Drivers think cyclists hold up traffic. It’s actually the other way around. How many bikes do there have to be in order for us to realize that?

Route 9W is the most popular recreational cycling route in the New York City region, which is, of course, the most densely populated metropolitan area in the United States. Riders pick up 9W just north of the George Washington Bridge and generally head up to the quaint villages of Piermont and Nyack where they stop for coffee and muffins. From there, they have the option of returning to the city or else continuing up to Bear Mountain State Park and beyond.

I’ve been riding 9W for decades now, but it was only during a recent weekend ride that I noticed something: cyclists comprise most of the traffic. On that particular day, I probably passed something like 100 cyclists a minute versus maybe like five cars.

Of course, the balance shifts more toward drivers during the week, but overall 9W sees a shitload of bikes. Yet for as long as I’ve been riding this corridor, cyclists have been treated at best as an afterthought and at worst as a nuisance. Over the past 20 years, I’ve seen virtually no infrastructure changes to increase cyclist safety or even convey to anybody that this is possibly the most heavily cycled route in the entire country.

I have, however, heard plenty of kvetching. Even though thousands of cyclists visit and spend money in these villages every week, all you ever read about in the news is how they do awful things, like talk audibly to each other while riding two abreast. Most recently, South Nyack residents fought against 24-hour access to the new Tappan Zee Bridge bike path, terrified by the prospect that cyclists and pedestrians might continue to visit in an environmentally friendly manner and spend money after dark. (Don’t worry, you’ll still be able to drive your car over and do donuts on lawns at any time of the day or night.)

It’s a similar situation along popular cycling routes everywhere: cyclists vilified for slowing traffic when in fact they are the majority of the traffic, or for somehow diminishing everybody’s quality of life by riding bicycles and patronizing local businesses. Furthermore, as more people commute by bike in cities across the country, it’s increasingly common to find streets where, during rush hour, you’ll see more bicycles than cars.

Yet it seems that whenever a new bicycle infrastructure proposal comes up, the first consideration—even before safety—is to what extent it might inconvenience drivers. In New York City, life-saving bike lane projects are subject to months and months of pointless public debate driven almost entirely by people whose primary concern is on-street car parking. Citi Bike sees something like 15 million trips per years, and the curb space taken up by one private car can provide docking space for eight publicly shared Citi Bikes. But before a new station is installed, planners must justify the “loss” of parking, even though it’s a net gain. Moreover, in order to preserve that precious car parking space, Citi Bike stations often wind up being installed on the sidewalk. 

Majority rules and money talks—unless you’re talking about people on bicycles, in which case we have a stunning capacity for ignoring them altogether.

None of this is really surprising. After all, we’ve spend the last century in a state of complete surrender to the automobile, so of course we think putting cars first is normal. But it’s not normal—it’s absurd. And as more people begin riding bikes, the more apparent the absurdity becomes. It’s easy to blame a bike lane for the traffic jam you’re sitting in, but sooner or later, you can’t ignore all those cyclists whizzing by. And unless you’ve got carbon-monoxide-induced brain damage, eventually you’re going to have to confront the fact that the metal box you’re sitting in is just too damn big—bike lane or no bike lane. Same goes for the “loss” of parking. Invariably when a city proposes a new bike lane, there’s concern that it will harm local businesses by making it more difficult for customers to park. However, unless you’re selling building supplies or farm equipment, you need to confront the fact that expecting more and more people to arrive at your place of business in increasingly large vehicles is an extremely poor and ultimately self-defeating business model.  

Oh sure, you can put more stuff in a car trunk than in a pannier, but that’s nothing compared to how many more bikes than cars you can fit on a typical shopping street.

Unfortunately, because this is the Land of the Freeway and the Home of the SUV, it’s going to be awhile before most of us come to realize how often it’s the cars that are actually preventing people from getting around. It’ll probably also take us awhile to realize that bicycles mean business, and that the people who ride them are indeed human beings who proffer currency in exchange for goods and services—just like drivers. As it is, thousands of cyclists stream up 9W every weekend and spend money in towns that often seem annoyed by them. Imagine how profligate cyclist spending would be if communities treated them as an asset rather than a blight.

Eventually there will be some sort of inversion wherein we realize all these things. But how many people need to be riding bikes before it happens? Do we need 20 percent mode share? 50 percent? 99 percent? Or will we keep prioritizing cars until the bike lanes are packed and there’s one guy driving down an empty six-lane avenue in a Hyundai?

Hey, we wouldn't want him to have any trouble parking.

Matt Wells and Denny Hogan have been adventuring together for decades. As they push 70, they’re not ready to give it up yet.

Matt Wells has many nicknames, chief among them Uncle Fuzz, but it isn’t until his old buddy Jerry Roberts calls him abuelo that reality sinks in. We are standing in Roberts’ yard on Easter Sunday 2017, in the small southern Colorado town of Ridgway, inventorying our gear before attempting a ski traverse of the San Juan Range. For some reason, up until now I have viewed this trip like any other. Only when Roberts used the Spanish word for grandpa did I remember: I am about to try and cross one of America’s king ranges with a 70-year-old (Wells)—while following his 68-year-old friend Denny Hogan’s lead.

We pad around in the sun, each of us brimming with the nervous excitement that precedes a week in the wild. The San Juans’ tall, striking skyline looms to the south. I have come at the behest of a friend, 42-year-old Tim Cron, who is four years my senior. Cron used to work with Wells in Idaho and saw in the trip a unique opportunity. Not only would we be chasing a rare objective, but we’d also get to learn from a pair of masters in Wells and Hogan.

Hogan, who organized the trip, drove south from his home in Buena Vista and met me on Wolf Creek Pass the prior day. We stashed a truck there and continued on to Ridgway, where in recent years an impressive array of mountain men have retired to an alpine-desert version of their former selves. Roberts, who used to oversee avalanche mitigation along the notorious Million Dollar Highway between Ouray and Silverton, acts as a sort of ringleader, and whenever a member of the old guard shows up, à la Hogan and Wells, the rest of them emerge like werewolves.

Almost on cue, Peter Lev appears at 10 a.m. A retired guide and former co-owner of Exum Mountain Guides in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Lev partnered with Hogan on an attempted first ascent of the west face of Mount Huntington in Alaska 38 years ago. Earlier this winter, he relocated from the Black Hills to Ouray, just down the road from Ridgway, at the base of Red Mountain Pass. Lev almost summited 13,321-foot Trico Peak yesterday, he tells us, and enjoyed a marvelous solo ski descent. He is 77.

Roberts knows that Cron and I are here to learn from Hogan and Wells, and he assures us we will. “These guys are mentors without being mentors,” he says. “You see how things are done just by watching them.”

Hogan became interested in a San Juans traverse after reading that George Lowe and two friends skied it in 1992. Hogan has since tried it nine times, succeeding four. The 65-mile route basically follows the Continental Divide from west to east, and you spend much of your time above treeline—for better or worse. Hogan had long tried to convince Wells to join him, but it didn’t come together until this year. Wells recruited Cron, his former mentee on the Sun Valley Ski Patrol, and Cron invited me for an even number.

Aiming to complete the traverse in six days—an ambitious timeline even with good conditions—we divvy up supplies in the driveway. Lev, who has climbed the Grand Teton more than 400 times, shakes his index finger at Hogan. “You clearly still like to carry a heavy pack. What the heck is wrong with you?” Hogan laughs and blushes, but weight will indeed prove to be a factor during our trip.

