Popular Science Best of What's New 2007

Popular Science Magazine has released it’s annual is of Best of What’s New gear items. The list covers a wide variety of stuff, in several categories, including automotive, aviation & space, computing, gadgets, and so on. Each year there are some truly remarkable items on the list, such as the satellite searching for habitable planets and nanosolar powersheets that promise to redefine the way we produce energy. (Strangely enough “nanosolar powersheest” aren’t in my spellcheck) One of my personal favorites, the iPhone took top honors in the “gadget” category.

But here at the Adventure Blog, we’re more interested in gear that can make our outdoor pursuits more interesting, enjoyable, and safe, which is why we turn to the “recreation” category to find our new objects of desire. Tops in this area was a bike known as The Ride from Ellsowrth, who build handcrafted bicycles. The Ride is a breakthrough because it allows for an infinite number of gear combinations. It just doesn’t look like something I’d let my mountain biking buddies see me on, although my eight year old nephew would probably think it was rad.

Moving on to other gear of interest though, we have some pretty sweet rain gear from Mountain Hardwear that weighs just six ounces, but repels water like nothing else. You’ll also find a new GPS device from Bushnell that shows real time weather conditions on your maps, pulled in via XM radio. Arc’teryx brings us a new climbing harness that distributes weight better, providing greater comfort on the wall. Finally, we have a cooking system from Brunton that is designed to use multiple types of fuels without needing to swamp out your jets, thus allowing you to be much more versatile in the gas you use to make your backcountry dinners.

There is a lot of other stuff across all the categories that I’m sure will have you drooling greedily while your wallet screams in fear. I probably should have been wearing that “Gear Slut” t-shirt today while I was checking it all out. I know what’s going on my Christmas list this year.

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Kraig Becker

Kraig is an outdoor and adventure travel writer based in Nashville, TN. Over the course of his career, he has contributed to numerous online and print outlets, including Popular Mechanics, Gear Junkie, Outside Online, National Geographic, Digital Trends, Business Insider, TripSavvy, about.com, and of course The Adventure Blog.