thing is a winner.

Grown out of your Subaru? The XC60 will deliver similar dirt road capability in a much nicer package. Volvo is now owned by Geely, and the Chinese company is pumping money into its Swedish luxury brand, while allowing it the freedom to build cars the way it wants to. That’s resulting in unique, stylish sedans, wagons, and crossovers like this one that feel way more special than their German rivals.

The XC60’s cabin is a genuinely delightful space to spend time, and it's big enough to cart five adult humans, a dog or two, and their outdoor gear for a weekend getaway. Once you’re back home, the swanky exterior will make everyone on your street think you spent a lot more money on this thing than you actually did. The best part? There’s a plug-in hybrid version available. That’s rocket ship fast, gives you an 18-mile electric-only range, and returns 59 MPGe.

For a lot of people, “off-road” really means dirt roads. If to you it means rocks, logs, and deep water crossings, then you’ll need a Wrangler. Already the most capable vehicle sold in this country, the Wrangler was redesigned for 2018, resulting in improved angles, room for bigger tires, and much better engine options. Together, those improvements would make this the best Wrangler yet, but then Jeep went even further, improving the quality of interior materials and making the soft top less of a pain to take up and down. You just cannot go wrong with one of these things. 

With an absolutely gigantic interior and utterly awesome engines and transmissions, the F-150 was already our favorite full-size pickup. For its 40th birthday this year, it’s been heavily redesigned, and more importantly gained an optional turbo diesel.

With huge amounts of low-down torque, diesels don't work as hard as their gasoline-powered equivalents when tasked with a heavy load. That means they retain more of their fuel economy and performance when the bed is loaded down or when you’re towing. So, if your adventures involve taking a ton of gear with you, or if you want to build an off-road RV or overland rig, this is now the half-ton of choice. Ford’s FX4 package is available across all the various F-150 trims and engines, meaning you can spec your diesel with stiffer shocks, and a locking rear differential, too.

For the winner of the inaugural women’s Olympic marathon, watching younger women triumph keeps her inspired

Please forgive the cliché, but Shalane Flanagan’s win at Sunday’s New York City Marathon was one for the ages. After rolling with three-time defending NYC champ Mary Keitany and 66-minute half marathoner Mamitu Daska until final miles of the race, Flanagan broke away as she entered the east side of Central Park. She covered mile 25 in around five minutes flat, en route to becoming the first American woman in 40 years to win New York.

Her face as she crossed the line said it all. “I’ve been dreaming of a moment like this since I was a little girl,” Flanagan, 36, said afterwards.
 
As it happens, one of the dominant marathoners of Flanagan’s childhood was present on Sunday. Sitting in the bleachers flanking the finish line was none other than Joan Benoit Samuelson, who won the inaugural women’s Olympic marathon in Los Angeles in 1984. Samuelson, 60, wanted to run last month’s Chicago Marathon in a bid to become the first woman over 60 to run a sub-three hour marathon, but an injury forced her to withdraw. We have no doubt that she will be back.
 
We reached out to Samuelson to get her thoughts on the significance of Flanagan’s historic win.

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“I was in the bleachers, right near the finish line, so I saw Shalane pass in front of me. I knew she was going to run well, based on how well Amy ran in the World Champs and Jordan’s run in Chicago. [Amy Cragg, Flanagan’s training partner, won a bronze medal in the marathon at last summer’s IAAF World Championships, while Jordan Hasay just ran the second fastest marathon by an American woman last month.] The athlete’s mind in me told me that she’d have something to prove now. I wouldn’t say it was pressure to prove something, so much as desire. To go out there and say, ‘Hey! I can do this, too!’ She’s had some injuries and she’s had some disappointments, but she’s a heck of an athlete. She ran a really smart race and looked strong the whole way through. So strong!

 

Shalane was capable of a big win. She’s come so close. I know Boston was a heartbreaker for her [in 2014, Flanagan finished seventh in the Boston Marathon after leading the field for most of the first part of the race. She was slated to race again earlier this year, but an injury kept her from competing.] She really wanted to come back and win this one. I’m just delighted to see it happen, absolutely thrilled. She was so emotional at the end and you couldn’t help but be emotional with her.
 