Neither Lev, whose ski pack now consists of a hip pouch with a small bottle of schnapps, nor Roberts can physically handle such a traverse anymore. With each lament that another of their brethren has succumbed to a heart attack or brain tumor, it becomes clear how rare our two partners are. Cron and I are here to see how they still do it, so that one day we can be the holdouts.

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Hogan and Wells met as Colorado Outward Bound guides in the 1970s while ski training on Teton Pass with, among others, future Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard. They slept outside 16 days a month and went on to travel together for decades. Wells, who lives in Hailey, Idaho, and still maintains a solid build to go with his fur (hence the “Uncle Fuzz” moniker, or Fuzz for short), spent 14 years guiding on horseback in Mongolia. He also made nine trips to Nepal and 15 to Peru, mostly to climb. Still, he never took himself too seriously, as evidenced by one of his favorite lines during our trip: “Do you know who I was?”

Hogan, whom Roberts likens to a mountain elf, stands five-foot-six and is known from Alaska to Colorado for his modesty and dirtbag ways. He learned to climb when he was 14 and eventually compiled one of the most underrated résumés of any amateur adventurer. In 1974, Hogan and three friends completed the first ski crossing of Greenland’s South Cumberland Peninsula, a journey that took 42 days. “The Inuit thought we were nuts,” Hogan recalls. He has kayaked or rafted the Grand Canyon five times, narrowly survived a speed descent through the Black Canyon of the Gunnison River, made first alpine ascents in remote locations, rock-climbed with the late Fred Beckey, and last year rode his bike from Banff to Buena Vista for fun.

The first time Hogan skied across the San Juans, he did it with the late Randy Udall. They met at Wolf Creek Pass, where Hogan found out Udall only had five days until he was due back home, instead of the seven they’d planned. Hogan, an aerobically gifted athlete who loves to suffer, barely hung on to Udall’s ferocious pace. When they collapsed into camp each night, Udall would swallow a stick of butter and go to sleep, Hogan says. Still, they finished the route, and Hogan was hooked. No one has done it more than he has—or survived more close calls along the way.

As Easter Sunday fades toward dusk, Roberts drops us off at the end of a dirt road in Cunningham Gulch, just outside Silverton. The mid-April snowpack is firm as we set out on skins, crossing under a series of avalanche paths, one of which killed six miners on St. Patrick’s Day in 1906. The valley floor is littered with avalanche debris now, too, 20 feet of snow and broken trees piled up in mounds. We find a dry patch of tundra next to the creek and set up camp. I recline in a mesh-and-aluminum chair, one of a handful of luxuries I have packed. “You’re breaking my heart,” Wells jokes, lying on the ground, chairless.

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On our way to Highland Mary Lake the next morning, we stop next to a creek to fill our water bottles. Wells is already struggling to keep pace and acknowledges out loud, for the first time of many, that he is the slowest skier in the group. Not that it dampens his spirit. He looks at Hogan, who has removed his hat for a moment, revealing a horseshoe of hair and a shiny cranium. “Man, you are bald,” Wells says. “You look like an egg in the nest.”

A short time later, we stop again and Hogan asks Wells if he is feeling the altitude—an indirect way of asking why he is moving slower than the rest of us. Wells takes exception. “I remember when you were feeling the altitude,” he fires back. Hogan grins: “Where was that, South America?”

We reach the lake at 4 p.m., and I ditch my pack to ski a run above our camp. Wells shows Cron how to anchor our tent stakes more securely, and I get a lesson in extracting water from a frozen lake courtesy of Hogan, who once trained Navy SEALs in winter survival on Mount Elbert, the highest peak in Colorado. (He also worked as a prison guard and, later, as a bureaucrat with the BLM.)

Hogan, an early proponent of light-and-fast travel, would prefer to bivvy in the open, as he did on most of his 13 trips to Alaska. But he and Wells are sharing a thin shelter here, albeit one that leaves them exposed to wind and snow along the edges. Hogan’s only insulation from the frozen ground is a thin foam pad that extends to his knees. Cron and I, meanwhile, have inflatable pads and a three-season tent with a vestibule.

I am already a little worried about our pace, given we fell short of Hogan’s stated goal this morning. But I remind myself it’s early.

The next morning, Wells and I skin past a set of bear tracks as he tells me about his last big climb, eight years ago in the Cordillera Huayhuash of Peru. He and his partner were 62. “We knew when we got to the top,” Wells says. “We were like, ‘This is it.’”

Later, he shares some life advice out of the blue. “Don’t be afraid to apologize.” I admit that I have a tendency to hold grudges if I feel someone is in the wrong. “You’ll learn to let go,” Wells says.

The four of us stop on a dry tuft of grass at noon, staring across at the Grenadiers subrange, one of the most stunning landscapes in Colorado. Hogan and Wells spent much of their early twenties exploring these peaks with Outward Bound. Forty-five years later, they are content to gape and remember. “That range really excited us as young men,” Wells says. “It was a great place to gain your maturity and do some shit.”

Hogan made the first winter ascent of Jagged Mountain in 1971 with a friend, Arturismo Agasuma, who died two weeks later while climbing the Wham Ridge, which we are looking at as Hogan tells the story. Hogan then points toward Arrow Peak. “See that ramp coming off the north face? I skied that,” he says sheepishly. “It’s my only extreme ski descent.” He pauses, examining the ramp, which turns left above a giant cliff and weaves its way down to an apron. “I’m actually quite proud of it.” He pauses again. “Don’t tell anyone.”

Hogan laments that he can no longer find partners for even moderately hard outings. His neighbor in Buena Vista, 73-year-old ultrarunner John Nail, is an exception. It was Nail who invited Hogan to pedal home from Banff last year. “I asked him, and his wife has asked him the same thing, ‘When are you going to quit?’” Hogan says. “His reply is, ‘When I die. Because if I quit, I’m gonna die.’”

Both Wells and Hogan have small pensions and collect Social Security. They implore me and Cron not to follow their retirement strategies. Cron, who owns a hotel and bakery in the 100-person town of Stanley, Idaho, isn’t sold. “It depends on what you want to retire to,” he says. “If you want to retire to this, it’s a lot easier than if you want to retire to golfing.”

“Fuck golfing,” Wells snaps.

We lie on our packs in the sun, relishing the moment. I can’t take my eyes off the Grenadiers. It feels like we can touch them. Finally, Hogan and Cron rise and set off once more. Wells dons his pack and steels himself for another long stretch of white expanse toward Hunchback Pass. Just before he leaves, he says to me, “All my life, I’ve done this stuff. Sometimes when I’m out here plodding, I think, Why?” Then he skis off, not bothering to answer.

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A half-mile before the pass, Wells runs out of gas. Cron, who is still built like the college football player he was, skins back and takes his friend’s pack. When Wells finally reaches Hunchback, he collapses on the shale. We are already way behind schedule, and it seems imminent that we will pull the plug given further progress could put us in no-man’s land with little food or fuel. But that is Hogan’s decision to make since he knows the route, and he is not ready to concede.

Cron and I climb and ski Hunchback Peak, leaving tracks that shine in the alpenglow from camp. That night, a furious windstorm rolls through. Camped above treeline on an exposed ridge, we get smacked in the face all night by our tent. A pole nearly snaps. It is enough to seal the deal.

Hogan holds an impromptu meeting in their shelter first thing in the morning, where he announces that we are abandoning the traverse. Instead, he suggests we ski down Bear Creek then up to Stony Pass, turning the trip into a loop and ending back at Cunningham Gulch. I try to hide my disappointment.

