Welcome to Gear and Beer, the podcast for gearheads, beer buffs, and adventurers with discerning tastes. I am Justin Hausman, as always, senior editor, adventure journal editor in some other places, too. Copywriter, professional gear reviewer, certified cicerone, which means I drink way too much beer. But I'm not sure that's even possible. With me is my good friend Colin. You know him from the Rock Fight and everything else we do here at the Rock Fight Podcast network. Colin, say hi to the people. You're just.

This is great. Like, I thought a second banana, I'd get to do all the rambling and kind of, you know, like, all the fun stuff. You're just. You're just. You're claiming that that's yours. I'm calling true. I worked for brands and makers in the outdoor industry for over 20 years. That's my normal line. I got to think of, like, how do I got to work my, like, little bullshit into this? Now, this is.

This is all, yeah, I'm driving the boat now. I'm driving the boat.

Do we need a bigger boat?

It's my boat. I'm the captain now, Colin. So this is a show about gear and beer, right, Colin? Yeah, this is my first time hosting. That's what we're doing here.

I mean, I think when you move into host chair, you immediately forget all the other times you hosted this podcast, co hosted this pod. So, yeah, that's exactly what we're doing.

It is getting cold out there. It is almost time to talk about winter. Well, it is time to talk about winter tires. It is almost time to start making your decision about winter tires. I noticed that my. My good friend who lives down the street, who's a newish but very excited skier, has put on his blizz, his dedicated winter tires for the year, which is wild to me because it's still, like, 77 degrees early. Yeah, it's a little aggressive considering he goes in the snow, like, you know, 10 times a year, and he just drives around in a winter tire.

Just likes to wear down that.

That soft rubber, you know, Loves it, loves that. Loves the sound that they. They make the weirdest sound as you're driving. But anyway, he. He's got his new ones, and that's kind of prompted me to think about this. It is like, it's disturbingly warm in California for November 8th. I think it's probably 75 degrees. It's hard to believe that I'm going to even, like, think about snow anytime soon. But anyway, we're getting there. We're getting there wintertime. And if you, if you read Outside online, which I presume you do, if you're listening to the show, you know that your life depends on proper winter tires, right? Colin?

I mean it's, it, it's what? Every third article, everything you click, you go on Instagram, whatever, it's just like where are your tires? Do you know?

The state of your tires like literally depends on it.

It's like the Internet is yelling at you.

It is wild. Our, our favorite manly man outdoor writer. Yeah. Who's, who's as far as I can tell, Nick Offerman's platonic ideal of a 21st century outdoors. Outdoors person. Because Nick Offerman would say outdoors person, I believe. Wes Seiler, friend of the show. He's about due for a column or maybe even three about how driving anything short of like a tucker snow in the winter is basically just committing suicide. Yeah. So you know we were, I'm joking a little bit, but not, not really. Like Wes, your father in law, your, your high school, like geometry teachers that you might bump into around town, anyone who likes to, you know, lambast you about tire choice. They're correct that like capable tires for the snow are 100% crucial. They are a non negotiable item for winter driving way out there in the boonies. And so that's, that's what we're going to talk about today.

It's a little like last week we were talking about four wheel drive. Like if you don't have it, you might die, you know, and that's, that's sort of the running narrative on snow tires.

Likely will.

Yeah.

Before we get into the nitty gritty there, we have a couple of housekeeping for our gear and beer listeners. Would you like to.

I'll take it away. I'll keep my normals part of the script here. You guys are listening. You gotta follow and rate gear and beer wherever you're listening. Because I know you like the show. Because we listen to the show, we know how good it is and, but if you follow and rate, that means more people can find the show. So please leave us that five star rating. It really helps the show out, helps us grow and it also makes Justin and I feel really, really good about ourselves. You should also check out the Rock Fight, our other podcast here on the Rock Fight Podcast network. We talk about the outdoor industry, we talk about adventure topics, we talk about community topics and gear stuff on that show as well. So you can find that wherever you're listening to this podcast and Then you should reach out to the show, which is what Justin's going to tell you how you can do that, you know.

Especially if you're listening to us on Fountain, which is apparently our number one.

We fucking own fountain, baby.

