Rucking is an all-weather type of activity. This is a Rucker 1.0 in Wolf Grey.
I love Rucking. Put on a heavy backpack, walk outside for a while. Call it a workout. And it is a fantastic workout, a fantastic way to clear your mind, and the only workout which has stuck for me. I’ve been doing it for a little over three years now, and I wanted to share with you what I have learned along the way.
Two years ago I reviewed the first Shadow Guide from Tom Bihn, and it quickly became my favorite Tom Bihn bag of all time. But the original was a limited run, and only has come back in stock once, further, while great it was a bag that had some flaws in it.
Now, Tom Bihn brings the Shadow Guide V2 33 Backpack (affiliate link) and it is full of changes — all of which make this a substantially better bag. I have only had it for a little over a week, so this is more of a first look/impression than a review of the bag. But, I like what I see so far.
This week: iPad use, trackpad versus finger; should you even buy a laptop; looking at Fast Company’s top iPad tips; notes on a bunch of site updates; save up to buy something big, or buy the cheaper version as often as needed; pasta sauce.
Anyways…
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In Texas heat, it feels near constant that my kids want a drink of water when we are out on walks — yet the kids won’t carry their own water. So my typical setup of a Bullet Ruck, or the Field Bag means I am constantly diving in and out of the bag to grab water for them. Fast forward to my testing of the Mystery Ranch 2 Day Assault and I found the water bottle pockets on that bag made my life easier, even though I typically loathe such pockets during more general use. With the 2 Day Assault being too large, I looked at what else I might get which was smaller, but with water bottle pockets.
On December 24th, 2012 I wrote my first review/post of the The GORUCK GR1. I still have that GR1, which I believe I actually bought at the end of 2011 — but the timing doesn’t make sense and I cannot find a purchase email for it. Oh well, lost to history.
I updated this post/guide today to account for my lighting change from a ring light to a large soft light.
I don’t think I have ever put thought into a hair comb before, but I did this time. Couldn’t be happier that I did too.
What’s color bag should I get if I don’t really want to stand out because of my bag?
Almost universally I see comments from people on sites talking about the best or right color for bags — especially when the advice is geared towards ‘blending in’ — when people ask any ‘which color’ questions.
All these people talking about color choices are full of shit.
For one, and let me be clear on this: it doesn’t matter what color your bag is. That said, here’s how I think of the different color groupings for bags, but ignore me on this and you do you. Because the color of your bag is a statement, and any color bag will blend in when in a large enough populace — because bags simply come in all colors. And people simply don’t care that much about the color of your bag.
In the last year or so, Mystery Ranch came out with the 2 Day Assault Pack — a civilian backpack which takes heavy influence from the military packs Mystery Ranch is famous for. The 2-Day doesn’t have the famed Futura Yoke that makes the high end (read: expensive) packs legendary, but it has a spin on the Futura system that Mystery Ranch labels as ‘framed’. The yoke, how tall the straps sit from the top to the bottom, is adjustable with a frame sheet integrated. I’ve been putting the bag through its paces to see if it is going to stick.