We ski down to the Rio Grande River and ford it in our boot shells. Sitting on a grassy bank while our feet dry, Hogan recounts some of his other failures on this route. One year he got caught in a 36-hour blizzard with nothing but a bivvy and shovel. He bailed down Deep Creek, finally taking shelter in an outhouse on the second day, then skied 16 miles to a highway and hitchhiked to Creede. It makes me feel better somehow, knowing he has failed on this route more than he’s succeeded.

We set camp a mile below Stony Pass and make our first fire of the trip, which acts as a salve for my wounded optimism. The flames warm my face as Wells laments the death of amateur alpinism—regular people doing big stuff in king ranges. Neither he nor Hogan has ever been sponsored. “We were just the debris,” Hogan says. By the time I slip into my sleeping bag, I am no longer upset that we bailed. I’m just glad to be debris.

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We know it’s cold the next morning because Hogan finally has put on long underwear. Single-digit temperatures, biting wind, and two inches of snow keep us curled up until 9 a.m. Then we set out for our first group ski. We pass a site in the snow where an eagle killed a fox, leaving just the skinned head and some feathers, one of which Hogan collects to bring home.

While climbing a col to a small peak just west of Stony Pass, Wells loses purchase on firm snow and falls, hard. He had been skinning with one climbing bar up and one down to make it easier on his two replaced hips and to compensate for his shortened stride. I feel bad when I see him slide. I downclimb, grab his skis, and help him to his feet. Then we regain the col. We don’t talk much about his slip, but I can tell it’s on his mind.

During the descent, he falls again. As he sidesteps back up to retrieve a pole, I wonder to myself if his end is nigh. But he rebounds once more and finishes his run, then heads back to camp happy to have skied in such a special place.

The next morning, we set out on our final climb of the trip. “Life is story, man,” Wells says. We are nearing Stony Pass, where we will rip our skins and descend all the way to Cunningham Gulch. He is smiling wider than he has all trip. “Man, it’s fun, shooting the breeze.”

The sun beats down on our charred lips and rosy noses. “You’ve seen the scope of our lives on this trip,” Wells adds. “We weren’t big players, but we were always in the game. And therein lies my satisfaction.”

I have wondered for much of the week if I am witnessing a last hurrah for Hogan and Wells as adventure partners. I ask Wells if he’ll do another ski tour like this. “Yeah,” he says. Then he thinks about it. “I say that lightly. I’d like to.”

We arc huge turns, trying not to tip under the weight of our packs, down a glorious bowl and back into Cunningham, where the end of the road awaits. Later that afternoon, we attend an outdoor party in Ridgway, the tiny town where legends live.

Peter Lev, who never said much on an expedition, is blabbering away with Hogan in the barbecue line, sipping IPAs in the spring sun. They can barely hear each other due to loud music and bad ears, but they cling to the moment like they clung to the side of Mount Huntington 38 years ago, pinned by a storm and doubting their chances. Steve House, arguably the world’s greatest alpinist and a Ridgway local, walks up with his wife and toddler son to shake Lev’s hand, as well as the rest of ours.

I had questioned my decision to join this trip, giving up Easter with my family and going incommunicado for a week. But this scene reminds me why I came. We share stories from our week with Roberts and Lev, who are eager to hear about the adventure. That we fell short of Wolf Creek Pass is an afterthought. Roberts tells us that the winds when we were camped on Hunchback likely exceeded 75 miles per hour, based on nearby weather stations.

“Well,” says Lev, a sparkle in his eye, “that’s what you get for wanting to climb mountains.”

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I met Gideon. He’s a ten-year-old boy from Cedar Falls, Iowa. “When I was eight, every time I saw a dog, I needed to pet it,” he told me. “So I asked my mom, ‘Can I post pictures of dogs online?’ and she said, ‘What do you mean?’ And I said, ‘I want to post pictures of dogs online.’ I love dogs so much, I want them to have a little bit of fame.”

Two years later, the dogs are a little bit famous—and Gideon is, too. He runs the Twitter account @IvePetThatDog, which has more than 130,000 followers at last count, and which may be, objectively, the best thing on the internet.

Gideon plays piano, drums, bells, the xylophone, and mallet percussion. He has a dog (the medium-size Walter, who likes belly rubs and ham) and runs a Chihuahua fan club with a friend in California (they discuss things they like about Chihuahuas, such as their tiny heads). His first posts on Twitter, in April, were simple: pictures of himself meeting dogs, sometimes with little stories (“Sasha came from a litter of only two puppies, which is rare”). One day in May, he went to school in the morning and had 100 followers and came home to find 5,000: with a few high-profile retweets, the internet had done its thing. Five months later, his account continues to grow, and he's now met more than 600 dogs. Is there pressure having this many eyes watching him pet dogs? “No pressure,” Gideon says. “Only happiness.”

Three or four times a week, Gideon goes with his mother, Rachel, and his little brother, Nigel, on dog-finding missions. “We find all the dogs we can get,“ Gideon explains. They scope out the dog park and the farmers’ market, often running into old friends. But the Cedar Falls Farmers’ Market is closing in a few weeks, so they’ll have to get extra creative. Now that they’ve met all the dogs in their neighborhood, they sometimes have to drive for 30 or 40 minutes to find a new dog. When they see one, they circle back—“Do we have this dog?” Gideon asks himself—and pull over. “Sometimes the people look nervous,” Gideon said, “like, Are they stalking us?” But it doesn’t take long before the eager ten-year-old puts his new friends at ease. About half the time, people already recognize him. Cedar Falls is a small town, and he’s developed a reputation.

While Nigel sits in the car and reads graphic novels, Gideon asks owners a series of questions about each dog: How old is she? What’s unique about him? Do you have any funny stories? If it’s OK with the owners—in his posts, Gideon calls them caregivers—Rachel takes a photo, and Gideon composes a description, which he dictates to his mother. The result, as you scroll through his Twitter feed, is soothing in its familiarity. There’s Gideon, his face bright, long hair swinging as he leans toward his new friend; the dog—a collie or a pit bull or a flat-coated retriever—gazes at some unseen movement; a leash extends out of the frame. As a follower, you sense the owners’ patient presence, just as you sense the loving parent snapping the shot.

I pet Daisy, each post begins—or Ellie or Milo or Mayhem. It continues: She is a six month old Chiweenie. Her favorite toy is a pig that oinks….

The rhythm is childlike—as in the best children’s books, Gideon’s feed establishes a pattern, then breaks it in surprising ways—without being childish, and it’s the combination of the two that makes it so compelling. Our relationships with dogs are a microcosm of human relationships, not dumbed down so much as distilled, and to glimpse the love between so many (unseen) people and their animals is to recall, in microdoses, the purest parts of human community. Folks on Twitter describe the act of reading Gideon’s posts as “self-care,” but it’s also, in many ways, an act of witnessing and caring for each other.

The project has been transformative for Gideon, too. For instance, he never even knew what a Labradoodle was! Now he knows so many dog breeds. “I’m a little more popular,” he tells me solemnly. “I’ve met a lot of friends, like you and @dog_rates. I’ve learned that all the people I’ve met love their dog.” If he could interview the dogs that he meets, rather than the people, he thinks that their stories would be about the same: “The human that pets me and loves me is my best friend,” he imagines the dogs might tell him. But he doesn’t speak Dog, so for now, he talks to the humans.

Fifth grade is a big year, and Gideon has big plans—to pet more dogs. “There’s still tons more dogs left in Cedar Falls,” he says. “I’d say maybe 50. I get to look out the window and say, Do I have that dog? That dog looks awesome.”