We own Fountain. Yeah. So if you're listening to us on Fountain, hell yeah. High five. I like that name, by the way. Fountain. Like, how can you not be stoked on a fountain? So, other way you can reach out to us is to email us. We love getting emails. Send those right to us at MyRock Fight. MyRockFight Gmail.com. that is MyRockFight Gmail.com. you can also sign up for a Rock Fights newsletter by heading right over there to Rock Fight Co and clicking where it says join the mailing list. And if you don't, you will die. Before we start talking about talking tires, Talking tires and tires and chains and snow, let's open some beers. What do you think? Should we open a beer?

I think so. And I'm very excited to debut a new segment here on gear and beer now that I'm sitting in the second banana seat. So we're going to do the beer assignment and stump the cicerone. So I said, justin, what beer should we get for snow tires? And you said, something wintry.

Something wintry.

Something a little bit, you know, And I'm like, oh, there's a lot of seasonal beers starting to come out. But that was, to me is a little too. That's a little too on the nose. It would have been easy to get a holiday, but I don't like doing. I don't like celebrating Christmas stuff in early November. I got a kid who's like all about listening to Christmas music right now, and it drives me nuts already. Oh, she loves it. Yeah. Yeah. So I think she just is being a contrarian because she knows that we, most rest of us like Halloween. But anyway, yeah, so I started looking around. I go to our local, like a little beer shop and I. So I'm. I'm looking for something wintry.

By which he means Total Wine.

Yes.

Our local little beer shop, the Mega Corp.

Most beer shops are about 30,000 square feet, right? I mean, that's kind of hot thing, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. San Diego. That's a little one.

So I. So what I want to try and do is see if I can get you to guess what it is that I got. Okay. Now this is an import, okay?

Import, yes.

I'll give you it's from a country east of the United States. Okay. Okay. I don't want to say. Okay, I'll tell you. The classification of the beer is a.

I mean, Colin, I'm gonna. I'm gonna. I'm gonna blow your mind here. Yeah, every country. If you keep going east of the. Yeah.

Eventually the. I'll get a little more. So it might be kind of situated in the North Atlantic Ocean. Somewhere in that region, maybe there's some Atlantic coastal. Coastal portions of this country.

Smell it. I can smell the briny.

It's a. It's a Hoppy Lager.

Okay.

And should I get you. Am I getting you? Try to get to the brewery. I guess. I guess so. So I'll tell you. The name of the beer is Arctic Lager. And I'm going to the name of the.

Is it Einstein? Oh, fucking.

You can't stop. You can't stop.

The cicerone.

It's the Einstock Arctic Lager. Look at that.

Yes, That's a good beer. That's a good beer. I like that. Yeah, of course I have. I love Einstock. Fuck yeah.

That's so cool. All right now. All right now. First time I couldn't stump the cicerone. So now we got to get real weird with it. This is going to be great.

That's a good. No, that's a good one. That's actually a good one. One. I mean, I would have. The Hoppy lager threw me because I'm surprised that that's what it's called. I've had that beer before, but, like, I. I don't think I even realized what it was called. But, yeah, I'm a big. I. I love Einstock. It's awesome. So I. I have. I don't think we've done this one. We may have. And if we have. Sorry, but this is what I wanted to drink today. And it's win. It's wintry. W I N T R Y. Wintry.

If not anything called win. Oh, sorry to shoot.

No, no, no, that's. I'm saying that's how you spell winter. Just making sure you know it's not wintery. We're doing the. I'm rocking the Deschutes. Blackbeard Porter.

We have done black people.

Have we done this one before? Well, that's what I'm having. That's what I'm having.

Okay, that's. That's lame.

I can't believe we did Black Beard Porter. I know.

We've done the one we did. It was.

Well, we've done like 30 something episodes, folks. I can't be bothered.

That's right. We have the new stuff to Cicerone segments.

But I also, you know, the. One of the reasons I picked it is because, yes, it's a wintry ish beer. You can have beer wherever the hell you want, but I mean, it's a nice, dark, rich porter. I really love this beer. I often have it when I am in the snow. I've also been to Black Butte, where. Where that this is named after, outside Bend. Drove up there in my. In my what I have at the time, Tacoma. And it was the first time that I had a set of all terrain tires on my truck. And I was like, you know what? I don't like these. I'm gonna have to get something different. And so like, that made me think of it when, you know, for this. For this episode.

Well, I think you just told a different story than you told last time. So this time that makes it worth it and relevant to the topic.

Yeah, I think so too. I mean, I don't even rem doing it doing it last time, but here we go. Yeah, we always have different vessels. I got a bottle this time. Three, two, one, open.

That pops. It made my microphone go to red. That's how that was. That's how good that open was.

