The Rock Fight: Outdoor Industry & Adventure Sports Commentary

Colin is joined by Producer Dave and Outdoor Industry Insider Eoin Comerford for an update on who might be buying Canada's MEC. (04:47) Then they're joined by independent retailer Wes Allen to get his reaction and thoughts to last weeks rumors that REI is putting the squeeze on their brand partners to get new product exclusivity. (21:33) Lastly for The Parting Shot, Eoin focuses on a leaked presen...

"Are you not entertained?!" Today on the show Colin is joined by outdoor pop culture aficionado, Shawnté Salabert, to talk through some of the more quintessential outdoor movies of the last 25 years: A Walk In The Woods, Wild, Touching The Void, and 127 Hours. The two talk about what works about these movies from and outdoorsy perspective and some outdoor movies simply fall flat. Then in a new seg...

Today Colin and Justin Housman hit the following outdoorsy topics and headlines! Colin caught a great inside wave and Justin has rave reviews for Priority Bike's belt drive and gear box! (05:48) Two divers off the coast of Australia were left in the water by the boat that brought them there. This is objectively funny and terrifying. (16:25) A new wave pool is being planned to be built near St. Geo...

Today on the show Colin and Producer Dave address rumors that have been sent in by listeners of The Rock Fight that REI is looking for more new product exclusivity from at least some of their vendors. (04:40) They also talk about the recent report that Passenger is pausing their launch into the US market due to the issues being caused by the Trump administrations tariff policy. (16:42) This leads...

Today Colin reflects on this past week when he and Producer Dave attended Functional Fabric Fair in Portland (Oregon) and takes a deeper look at what National Trade Shows should do in a world where the smaller shows are so effective. Then Colin is joined by Producer Dave and outdoor journalist and host of Open Container Doug Schnitzspahn to reflect back on the role Bob Woodward played setting the...

Today on the show Colin is joined by Producer Dave and Outdoor Industry Insider Eoin Comerford for a Wednesday edition of our normal Monday show! On the docket today: The crew reacts to last week's rollback to all but 10% (unless you're China) of Trump's tariffs (05:00) Will the tariff situation help boost secondhand business (17:24)? The other big story of last week was the acquisition of Jack Wo...

Today Colin and Outdoor Industry Insider Eoin Comerford are joined by Jonathan Cedar, BioLite's founder and CEO to discuss the breaking news that BioLite is acquiring Goal Zero. Jonathan talks about the background of BioLite and why this deal makes sense particularly due to the alignment in mission and product offerings between the two companies. Lastly during their conversation news breaks about...

Today on the show Colin and Justin Housman open things up by talking about the news that scientists have brought back the extinct dire wolf and read a pretty epic listener defense of Colorado. Then they're joined by the owner of Garage Grown Gear, Lloyd Vogel, who lists off five US made outdoor brands that many of our listeners have likely not heard of. Check them out! Igneous Gear Chicken Tramper...

Today on the show we start by helping to break the news about Brands For Public Lands , a coalition of outdoor industry businesses who are speaking up on behalf of our sacred public spaces. Colin is joined by the Executive Director of The Conservation Alliance, Paul Hendricks, who gives the background on this new coalition, how it came together, and what will happen next. Then Mountain Gazette's K...

What else could The Rock Fight's normal Monday crew of Colin, Outdoor Industry Insider Eoin Comerford, and Producer Dave be talking about today but the recent announcement of tariffs and their impact on the business of going outside. They start off by getting into the broader impact of the announcement and the idea that higher tariffs could drive manufacturing back to the US. Then they talk about...

Today on the show Colin takes a look back at an age old outdoor industry problem. The 'outdoor boys club' and a continued lack of gender representation is something that has persisted in the outdoor industry since there has been an outdoor industry. Today on the show Colin is joined by Cassie Abel, the founder and CEO of Wild Rye, who provides a unique perspective on the challenges and progress re...

Today Colin is joined by our regular Wednesday co-host Justin Housman to talk through some recent stories to come out of the outdoor community! They open the show with the news that the fallout from the Trump layoffs have caused the Fiery Furnace Trail in Arches National Park to close indefinitely. Buckle up because we're probably gonna be getting news like this for a while. (07:57) Lady Gaga is b...