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Few serious climbers are lucky enough to go pro and make a comfortable living from sponsorships. The majority string together side jobs that barely cover rent but allow them to climb when they please. Then there are climbers like Eric “Rudy” Ruderman, who discovered the secret to building a career is to get more creative with what you climb.

Ruderman grew up surfing in Long Island, New York, and discovered climbing in his late twenties after moving to California, where he earned a BA at San Jose State University with an emphasis in photography. “I spent way too much time in the darkroom,” he says. “After I graduated, all I wanted to do was be outside.” After graduating, in 2004, Ruderman took his first belay class with a girl he was dating. The relationship didn’t last, but the climbing did. Ruderman started hitting the gym five days a week.

Then he discovered Yosemite. “I didn’t think anything could take me away from the ocean, but then I got into climbing and realized mecca was four hours away,” Ruderman says. “I needed to live there but didn’t want to be your typical dirtbag climber. I wanted to work and participate in the community.”

His solution was to join the Yosemite Search and Rescue crew, which required climbing, rope-rigging experience, and medical knowledge. He got his emergency medical technician and wilderness first responder certifications and volunteered with the organization from 2005 to 2009. The work was seasonal, and if he was lucky, Ruderman could make $12,000 in four months. He liked the lifestyle—climbing in Yosemite half the year, traveling the other half—but he wanted to start making and saving more money.

Ruderman, now 42, heard fellow climbers talking about jobs rigging stages for shows in Las Vegas. He was hired in 2009, just as the recession hit. “I thought, what is the next thing I can do to further progress my desirability to employers?” he says. A friend was teaching a weeklong rope-access technician course in Las Vegas, so Ruderman signed up and obtained his Society of Professional Rope Access Technicians certification, as well as the internationally recognized Industrial Rope Access Trade Association certification. Then he started sending his résumé to wind turbine maintenance companies.

A recent study by the Department of Energy showed wind to be the fastest-growing energy source in the world. Wind energy technician was the fastest-growing job in all sectors in 2016,according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and numbers are still expected to double over the next ten years. Wind energy technicians do most of their work in the turbine’s nacelle, the area on top of the tower that houses the main controls. But maintenance work on the actual blades, which are open to the elements, is handled by rope-access technicians, who need advanced climbing and rope-rigging skills. As the demand for wind turbines grows, so will the need for people to fix them.

Rope Partner, a wind turbine technician company based in Santa Cruz, California, offered Ruderman a job as gear manager. “This sounds cliché, but I was living out of my van, climbing in Bishop, and thinking about going to Europe when I got the call,” he says. “I thought, God, it would be responsible of me to say yes.” He lasted a year and a half in the office job and then jumped at the opportunity to move into the field to climb and help with repairs and maintenance.

Ruderman says 90 percent of what he fixes is lightning damage. Turbine towers are between 250 and 300 feet tall, on average. Technicians climb a ladder inside the tower and anchor ropes. Then they rappel off the nose cone and secure themselves to the blunt side of the wind turbine blade, taking precautions not to get in the way of the sharp side, which could cut the rope. They’re often working in high winds with power tools. “We’re basically doing construction work at height on ropes,” Ruderman says. “Safety is crucial.” Every job is performed by a team of two or more, with one person usually staying lower down to manipulate the blades and haul up supplies.

Today, after eight years with the company, Ruderman has worked his way up to a supervisor position. The job requires travel and long hours, but Ruderman likes that it also gives him chunks of time off, plus financial security. Work tends to be seasonal, May through October, and a typical job lasts four to five weeks. Companies generally start technicians at around $17 an hour, with the possibility of advancing to $35 an hour depending on skills and certifications. “I’ve done the math in my head of what the annual hours would be for a full-time, 40-hour-a-week salary job, with vacation, holidays, and weekends factored in,” he says. “Mine are similar, but I just squeeze them all into a 70-to-80-hour workweek.”

As demand for rope-access technician work increases, more job opportunities can be found off-season, but Ruderman usually prefers taking winters off to travel. Once on a job, the company pays for everything, he says. “When I leave my place in Santa Cruz, my transportation to the airport, flight, rental car, gas, hotel or Airbnb are all taken care of,” he says. “We get a per diem for food and phone and computer usage. I’m able to make money but also save money.”

It’s a good job for a person who wants a stable lifestyle and more outdoors time than desk time. But travel comes with its ups and downs. “Most wind farms are in the Midwest, where it’s super flat with corn and soy as far as the eye can see,” Ruderman says. “There isn’t much rock climbing to be done.” And an erratic travel schedule makes dating challenging, he says. But then there are farms in places like Maui, one of his favorite locations. “When the winds are high and we can’t work, I can go surf,” Ruderman says.

Carrying your own portable boat is officially the coolest way to go deep into the wilderness

Packrafting isn’t exactly new. Small, portable rubber rafts have been used in expeditions since the mid-1800s. But there’s been a spike of interest in the durable one-person crafts that can be carried in your backpack. The American Packrafting Association reports that 76 percent of its members picked up the hobby in the past five years, and outfitters from Alaska to Montenegro are tapping into the trend with guided trips that involve hiking to and rafting down some of the world’s most remote waterways. If you’re looking to really get away, sign up for a trip or get equipped with the knowledge and supplies you’ll need to plan your own excursions. Here’s where to start.

Wrangell-St. Elias National Park

Alaska

Being able to travel by water opens up Alaska’s vast stretches of untouched wilderness. Kennicott Wilderness Guides offers two-day courses in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, an expanse of jagged peaks larger than Switzerland, that’ll teach you skills such as trip planning, river-running strategies, and self-rescue. If you’d rather have a guide lead the way, book a half-day, full-day, or weeklong trip, and you’ll hike to a glacial lake and run mellow Class II rapids while someone else takes care of the logistics (from $130).

Magpie River

Quebec, Canada

On this guided 12-day trip with Boreal River Adventures, you’ll fly by helicopter from Sept-Îles, Quebec, into a remote northern forest before spending three days backpacking, rappelling, and orienteering through trail-free wilderness to Lake Magpie, the source of the famed Magpie River. From there, you’ll paddle your craft more than 100 miles down Class III and Class IV rapids to the Atlantic Ocean, catching brook trout for dinner along the way ($4,486).

Grand Canyon National Park

Arizona

Thanks to packrafts, you can combine a world-class Grand Canyon backpacking journey with a jaunt down the river. Wildland Trekking has a six-day rim-to-rim trip where you’ll hike into the canyon via the North Bass Trail, paddle across the Colorado River, then ascend the South Bass Trail. The $1,775 price tag includes all your camping and paddling gear and meals, plus transportation to and from Flagstaff, Arizona.

Saattut

Greenland

Gabriel Gersch is a 31-year-old adventurer who guided in Alaska’s Brooks Range before launching Outventurous, a wilderness travel company that hosts expeditions across Europe. He bought his first packraft in 2010 and has undertaken trips through some of the world’s wildest mountain ranges from Patagonia to Pakistan. Gersch offers custom-made trips and logistical support for planning your own outing, coordinating details like budgeting, permitting, and food supplies. But the coolest thing about Gersch is that, for a relatively affordable fee, he’ll let you join him on his own adventures. This summer and early fall, he’s leading passages across Greenland (from $3,402).

Tara River Canyon

Montenegro

To truly experience the Montenegro’s Tara River Canyon, one of the longest and deepest gorges in Europe, you’ll have to take to the water. On this weeklong expedition from Packraft Touren, you’ll explore the 74-mile canyon through the mountains of Durmitor National Park, as well as the Morača River and Bosnia’s Neretva River. The $721 trip includes transportation and guides, but not food, lodging, or gear. You’ll have to pitch a tent or stay in the hotels and bungalows along the river. Most camps have food available, or pack your own.

