As you may know, the Outdoor Retailer trade show is kinda the outdoor industry’s Mecca — a twice-annual gathering at Denver’s Colorado Convention Center for brands, distributors, media members and other recreational gear aficionados to gather and ogle all the cool new products on the horizon.
As you might guess, the pandemic has put the event on hiatus for quite a long time. The last edition was way back in late January/early February of 2020, right before the world shut down.
But lo and behold, OR is finally back this week, and while the show officially begins today, we’ve already gotten hands on with a few pretty new products thanks to an unofficial night-before happy hour. Here are three widely different items that jumped out. (Please forgive the on-the-fly iPhone photography and video and general geeking out.)
Peak Design Out-Front Bike Mount
We covered Peak Design’s sweeping new approach to phone cases and mounts when the project launched on Kickstarter last fall. After raising more than $2 million, Peak Design has brought it to life, with a bunch of new products available for pre-order. We are impressed with the multifunctional foldout tripod, but even more stoked about how the case interacts with the bike mount. It locks in with magnets and clips and is super secure — we even gave the bars a vigorous shake (not shown) — yet can be detached using one hand via a clever button-release system. You can also easily rotate the mount to use as your phone as a handlebar cam or turn the flashlight into a bike light.