Hell yeah.

Ooh, Cheers.

Cheers.

Cheers.

Oh, my God, dude, that is such a great beer.

I was really kind of hoping that the first beer I had in the co host seat was that I was going to fucking hate it. And I could just rant. I'm like, oh, this sucks. Like, I really. This is really good.

Yeah, eins is good. Is it actually.

Wow.

Is it Reykjavik? Is that where it's made? Does it say on the can?

Don't see.

I don't know if it's so here it's probably brewed. I wonder if it's brewed in the States. Here's the thing about Iceland is. Is it is the most expensive place.

Stratford, Connecticut.

Yeah, I was going to say Iceland is the most expensive place on the planet. I mean, it's just so expensive.

Yeah.

And so it would. I always, like, I've bought Einstein before I've had it. I had Einstein in Iceland. That's probably where I first saw it. And then I've had it here. But I'm always like, God, why isn't it more expensive? Because it's like, I mean, beer is expensive in Iceland and to make it there and ship it over would be really expensive. But it makes a lot of these imports or they're often brewed locally if they're big enough.

So that is fucking awesome because it has a lot of the qualities I like from like, a Budweiser or like a Coors Banquet, but it tastes like something, but then it has the hops, and it gives you just a little. A little. A little pale ale vibe. But being exceedingly drinkable, hops get such a bad rap.

And this is the thing, the IPA thing. What you don't like about an IPA isn't the hops. You don't like the malt. Like, people don't seem to realize this.

Go listen to our episode with the fucking arrogant bastard, which was like, just eating malt.

Because it's just, like, the combination of bitterness and really, maltiness is what gives that kind of thickness, like, almost like syrupy bitterness, because, like, really, it's unpleasant until you get used to it. Now, I love the dankiest dank IPAs, but it's. It's. It took me a really long time to get there. When I was running a beer bar, I stocked very few IPAs because I was like, I hate IPAs. But anyway. What. What? That's not you. Hops don't. Hops are, like, floral. I mean, they add, like, a nice, pleasant.

Why? It goes away with those, like, juicy hazies and stuff like that.

Yeah. And so, you know. Yeah. When people bitch about IPAs, again, it's. It's the high alcohol they don't like, and it's the. It's the really multibodies that. That they don't like. Like, my wife, for example, hates IPAs, but she loves hoppy lagers because it's just like, oh, this tastes like. This tastes cool.

This is so good. And by the way, back to your point about cost, like, this was a single single can. This is also why I was like, I do love shopping. Don't wine. It was $2.30. That's.

That's what mine was. 2:40. Oh, nice. Yeah. Yeah, My bottle love that so much. So much cheaper than. So much cheaper than the pub.

All right, well, we enjoy our beer, man. We do have a letter in the old mailbag. She want me. You want me to read it to you?

Hell, yeah. Let's hear it.

All right, so this letter is from KL Decided to go initials, I guess, instead of calling.

KL stands for call and open the envelope. Kurt Loder.

Kurt Loder from MTV News from now relocated to Boise. What's up, kl? Here's. Here's the letter. Hi, guys. Love the show. I have a gear question. Sort of gear. Oh, boy. This was this was timely. I think this is what fed into our decision. Do tires count? I just moved to Boise from the south, so I don't know anything about tires for the winter. I drive a. Wait for it. Subaru.

Subaru.

Lol. Would you suggest a little. What? You said, what would you suggest for little old me? So there's our entree way into snow tires.

Can you guess why we picked this topic?

Yeah. Gear expert Justin Houseman is going to answer that question because I have no opinions on this whatsoever.

So. But you're. Okay, but you're the.

You're the.

I've never lived somewhere where it snows. You're, like, from, like, Pennsylvania.

Yeah, I lived in a lot of snowy places.

You've lived in lots of places where.

It snows in New England. I lived in Park City. We got a lot of. I mean, Park City. We didn't see snow from, like October to May. And so.

So this should be. That should be a hint, which. Which is that, like, we overthink the living shit out of this topic. Yeah, but that's kind of why I thought it'd be fun to talk about today. And so Kurt. I'm assuming Kurt Loader. Is it Kurt Loder that's married to Tabitha Soren or is that.

Did they get married?

No, it's, you know, it's Michael Lewis, the guy that wrote Moneyball. He's married to Tabitha. So.

I used to love Tabitha Soren.

Right?

I thought she liked short hair. Yeah, yeah, she was.