Snake and Hoback Rivers

Jackson, Wyoming

Want to go off the grid in the Tetons? Teton Backcountry Rentals will rent you pretty much everything you need, including tents, backpacks, crampons, ultralight cookware, and, yes, packrafts. This summer, the company has teamed up with Rendezvous River Sports and the American Packrafting Association to offer guided trips on the area’s Snake and Hoback rivers. It’s also teaching two-day clinics that cover essentials skills like swiftwater rescue, paddling techniques, and river navigation.

Fiordland National Park

New Zealand

Expedition X is New Zealand’s only packrafting guide company, and it specializes in tours of the South Island’s Fiordland National Park. The company’s day trips will see you paddling the Waiau River and hiking the renowned Kepler Track (from $202). Longer trips will take you deeper, covering up to 93 miles of rugged wilderness, crossing alpine lakes and camping on sandy beaches and isolated islands. Or you can sign up for a safety and skills course and head out on your own for as long as your heart desires.

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Through November 5, REI is selling loads of great gear at 50 percent off. Check out all the deals here—or read on for our staff-picked favorites. 

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In the Alpine Start, Black Diamond blurs the line between a windproof midlayer and a soft shell. The lightweight, stretchy Schoeller fabric is coated with a treatment that fends off light rain and dirt, while not detracting from the jacket's breathability.

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The SmartWool women’s PhD Propulsion 60 hoodie matches 60-gram merino insulation on the torso with breathable 100-gram merino on the back, hood, and arms for breathable warmth on chilly runs. 

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The Ascendant uses a stretchy Pertex Microlight 20-denier ripstop outer layer to repel wind and water. Inside, the jacket is lined with Polartec Alpha Direct, which looks like shag carpet and uses a big, open weave to vent sweat. It’s warmer than you’d think given how thin the pile is.

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Black Diamond built a simple trucker hat out of wool, giving the cap a classy, almost throwback style. We dig the understated design and simple off-center logo. 

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In the Stretch Ozonic jacket, Mountain Hardwear employs its stretchy, lightweight Dry .Q Active fabric, which was originally designed for high-output activities like running. 

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 The Trailbender is a thick, cruisey softy, best for meandering epics. Though it offers a somewhat clunky ride overall, in our tests we were pleasantly surprised by how well this shoe bombed full-speed down deeply rutted trails. 

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The Forefront is as light and airy as many cross-country helmets, thanks to a highly breathable honeycomb-style polymer called Koroyd, yet it has the expanded rear coverage and extra protection of an enduro-style lid. There’s smart goggle integration, including an easy up-down visor, as well as a built-in mount for a GoPro or light. 

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The Quasar Lite's 2.5-layer nylon Dry.Q Elite fabric is durable and air-permeable to prevent overheating. The 30-denier nylon face fabric is strong enough to protect you when shimmying up rock chimneys.

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This pack's suspension that has two attachment points, one at the shoulder and one at the waist, with a belt designed to ride high up on the torso. This clever design allows the pack to move with your body instead of forcing your body to move with the pack. The Maya also has a fleece-lined pocket at the top for important stuff, a discreet pocket for personal items, and plenty of space for an emergency bag of treats.

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Exactly how much power can a human produce? Scientists want to know.

Back in 1937, researchers at Harvard University’s Fatigue Laboratory published a study they modestly titled “New Records in Human Power.” They’d studied five of the greatest distance runners in the world, including Glenn Cunningham, the fastest miler in history, and Don Lash, the fastest two-miler. The athletes’ ability to suck oxygen into their lungs, absorb it into their blood, then deliver it for use by their muscles—what we would now call their VO2max—was unprecedented. Lash, in particular, was off the charts: his VO2max, in modern units, was 81.4 ml/kg/min, the highest number ever recorded at that time.

Not by coincidence, “New Records in Human Power” is also the title of a review article published last month in the International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance, by researchers from the Norwegian Olympic Federation and two other Norwegian universities. Since the Harvard study, researchers have occasionally broken through the usual veil of silence surrounding lab measurements of world-class athletes to say something along the lines of “Holy crap, fellow scientists, check out the physiology on this guy!” In the new paper, Thomas Haugen and his colleagues take stock of the current state of knowledge: what do we know about the absolute upper limits of human fitness, circa 2018?

They look at two main categories: maximal aerobic power, a marker of endurance that can be assessed by measuring VO2max; and maximal anaerobic power, a marker of the explosive force produced in activities like jumping and sprinting. I’m going to focus here on the aerobic side, but for the record: the best-of-the-best male athletes can generate about 85 watts of power per kilogram of body weight while jumping, and 36 W/kg while sprinting (running, cycling, or rowing). The top women can generate about 70 W/kg jumping and 30 W/kg sprinting. For context, even professional cyclists can sustain only about 7 W/kg for a five-minute max effort.

For aerobic power, tales of super-high VO2max values have floated around for decades. For example, the mantle of VO2max champion was long granted to Norwegian cross-country skier Bjørn Dæhlie, a 12-time Olympic medalist who reportedly notched a reading of 96 ml/kg/min in the 1990s. When I was researching my recent book, Endure, I got in touch with Stephen Seiler, an American-born sports scientist who has worked in Norway since 1997. He had inspected the data from that test and suspected a calibration problem, in part because the value was 5 points higher than Dæhlie recorded in any other test. That’s a frequent problem with seemingly amazing results: as the new paper points out, most VO2max machines are designed to measure values in hospital patients with abnormally low values, so without special preparation they may not be equipped to handle the prodigious quantities of oxygen that a world-class endurance athlete can breathe.

More recently, an 18-year-old Norwegian cyclist named Oskar Svendsen reportedly tested at 97.5 ml/kg/min in 2012. As if to fulfill the prophecy, he went on to win the junior time trial at the world cycling championships a few weeks later. His VO2max result, like Dæhlie’s, was revealed only in media reports, not in scientific journals.

Tellingly, Haugen his colleagues don’t include either of these measurements in their new paper. (Seiler, a co-author of the paper, shared an early draft with me prior to publication, which is why some of the details are discussed in my book.) Instead, they peg the upper limit of reliably reported values to be about 90 ml/kg/min in men and 80 ml/kg/min in women. Unfortunately, they’re pretty cagey about which athletes exactly are setting these values, with some of the numbers coming from “personal communication with other laboratories testing elite rowers and cross-country skiers.” The women’s records, based on previously unpublished data from Norwegian labs, suggest that three women have recorded values around 80 ml/kg/min: “a long-distance runner (Olympic finalist), an orienteer (Jr. World Championship medalist), and a cross-country distance skier (World Champion).” I’ll leave those clues for others to unravel.

There are a few interesting details to note. One is the difference between “relative” and “absolute” VO2max. The numbers I’ve been quoting are relative values, which means they’re expressed as the amount of oxygen consumed per minute per kilogram of body weight. The absolute value, in contrast, is simply the amount of oxygen consumed per minute, without dividing by body weight. That means that sports like rowing, which are dominated by very large men and women, tend to produce the highest absolute VO2max values, while sports like cycling, with smaller athletes, produce the highest relative values.