Today on show Colin is joined by the regular Monday crew (Producer Dave, Outdoor Industry Insider Eoin Comerford) to talk about the recent movement that is encouraging outdoor enthusiasts in Europe to look locally for their outdoor products in protest of recent "political" developments in the US. (06:46) They also talk about Academy forging ahead with plans to open 25 new doors in 2025 and Lululem...

Today Rock Fight's resident brand, culture, and media experts, Shawnté Salabert and Producer Dave, join Colin to review some recently released outdoor brand videos by On, Puma, & Outdoor Research. First the hosts rely on their experience working in the outdoor industry and media to breakdown what makes a great brand video including the best way to deploy these types of brand assets and what we...

The Rock Fight is once again breaking news to the outdoor industry! On Wednesday an alert listener of The Rock Fight sent us this article on PE Hub  which reports outdoor brand Stio is being shopped for acquisition. Players in the mix to take over the venerable Jackson brand being Columbia, YETI, or potentially several PE firms. On this emergency reaction podcast, Colin and outdoor industry i...

On this episode of The Rock Fight Justin Housman opens up about his own mental health struggles and how that has impacted his relationship with outdoor activities. A few weeks back in Rock Fight's weekly newsletter, News From The Front, Justin wrote about how he mistook the slow erosion of his participation in his favorite outdoor sports as part of getting older when in actuality there were some b...

Today on the show Colin, Producer Dave, and Outdoor Industry Insider Eoin Comerford have some innovative suggestions for the outdoor industry. Innovation in the outdoors is a misunderstood word. It's often only applied to the performance of the apparel, gear, and footwear that the industry produces. And while there will surely be advances that will improve the stuff we make the opportunity for the...

Today on the show Colin is rolling solo as he talks about the recent ThredUp report about the growth of secondhand as well as reflecting fondly on the recently concluded Barkley Marathons. Then Colin offers a take on why you may not want going outside to be your sole existence for being. Check out hundreds of wildly cool products by visiting and shopping at Garage Grown Gear! Thanks for listening!...

Today on the show Justin Housman has the week off so Colin welcomes Shawnté Salabert as to the co-host chair! Together they run through some of the topics that have come out of the outdoor community over the past week. First up, The North Face has yet another collaboration with a fashion brand that has ( almost ) sold out! There has probably been too much TNF chatter around here the past few weeks...

Today on the show Colin is joined by Producer Dave and Outdoor Industry Insider Eoin Comerford to take a look a bigger look at the outdoor industry. Optimism was high at the end of 2024 that the outdoor industry was due for a come back year. Inventory issues had improved and open to buy was increasing. But with the end of the first quarter just a couple of weeks away things have fallen off of a cl...

Today Colin opens the show by giving his thoughts on the big outdoor story of the week: The letter that was sent to Outside, Inc CEO Robin Thurston from more than 30 notable journalists making the request to have their names removed from Outside's masthead. Then outdoor industry insider and consigliere to The Rock Fight, Eoin Comerford joins Colin to run through what he learned from The North Face...

Today Colin & Justin hit the following topics to come out of the outdoor adventure community! Several brands put out new product press releases over the past week including Mountain Hardwear , Tifosi , and NEMO. Colin & Justin give their thoughts on each of these but save most of their commentary for the NEMO Dagger OSMO that is bluesign certified and PFAS free. They read responses they re...

Today the hosts, writers and consigliere's of the Rock Fight universe gather to once again rank the top outdoor brands... only this time it's all about accessories. They've ranked footwear and they've ranked gear and today the Outdoor Media Avengers are assembling to do the same for accessories. Only for this round we don't have our own version of Thor as Producer Dave couldn't join the show. In h...

It's a return fire episode as Patagonia joins The Rock Fight to defend their efforts on PFAS! Recently on The Rock Fight Colin was critical of a new video from Patagonia that detailed their journey to remove forever chemicals from their product line. In Colin's point of view he thought Patagonia was late to the party and this was a case where the brand was behind their peers rather than leading. P...

Today Colin & Justin belatedly talk about stories and headlines to come out of the outdoor adventure community. Belatedly because the flu recently landed right on Justin's handsome face! On the docket: Last weekend there were protests held at National Parks across the country. Are we feeling encouraged about the state of things? (06:03) A non profit in Kentucky purchased 700 acres and 14 miles...