She was so serious. They were so goddamn serious. Like, Kurt Loder and Tabitha were fucking serious about the news.

They were like, oh. This weekend at the WH A Festival in Washington, D.C. the mighty, mighty Bob Stones opened their set with their big hit. It's like, why are you talking about this so seriously?

I feel like they also talked about real news.

They did. Yeah. They like Rock the Vote was happening and stuff like that. They would touch on real, like, topics for sure.

Well, Kurt. So here's, here's, here's. Yeah. Kurt Kale. Cale. Yeah, Maybe that's their full name. Cole, here's what I'm gonna suggest for you. You have a Subaru, which it doesn't really matter which one you have because they all have the same all wheel drive system. And so you're already like three steps ahead of the game here. And one of the things that I. The. One of the things I miss about having a Subaru is the all wheel drive system is always on, which is epic. So when you're driving into the snow like if you're in California and you're, which is, you know my entire experience you're driving from like dry conditions into snow.

Right.

And which, the only, you know, which is fine. But like the cool thing about a Subaru is you don't like there's no delay. Like the all wheel drive is always on. So as you, as you're driving and you hit snow, as soon as anything gets weird, it's already engaged, it's ready, it's ready to go. It's not my truck. I have to like not, not that it's a big deal but there's like the. When am I going to put in four wheel drive? When am I going to put it in? For like for a long time as I'm like getting it, it's snowier and snowier, you know, like it'll start to slip and that's usually when I put it in four wheel drive. Nice thing about Subaru is you're, you're, you're always there. So you already have step one. They're, they're complete. But what I would suggest a lot of so Subarus, for whatever reason the last like 10 years have gotten really, a lot of Subaru owners gotten really aggressive about turning these things into off roaders which I think is absol rad. Like do it. It's awesome. I did that with mine. Don't give a shit what like badass four wheel drive dorks say. Like it's really fun to have a car that surprises people when it gets to where it can go. All that sort of stuff. That's awesome. But what you'll also see, a lot of these people will be putting on like burly all terrain tires thinking that that's what their car, you know, I don't know. It's an all, it's an off road ish car. I'm going to put like these big chunky tires on and that's not what you should do. It fucks up your gas mileage. It's not really necessary. You don't need that for real snow. So what I would suggest is what I ran on my Subaru which is the Yokohama Geolanders. Yokohama. It's a tire brand. Yes.

Okay.

Would you like to guess where they're from? Japan. Yokohama. Japan. Lovely city. Saw the Yokohama Bay Stars play a baseball game there once. Nice, wonderful place. But anyway, Yokohama makes excellent tires. The Geolander series is their like light, sort of light off roading tire. Super quiet, relatively inexpensive and really, really good in the winter. Now if you want to go a little bit more like if I would say. I mean Boise gets pretty damn cold. If you're going to be spending like a lot of time up in the up up in the actual mountains there. I would probably. You could. You'd be just fine with that Yokohama but you could also run what I ran later on after I had the Yokohamas which is the Nokian Outpost Apt. So we're going to talk about Nokian a little bit later here. But that's a mountain peak. The mp3. The mountain peak or the three I'm sorry 3pm it's a three peak mountain symbol like thing on the side of the tire which means they're like rated for proper winter driving. Um so that's what I would get. They're going to run you about like like 1:50 attire depending on where you look. Um which isn't bad. Uh but that's you know that's going to keep. You can have that on all year long if you want to do some mudding you can. When you want to go camping in the summertime up some like you know kind of nasty fire roads you'll be just fine. And they are absolute badasses in the snow.

I never got stuck in all weather tires.

Yeah it's. But it's. Yeah. So and we're going to get into why I like I'm not a huge. Unless you live. Well I mean like the other option. We'll get into this in a minute but the other option would be of course you just buy a set of dedicated winter like a dedicated pure snow tires but you know if you are questioning whether or not you need them. You don't. That would be my. That would be my advice. Because you're not in snow enough. Yeah you know, you know right away.

Like if you need snow tires like who really needs snow tires? I mean I can tell about my experience but I feel like I've lived in a lot of snowy places. Never once do I remember going like oh man should have gotten snow tires.