Here’s a comparison of the highest reliably observed men’s values for four difference sports, with absolute values on top and relative values on the bottom:

It’s clear why gigantic rowers have high absolute values and lower relative values. But there are some other subtleties. Why are cross-country skiers so high? Because they’re making full use of both their arms and their legs, which means they have more total muscle extracting oxygen from the bloodstream. Why aren’t there any runners higher than 85 ml/kg/min? Actually, I’m not sure. The authors of the paper also note that this is “somewhat surprising.” I’ll offer a hypothesis, though: the culture of lab testing is much less established among the best distance runners in the world compared to more technical sports like cycling, cross-country skiing, and rowing. I watched Eliud Kipchoge do some treadmill running at Nike headquarters a few years ago, and it was clear that it was a totally unfamiliar experience for him.

The difference between men and women in relative VO2max is typically about 15 percent in elite athletes at comparable performance levels. According to the researchers, that’s mainly because on average women have a higher percentage of body fat (which contributes weight without contributing any oxygen-using capacity) and lower hemoglobin levels to carry oxygen in the blood. The differences in absolute VO2max are also affected by the fact that men simply have bigger bodies, which require proportionately more oxygen.

The unspoken question, of course, is what all these numbers mean. Is there some number beyond which no human may go? In the 1930s, Don Lash’s 81.4 ml/kg/min was the ceiling. Athletes these days train a lot harder; some may also be blood doping or taking drugs like EPO that could artificially raise VO2max, which makes it hard to know exactly how much of the apparent improvement is real. (For the record, I tested at around 82 ml/kg/min twice, once in my 20s and once in my 30s, at two different labs, despite being, at best, a national-class runner—so I know it’s not all drugs.) Conversely, there are also famous examples of great runners with surprisingly low VO2max scores, like Olympic marathon champion Frank Shorter’s 71.3 ml/kg/min. 

And then there’s Oskar Svendsen, the teen who set the unofficial VO2max record. After a few underwhelming years as a pro cyclist, he retired from the sport at age 20. It’s fun to look at these records and speculate about what the human body is capable of. But it’s also important to remember that actual races measure something bigger and harder to quantify.

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My new book, Endure: Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance, with a foreword by Malcolm Gladwell, is now available. For more, join me on Twitter and Facebook, and sign up for the Sweat Science email newsletter.

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With so many great guest houses out there, it wasn’t easy to decide which were worthy of making our list of the world's best adventure lodges.  In the end, we weighed the location, amenities, outdoor access, architecture, style, and so much more to cull our list candidates. So what did it take to make the final cut? Everything. From paragliding over the Dolomites and paddleboarding around deserted Panamanian isles to farm-to-table feasts and Finnish-style saunas, these lodges have it all. Time to check in.

Puerto Natales, Chile

The design of this 72-room lodge in Chilean Patagonia is almost as dramatic as the landscape that surrounds it. Slanted steel-and-glass walls mimic the iconic wind-bullied sheep-shearing sheds endemic to the country’s Magallanes region. But getting outside is why you travel all the way to Puerto Natales, the gateway to 700-square-mile Torres del Paine National Park. Spend one day hiking 12 miles round-trip to the base of the park’s famous 8,500-foot granite spires and another stalking fat brown trout along the Río Prat. Or paddle the waters of Last Hope Fjord in a kayak, then send the 30 private sport-climbing routes the lodge put up on its own secluded cliffs. Before a king crab dinner, hit the indoor pool or Finnish-style sauna, housed in a building purposefully set a three-minute walk away. Why? So you can feel the wind and rain first. From $280 —Tim Neville

South Tyrol, Italy

Surrounded by the toothy spires of Italy’s Dolomites, the Adler offers some of the best adventure access in Europe. It’s located on the Alpe di Siusi plateau, a carless Unesco World Heritage site that’s accessible only by foot, skis, or cable car unless you’re staying at the lodge. In summer, head out on guided hikes, like the eight-mile Witch’s Path, which winds through green foothills and alpine meadows. Other options: grab a loaner hardtail and hit the nearby singletrack or paraglide over the iconic 8,400-foot Schlern massif with Tandem Fly. In winter, explore Sciliar-Catinaccio Nature Park on skis, or ice-climb Vallunga Valley’s 18 routes. That is, if you can drag yourself away from the lodge and its floor-to-ceiling window views, sauna, saltwater pool, and gourmet meals eaten under the stars with a glass of Montalcino in hand. From $235, all-inclusive —Nick Davidson

Little St. Simons Island, Georgia

Rent your own slice of southern charm at Little St. Simons, a private 11,000-acre barrier island with an unpretentious collection of five cottages and one lodge. More Southern Gothic than tropical, the landscape is dominated by live oaks dripping with Spanish moss, rugged dunes, and seven miles of private beach. You can book a room or cottage or blow it out by reserving the whole resort. With a limit of only 32 guests at a time, you’re almost guaranteed solitude as you walk the trails, comb the beach, or fish for flounder and red drum. Naturalists are on hand to take you birding and kayaking along the tidal waters and teach you about the local population of nesting loggerhead turtles. Better yet, everything is included, from the bicycles to the Low Country shrimp boils. From $425 —Graham Averill  

Wolcott, Colorado

Don’t dismiss these pop-up wilderness retreats as just another glamping getaway. Private decks with Adirondack chairs, Pendleton blanket-adorned beds, and en-suite bathrooms with flush toilets and rain-style showers make these canvas tents more of a mobile private lodge. Locations include Big Sky, Montana, the Texas Hill Country, and even New York City’s Governors Island. But our favorite venue is situated on 1,000 acres of working ranchland just outside Vail, where guests can explore White River National Forest , take in views of the Sawatch Range on horseback, and raft whitewater on the Upper Colorado. Hiking and biking trails are right outside your tent. Nearby hot springs, campfire s’mores, and chef-crafted farm-to-table fare are motivation to trek or ride a few extra miles. From $500 —Jen Murphy

Waynesville, North Carolina

The hardest part about staying at this 250-acre southern oasis , perched atop its own mile-high grassy peak in the Blue Ridge Mountains, may be convincing yourself to leave. Fill your days with croquet, treehouse picnics, and hammock sessions. Or hike straight from the property into Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Join a guide in search of bears and birds, or head into the Cataloochee Valley at dusk to see elk milling around the park’s meadows. The Swag will pack your lunch and have afternoon tea waiting when you return. Save room for dinner—big plates of regional fare like local trout, cast-iron fried chicken, and banana-pudding pie—then savor the evening views from your room’s copper soaking tub. You even get a personalized hiking stick to take home. From $525 —G.A.

Peniche, Portugal

When former Swedish national surf champion John Malmqvist outgrew beach camping and hostels, he started dreaming up the ultimate surf stay. The result, Surfers Lodge Peniche, feels more like a home than a hotel. Located an hour north of Lisbon, just outside the small city of Peniche, the space marries Scandinavian aesthetics with 1960s California beach vibes. The in-house school caters to all abilities. First-timers work on pop-ups at nearby Baleal Beach, while experienced riders get barreled at Supertubos, a World Surf League tour stop just ten minutes away. Back at the lodge, follow up your session with a massage, yoga, and vegetarian-focused organic meals. On Sundays everyone heads up to the Moroccan-inspired roof deck to listen to DJ sets and soak in the sunset from the Jacuzzi. From $57 —J.M.

Raton, New Mexico

Spread across 585,000 acres straddling the New Mexico–Colorado border, Vermejo Park Ranch is so massive that even its veteran guides estimate they’ve seen only 60 percent of the property. Ted Turner purchased the land in 1996 and fondly refers to it as his private Yellowstone. It can be yours, too, as a splurge. Accommodations include private guesthouses; the 12-room Casa Minor, built in the early 1900s; and the Costilla Lodge, a large log-and-stone cabin located at 10,200 feet. Or stay in the media mogul’s former personal residence, Casa Grande, an estate of Gatsby-esque grandeur. But the real luxury? The southern Rockies just outside your door. Home to elk, bison, antelope, black bears, coyotes, and more than 180 species of birds, Vermejo is the closest you’ll come to a big-game safari in the U.S. Instead of 20 tourist-loaded cars bearing down on one poor bison, you’re likely to be surrounded by a herd while hiking, mountain biking, or horseback riding. From $850, meals included –J.M.  

