It's a new edition of The Cache, your bi-weekly roundup for all things Ultralight. New gear, new brands, interesting events, curious conversations, sales, giveaways, and just about anything and everything that we find remotely relevant. This week we look at: New products from Drop, new sandals by Bedrock, the end of CNOC's Kickstarter, and a newish food brand to check on out!
New UL Stuff: Drop
Drop (formerly Massdrop), just launched 2 new products for preorder. Both designed in collaboration with thru-hiker Dan Durston, Drop is rolling out a new 40L pack and a 2 person tent! Designed to be ultralight, functional, and affordable, these UL beauties will ship to patient supporters in August of 2020. Looking for some basic deets?
- X-Mid 2P: 38oz - $250 - non-free standing - double-walled
- Drop 40L: 29oz - $120 - VX21 and VX07 materials - framed pack
Stay tuned for a review of the Drop 40L here soon! One just showed up at the office this week!
Check out the Drop 40L and the X-Mid 2P
More New Gear: Cairn Geo Bedrock Sandals
While all Bedrock Sandals look and feel pretty exceptional, the Cairn Geo Sandals may be the most aesthetically pleasing sandal they make! Designed mostly for urban wandering, these beefed-up Bedrocks are made from a mix of recycled materials. With the same Cairn strap design, the Geo Sandals come with either the flat footbed or the 3D footbed.
Who knew Bristlecone Brown could look so cool?
Check out the new Cairn Geo Sandals from Bedrock Sandals!
Canceled: Cnoc Kickstarter
From Cnoc:
"We have disappointing news. We are postponing our Cnoc poles Kickstarter campaign due to some unsolved issues in the supply chain that impact our ability to deliver the poles in due time. We hope to solve them in the next month and relaunch in mid-September. The problems are:
1. The engineering company that is making the heat transfer machine to decorate the tubes is missing a few key parts that will take several weeks to make. They can't fulfill the August deadline for us and we probably won't have a working machine until later in the year.
2. Problems with cork stock levels in Taiwan hit our grips supplier and those will probably won't be ready until November. We are waiting on a new arrival date.
3. This weekend we learned that new 25% tariffs on aluminum will make our current project unfeasible. In November we were part of a conversation on Oregon Business about how the trade war is hurting small outdoors businesses. These tariffs are making it harder to manufacture goods, not just overseas, but also domestically. Our US component suppliers must get their raw materials from somewhere and US bauxite hasn’t been used for metallic aluminum since 1981. Thus, our component suppliers have higher costs and that means our US made poles (particularly our Z-poles) will also cost a lot more to make.
We need to revise our plans in such a way that we can still provide you with high quality made in the USA carbon fiber poles at a fair and reasonable price. We’ll let everyone know as soon we’re ready to go and we relaunch our Kickstarter."
Oh well... we'll eagerly await September!
