Zippers
October 6, 2009
Industry, let’s have a talk. You’ve made such incredible gains in technology and design lately. Every year your products get better, lighter, tougher, and more fun to play with. Except for your zippers! What gives? This year I’ve had zippers fail on more products I can think of. Jackets, backpacks, storage items – nothing is worse than having a zipper fail in the field. OK, well not NOTHING. But still, it’s pretty sucky.
Yes, most of you have a good warranty and will fix zippers at no cost. But come on! I don’t want to be without my precious gear for the six weeks it takes to send it in to you to get a new zipper. Every time I send an item back for repair, I am a little anxious about getting it back. I’ve always gotten it back, but still. Who knows if you’ll decide to just replace it with a different one I won’t like as much? The last thing any of us need is added stress in our lives, especially about things as petty as zippers.
And the thing is, I can tell immediately when zippers are likely to fail. They feel flimsy and weak, and zip all weird, and it’s easy to tell that a zipper is crap. I know if I can tell, you can tell – so why are you sending out garbage zippers? I know there are a lot of weight weenies out there. I bet they can suck it up to deal with a few extra grams of good zipper if needs be. A jacket that stuffs into a pocket doesn’t do much for me if the zipper that seals the pocket busts immediately. A backpack with a bad zipper – useless.
You can probably tell that I recently experienced a negative experience with a zipper. I was stuck in the field with a bag with a broken zipper. This is an issue when you’re traveling by helicopter and the rotor wash scatters all your stuff every single time the helicopter lands. It’s also an issue when it rains or snows and you want to keep your stuff dry. Face it – it’s just an issue.
So please, please, don’t send us crap zippers. We know that you know they’re crap. This zipper failure epidemic has really only started in the last year, so something is going on when reliable manufacturers suddenly are releasing products with shoddy zippers. QC, people, QC.
The Long-Awaited Relaunch!
September 10, 2009
Welcome to the new and improved Geargals site! After months and months of promises and delays, we finally got our stuff in a pile to bring you this snazzy new site. Based on reader feedback, we wanted a site with more ways for readers to communicate with us and with the industry. The super-snazzy brand spanking new Geargals Forum is now live, for you all to fill up with chatter. So go and chatter, and behave well, for if you are foolish, I shall smite you from the Forum and you will chatter no longer. One other thing about the Forum: it’s for ladies only! Sorry, dudes. I know I’m all about equality but let’s face it, most of the outdoor forums are mostly for dudes with a “ladies room” or some garbage. So this is my way of helping to balance the Internet. However, since the point of this site is to give women more information about gear and outdoor stuff, I will make an exception for industry peeps. So if you’re an industry dude, let me know and you get a free hall pass to wander the forum and contribute in valuable and meaningful ways.
Also new on our site is the much-hyped Geargals Dressup! It’s our most fun new feature and the one many of you have been waiting for. You may have noticed we’ve reviewed a lot of gear since we launched the Geargals site in 2007. We’ve had the privilege of checking out dozens of brands and hundreds of products, and we wanted to find a way to recognize the stand-out pieces from the last year and a half.
In true Geargals fashion, we couldn’t bring ourselves to do some lame, recycled “gear of the year” gimmick, because you can turn to your favorite magazine for that (oooh, the “gear issue!” I think my favorite tidbit of “gear issue” lameness was a feature on “The North Face Jacket.” Um, right, which one? Could it be more obvious that “gear issue” magazines are bunk? Anyway…) Thus, instead of cranking out tired rhymes and the standard studio pics of the “gear of the year” pile, we developed the Geargals Dressup! We chose our favorite products from the last year and made a game out of them. Visit the Geargals Dressup page and choose from all the gear we thought was top-notch, and just drag-and-drop it onto the Geargal and the Geardog to create your own perfect outfit.
We chose the gear for this year’s dressup out of all the products we tested in 2007 and 2008. Featured on the Geargals Dressup this year are:
On Geargal-
Mountain Hardwear Stimulus Jacket
Mountain Hardwear Synchro Pants
Mountain Hardwear Compressor Jacket
Ellsworth Epiphany Mountain Bike
Mountain Hardwear Synchro Pants
Cannondale Roam Bike Shoes
Julbo Trail Sunglasses
Sugoi Neo Pro Bike Shorts
Patagonia Ice Field Jacket
Volkl Queen Attiva Skis
Scarpa Star Lite Ski Boots
Isis Long Jane
Julbo Revolution Goggles
La Sportiva FC 1.1 Hiking Shoe
La Sportiva Nepal EVO GTX Boot
APF Powersox
On Geardog-
D-Fa Sub Woofer Jacket
Ruffwear Bark ‘n Boots Grip Trex
We wanted to feature one of Geardog’s favorite toys, but he loves the Gourdo the best and however we drew it, it looked just….wrong. I’ve gotten some weird looks carrying it around in real life, too, so for now we’ll just say: Geardog likes the Gourdo.
Happy dressing! Keep checking back for the, er, last-half-of-2009 Dressup! And don’t forget to get the conversation going on the Forum!