Isla Cavada, Panama

With parts of Costa Rica overrun with tourists and Nicaragua working to recover from recent unrest, Panama is poised to be the next great Central American hot spot. This new sustainable adventure outpost on Cavada, a 400-acre island in the Pacific’s Gulf of Chiriquí, is one of its crown jewels. Hike a couple of miles through the dense jungle, SUP or kayak the calm leeward bays of the resort’s private 14-island archipelago, float in a secluded plunge pool, or lounge on empty beaches—the lodge has nine casitas and only hosts up to 18 people at once. It also has its own dive center with on-site instructors, so even novice guests can explore the gulf, which is filled with manta rays, dolphins, hammerhead sharks, leatherback turtles, and teeming coral reefs. Finally, boat into the big blue to catch-and-release monster tuna and marlin in the world-renowned Hannibal Bank and off Isla Montuosa. From $1,000, all-inclusive –Stephanie Pearson

Denali National Park, Alaska

Mountain views and digital detoxing

The journey to Denali Backcountry Lodge is an adventure in itself. It’s accessed by either a six-hour bus ride deep into five-million-acre Denali National Park, or via a 35-minute air-taxi flight from the park entrance over the snowcapped Alaska Range. Once you’ve checked in to one of its 42 log cabins—nestled alongside Moose Creek by an old gold-mining camp—let the rugged wilderness engulf you. There’s no TV or cell service. Naturalists lead botanical walks and day hikes through the nearby trailless tundra, while you keep an eye out for caribou, moose, Dall sheep, and blond grizzlies. Or explore the endless backcountry on your own. Just be sure to pack a can of bear spray in your day bag. Our favorite excursion? Cycling five miles to Wonder Lake, where you’ll score the park’s best view of 20,310-foot Denali gleaming pearly white in the midnight sun. From $545, meals included –N.D.

Manyara, Tanzania

Game viewing and Giving Back

Sandwiched between two national parks, this safari camp provides unparalleled access to Africa’s big game. It’s located along an ancient migration corridor, where herds of giraffes, elephants, zebras, and gazelles pass by to forage the plains of Tarangire. The lodge is a collection of breezy tent villas, and all visitor profits are funneled into community-based projects, like anti-poaching efforts and skills training for locals to help reduce human-animal conflict. You can participate, too, by bringing children’s clothes and classroom supplies in your luggage and stopping by a Chem Chem–sponsored school during your stay. The owners also have two properties nearby: Little Chem Chem, on a 40,000-acre private preserve, and the smaller Forest Chem Chem, which offers three vintage tents beneath fever trees on the Tarangire River. From $920, meals, activities, and conservations fees included —G.A.

Tofino, British Columbia

Surfing and storm watching

Just 25 minutes north of the 198-square-mile Pacific Rim National Park Reserve, this 75-room lodge on Vancouver Island embraces B.C.’s turbulent weather. In addition to ocean views, each room comes with hurricane-rated glass to better withstand the stunning tempests that roll in from across the Pacific. Don the inn’s complimentary rain slickers and boots, and step outside for a free “West Coast facial,” or head to the Ancient Cedars Spa for treatments based on indigenous cleansing ceremonies. On clearer days, walk the 13 beaches that line the seal-and-eagle-flecked coast, or make your way 25 miles south to the village of Ucluelet for a short hike to the Amphitrite Point Lighthouse, a linebacker of concrete and steel that defies the storm-whipped swells that assail it each winter. The island has plenty of good surf breaks, including Cox Bay Beach, just minutes from the inn. Afterward, refuel with a meal of drippingly fresh steelhead salmon. From $260 —T.N.

Big Sky, Montana

Nordic skiing, yoga, and Yellowstone access

Sitting on 150 acres in Custer Gallatin National Forest, this former cattle farm, founded in 1915, keeps 52 miles of trails meticulously groomed for cross-country skiing. Routes meander from your door up 2,000 feet through pine forests and alpine meadows and offer stunning views of 11,145-foot Lone Mountain, home to the Big Sky Resort. Many of the lodge’s 27 log cabins have wood stoves or 1920s-era stone fireplaces. Meanwhile, chef Eric Gruber, of the Horn and Cantle restaurant, knows how to feed starving skiers, whipping up three nour-ishing daily meals, like homemade pappardelle with elk meatballs. Take a break from nordic skiing and head into the backcountry of nearby Yellowstone or ride the lifts at Big Sky, 12 minutes away. Not into snow? Visit in the warmer months to hike, horseback ride, fly-fish, whitewater raft, or enjoy a weeklong meditation and yoga retreat. From $375 —S.P.  

And neither are cargo bikes. It’s time to let go of this silly notion once and for all.

There’s a lot about cycling that bewilders the layperson, but perhaps the aspect of it they find most confounding is the price of a great bicycle:

“Wait, it cost what? That’s almost as much as a car!”

Yes, it’s true. A really exquisite new bicycle can cost as much or even more than a shitty old car. Sure, bikes don’t have to be expensive to be great, and the resourceful cyclist knows how to conjure up something from nothing out of the parts bin down at the bike co-op. But for the average consumer, whether you’re talking about a state-of-the-art race bike or a supremely functional utility bike, you’re easily looking at a few grand.

So why is the car the go-to metric for bike prices? Granted, there’s some overlap between the two in that both have wheels and can be used to go places, but beyond that, as machines, they have very little in common. Moreover, we don’t seem to get hung up on car prices when it comes to other modes of transport. For example, airline flights can be pretty expensive too, but I’ve never heard anyone incredulously exclaim, “You paid how much to fly to Sydney? You could have bought a pre-owned Ford Focus!”

Nevertheless, not only do we think paying Craigslist car prices for an amazing bike is crazy, but we also consider doing so to be the exclusive domain of the privileged set. When it comes to most durable goods, we have little trouble understanding that you’ve generally got to spend more to get more, and that if you use something heavily and often you’ll inevitably amortize that higher up-front investment. This is why if you fish nobody’s going to begrudge you a good boat, and if you entertain a lot, nobody’s going to accuse you of being entitled because you sprang for some solid outdoor furniture and a quality barbecue grill. Yet spend a couple thousand on a cargo bicycle you can use to haul all that meat and beer from the store without having to pay for gas and insurance and suddenly you’re a monied elitist—unlike the decent workaday folk who spend ten times that for a Honda Accord.

Indeed, expensive utility bikes are especially offensive to the American sensibility. Even someone who hates bikes can understand wanting to own a flashy, expensive racer that’s built for speed. A cargo bike, however, is so unlike the bloated pickup trucks and SUVs we’ve come to conflate with practicality that it comes off as a bauble for the soft-handed set. Therefore, paying to own one comes off as a sign that you’re a self-indulgent person free from any real-world concerns.

You hear this all the time in anti-bike lane discourse: a small, vocal group who dub themselves “the community” rail against the invading hordes of bicyclists who will steal the neighborhood from them. Generally this “community” paints the bicyclists as some form of spoiled “other” traipsing blithely through life, such as transplants, hipsters, or rich people, or often all three at once. (The exception to this is when the neighborhood is already wealthy, in which case they paint the bicyclists as reckless louts who will clobber senior citizens and destroy the local businesses.)