Both Mary [Keitany] and Shalane ran the TD Beach to Beacon race this summer in my hometown. [Samuelson is the founder of this prestigious 10K.] They both ran great races. Mary won, but Shalane wasn’t too far behind and I knew she was training right through because all her focus was on New York.
 
Those women keep me young. They just go after it, and to see them go after it keeps me in the game. Shalane’s mother, Cheryl, was running when I started my career, so it’s gone full circle. To see her do what she did on Sunday and break that 40-year drought was just so inspiring to me. I see running as a two-way road. Perhaps Shalane gained some inspiration from me—what I did in L.A. and during my career—but, you know what? She gives it right back. All the young runners give it back.
 
So many people have just come up to me on the street and said, ‘What a race!’ and I just beamed. She so deserves it. It’s great for the sport. Great for women everywhere regardless of their passions, and just a huge win on center stage.
 
There’s no substitute for hard work. Sometimes we go over that fine line and it fails us. Shalane’s gone over that line, and I went over it when I was hoping to run Chicago, but you learn from your mistakes. We’ve all been there, and we’ll all go there, and hopefully all come back from there.
 
I had a blessed career. I’ve been at it for a long time. Being able to run at my level—five sub-3s in five different decades [Samuelson ran her first sub-3 marathon in Boston in 1979]—I can’t ask for any more. I still have the heart and the passion. I still want to get back in and try to tell the story. And Shalane’s success has inspired me to do that.
 
My wish was for Shalane to hit the race that she wanted to hit while the whole world was watching. And the whole world was watching. The world won’t forget, nor will Shalane.”

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

With its new Walls Are Meant for Climbing program, the company hopes to make climbing accessible for everyone of all ages and abilities

Last winter, my two daughters and I became obsessed with climbing at our local gym. The days were short and cold, and spending a couple hours scrambling up the holds after school was the perfect way to exercise together and beat back cabin fever. We could each work on our own routes and progress at our own speed.

My first day there was the girls’ third. They were already old pros at lowering themselves on the auto-belay, while I balked, frozen and panic-stricken, at the top. “Let go, Mama!” they called to me, helpfully at first, but soon with mounting impatience-slash-mortification and dramatic eye rolling. “Just lean back! It will catch you!” Some weeks we went almost every day. There’s almost nothing more satisfying than going home to dinner, pooped, with rubbery forearms and the flush of accomplishment after having finally mastered a new route.

Climbing is a terrific sport for families, but not everyone has access to state-of-the-art facilities. The North Face aims to change that. Next year, the company will build free-to-access outdoor climbing structures in three to five underserved urban areas as part of a campaign to make climbing more accessible to more people. Launched late this summer, Walls Are Meant for Climbing created a global day of climbing in which 20,000 people climbed for free at gyms around the world; the company also donated $50,000 to Paradox, an adaptive climbing program for athletes with physical disabilities.

But its crux move was in donating $1 million to the Trust for Public Land to fund metropolitan outdoor climbing areas in places like New York, Portland, and Chicago. “We’re identifying key cities where there is a need and an opportunity to build something sustainable,” says Mike Ferris, senior director of brand management at The North Face, who adds that the manmade climbing structures will be built in existing parks or on a parcel of land set aside for conservation.

“Urban boulders have a small footprint with a large vertical space for climbers of all ages and abilities to play on side by side,” says alpinist Conrad Anker, who was on hand in New York to help launch the global day of climbing. The structures will be run in conjunction with local gyms to offer lessons, do community outreach, and bring more diversity to the sport.

“A lot of people are using walls to create division—take the social culture of the past 12 months—but for those of us focused on climbing, walls can bring people together,” says Ferris. “By its very nature, climbing is about solving problems. It’s about inclusivity and teamwork.”

Not to mention something we need more of in this world: humility.

“You can always be a beginner in climbing,” says Ferris. “The idea of progression is very real. You can be climbing 5.6 one year and 5.10 the next, 5.13. It’s not just about physical strength. It’s a very intellectual sport. It’s about trying. It’s about the pursuit.”

As for the name and its not-so-subtle message: No, Trump has not weighed in.

Yet.