This even happens in the world capital of bikes-as-transportation, the Netherlands—at least according to a recent article in The Atlantic. Supposedly in Rotterdam the “bakfietsmoeder,” or cargo-bike mother, is a hated agent of gentrification and a harbinger of “urban change” and “affluence” who spirits her brood away from the unwashed working class in her designer box bike. Then there’s her male counterpart, the “bakfietspapa,” or cargo-bike dad; basically just a simpering wuss who does craven, un-manly things like working part-time and helping raise the children. As for the cargo bikes themselves, the article explains that they were once associated with poor laborers, but now they’re coveted by rich douchebags who use them to take their children to mamby-pamby schools and steal the city from the deserving, one boxload at a time.

Hey, I get it. Burning gas means you’re doing something important, and it’s easy to dismiss people on bikes as spoiled brats who don’t take life seriously enough. They move efficiently, unfettered by the traffic in which good hardworking people have the integrity to languish. Their brows are not furrowed by the stress and expense of car ownership and dependence. They are generally healthier and more productive at work. Most egregiously of all, they seem…happy. And nothing arouses more suspicion than happiness.

But there’s also something more insidious in all of this cargo bike contempt. It’s not just disdain for bikes, or even for wealthy people on bikes. Ultimately it’s disdain for anything that doesn’t have balls, or at least the appearance of balls. Any male cyclist who’s been on the receiving end of harassment knows it’s always about impugning your masculinity. And, paradoxically, women on bikes have to deal with harassment from people who think what they’re doing is too dangerous. Granted, the Netherlands doesn’t share our notion that the roads are the exclusive domain of the big-balled, but the sentiments expressed in that Atlantic article come off less as anti-bike than they do as anti-mom.

Gentrification certainly comes with a whole bakfiets full of issues, but it would be a real shame to let bikes—cargo and otherwise—become collateral damage in the debate surrounding it. Drivers kill pedestrians at disproportionately higher rates in poorer neighborhoods. Such neighborhoods are also often underserved by transit, which means residents are subject to the crushing economic burden of car dependence, particularly predatory auto lending. Meanwhile bikes are relatively cheap, efficient, and practical, the concomitant infrastructure calms traffic and reduces injuries and fatalities, and the proliferation of bike share means that increasingly you’re no longer subject to the upfront cost of owning one. What a profound waste it is then for the closest thing you’ll ever find to a free lunch to get all bound up in the notion that it’s something for rich elitists, or that accommodating bikes somehow means surrendering a neighborhood, when if anything bikes help empower a neighborhood.

Ultimately, we all need to grow a pair. (Of wheels.)

Expert Essentials

The Best Sun Protection for Outdoor Athletes

These pros spend their days in the high alpine and dry desert. Here’s how they protect their skin.

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Jul 18, 2018

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Jul 18, 2018

When you buy something using the retail links in our stories, we earn an affiliate commission that helps pay for our work. Read more about Outside’s affiliate policy.

These pros spend their days in the high alpine and dry desert. Here’s how they protect their skin.

Midsummer sunshine means sunburns and heat exhaustion for outdoor athletes. Fortunately, there are plenty of ways to shield your skin from rays and keep your body temperature cool. Just ask these professional skiers, runners, and climbers.

Naawk Sunscreen and Lip Balm, Plus Moisturizer and Serum

Lyndsay Strange, Olympic Ski Coach

Lyndsay Strange co-founded Party Beach Ski Camps, a summertime ski-race clinic at Oregon’s Mount Hood that has her working on a glacier all day, every day. For sunscreen and lip balm, Strange trusts Naawk products. Made in Salt Lake City, Utah, Naawk sunscreens ($10) are free of parabens, a preservative that can mimic estrogen and is linked to breast cancer. The brand’s SPF 30 lip balms ($2.50) are also paraben-free and don’t contain petroleum, which isn’t as effective at moisturizing as you may think. Instead, these products are packed with moisturizers like coconut oil, sunflower seed oil, and shea butter. “The high-SPF lip balm has great flavors like lavender and green tea,” Strange says. “Also, the sunscreens smell super-good: fruity and tropical.”

Sunscreen Lip Balm

Strange also uses tinted sunscreens like Colorescience Sunforgettable SPF 50 mineral powder ($65), which is chemical-free and water- and sweat-resistant. Strange can brush it on her skin alone or over makeup and get protection from the sun, infrared light, and even blue light from screens and LEDs. When all else fails, “The key to getting through a sunburn is moisture, and not necessarily aloe,” she says. Strange recommends Josie Maran Argan Daily Moisturizer SPF 47 ($32), as well as anything with rose hip oil. “I use Evan Healy rose hip serum ($30) most nights to help reverse sun damage and discoloration. It’s a godsend,” she says.

Mineral Powder Moisturizer Serum

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Nuun ($20) and Black Diamond Alpenglow Hoodie ($85)

Jaymie Shearer, Climber

After a long day of climbing in the Utah desert, climber and photographer Jaymie Shearer takes care of her body from the inside out. “Rehydrating is crucial if you want to keep going the next day,” she says. Shearer drinks water containing Nuun hydration tablets to replenish the electrolytes and nutrients she burned that day. To shield herself from the desert heat, she also wears the Black Diamond Alpenglow Hoodie, made with UPF 50 fabric that also wicks away moisture. “I hardly go anywhere without my BD sun hoodie and buff,” Shearer says.

Nuun​ Hoodie

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Columbia Freezer Zero Neck Gaiter ($30)

Joe McConaughy, Ultrarunner

Joe McConaughy covers up with a black neck gaiter or a hat while logging long days in the summer heat. And, yes, the color makes a difference. “Wearing something around your neck or on your head makes a little more sense than you think,” says McConaughy, who holds the fastest known time on the Appalachian Trail. The hat or buff blocks the sun while also helping to absorb sweat. McConaughy is sponsored by Columbia and recommends the brand’s products, like this neck gaiter made with the company’s patented Omni-Freeze Zero, which reacts to your sweat and lowers the temperature of the fabric. The material also offers UPF 50 sun protection.

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Julbo Sherpa Glacier Sunglasses ($65) and Patagonia Duckbill Trucker Hat ($35)

Caroline Gleich, Skier

Caroline Gleich is the first woman to ski all the lines in Andrew McLean’s classic guidebook to the Wasatch, The Chuting Gallery. She’s also a Julbo ambassador and usually rocks a pair of classic glacier sunglasses from the century-old, family-owned French brand. Made with lightweight polycarbonate lenses, the Sherpa comes with removable side shields to block glaring light from all directions. The flexible temples allow Gleich to adjust the fit when she’s wearing a helmet.

Gleich also wears the Duckbill trucker hat from Patagonia, another of her sponsors. Made with 92 percent recycled nylon and foam, the hat’s classic flat brim holds its shape even after being crammed in a pack. “This hat is awesome because you can wash it when it gets all sweaty,” Gleich says.

Glacier Glasses Trucker Hat

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Surfer’s Salve ($12 for a 4-Ounce Tin)

Drew Petersen, Skier

The Salt Lake City–based big-mountain skier has fair skin that’s prone to get “as red as a lobster” during sunny days at high altitude. When he’s past the point of no return, Drew Petersen opts for Surfer’s Salve from Hawaii, made with olive oil, plantain leaf, beeswax, aloe, rosemary, lavender, and vitamin E. “It sure seems to relieve a sunburn quicker than anything I’ve used, even if I forget to reapply sunscreen on my nose on a long day of ski touring,” he says. “I especially rely on it in the winter to keep me out in the mountains skiing every day.”

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