Yeah I mean honestly I would say. I would say you know if you. If you are like often on mountain passes in really inclement shitty weather it's not a bad idea to have a dedicated set of winter tires. If you are in a place where it gets really icy. It's kind of a. It's kind of a must. I mean that what they're. What they're really going to do for you you is as opposed to the. The three peak mountain snowflake thing. We'll talk about that in a sec. But what the winter tire will really do for you is help you out on ice. Helps out with stopping, helps out with turning, that sort of stuff. So any like you remember. Well, this happens every year. Last year was particularly bad. For whatever reason like in Tahoe, there kept being these videos of like these cars just sliding down hills like that. They, they probably all had the three peak mountain snowflakes and not pure winter tires. And the pure winter tires are going to do way better on actual ice. Like you can find footage of like people take cars onto ice rinks and like drive them around with just you know, with like winter tires to see what they can do. And they grip pretty good on pure ice.

Interesting. Okay. Okay.

That's what, that's when you would really, really want one. But you, yeah, I mean you lived in Pennsylvania, you lived in, you lived in Utah, Montana. You've never had winter tires. No.

And that's the thing. Like in Pennsylvania and New England especially we got lots of ice storms. You know, it was not an irregular occurrence to have freezing rain and.

No, actually there was one time knew how to drive.

Yeah, well then you have to like commute to work and stuff like that. I mean typically main roads are going to be treated and if things get really bad then you kind of just have to stay home. Right. I mean it's sometimes just not if to your point. I think, I think the key thing of what you said is like if you're outside and your job is outdoors and you're in like places where it's snowy or icy all the time and it's your day to day life to drive in those conditions then like that then it sounds like you need, you need winter tires. If you're driving to the office, you know, in like three days a year it's going to be kind of shitty out, maybe even a handful more because like just the, especially in Utah, like I mean it's dry. Like we had. There was one ice storm when I lived in Utah and people were, they could, there were cars off the road all over the place because you don't get ice there. It's just usually you know, dry road or wet road or snow road and you know we lived going up Parleys Canyon and I drove up and down that canyon and many snowstorms with just like all wheel drive on my server forester and never had a problem. The people you feel you see on the side of the road are the ones who were trying to drive 80 miles an hour in a snowstorm.

Well, that's it. Knowing how to drive is, is half the battle. I remember a few years back, my wife and I were up in Winp, Washington. Such a rad little town. We were doing a little snow, a little cross country ski hut trip up in the Meadow Valley, and we rented a Crosstrek with just regular all season tires. Probably in Seattle, I guess it was Seattle. I drove all the way out there and it was total, you know, no issues at all. Never had issues. But like by the time when we actually got to where we were going to do our skiing, like it was like two feet deep of snow. Like you were just driving through like just deep tracks that somebody else had made. And this is not plowed or anything like that, you know, after this little parking lot area. And like I remember just being, I never been in snow that deep and I'm like, wow, these tires are, these are, these are literally all season tires not built for this. And it's just, it was completely fine. It was completely fine. But you know who else was out there? A dude in a Tercel with snow chains on the front. And it was like. He was just, he was just fine too. Yeah, we'll get, we'll get to, we'll get there in a sec. But I wanted to kind of just real quick like run through what you're going to come across. If you're looking to buy like a set of tires for, for, you know, whether it's like shoulder season or, or dedicate, you know, like, all right, I'm going to use these all the time when I go up into the snow. And so like nine times out of ten now when you see an all season tire, it's going to have that M +S on it. And that doesn't mean anything. Like, it really doesn't. I mean, basically means they're not race slicks. Stands for mountain and snow. But again, there's no testing, there's nothing. All it really, it's, it's a way for the, for the tire maker to say, hey, look, these tires have a little bit more knobs than like a, like a slick would or something that's built for like pure gas mileage.

Now I spent most of my life trying to avoid knobs, you know, you know, the guy's a knob, you know.

But you want knobs on your tires. Oh, you want them different? You want, you want those kind. Okay, well, unless you're trying to go really fast on like really dry pavement. But that's all the M and S means. So like don't don't think that that means you have capabilities in mud and snow. It absolutely does not. There's no rating. It doesn't mean. It literally doesn't mean jack.

How many people out there were like, I got Ms. On my tires. Tear it up.

Because you're like, what does this mean? Oh mns. Oh perfect.

I can go anywhere.

And like you. You kind of can. The thing is when you're, when you're at like a mountain, when you're in like a mountain town and you see like someone in like a Land Rover and they're like, they're like throwing their scarf back and they start to climb out of a little hill at the grocery store and they start sliding backward. It's because they have M and S tires. Like they're not right. They're too hard. And so, and that's so. And we'll talk about why that matters in a sec. So that's M and S. Avoid those. I mean there's just no reason. I mean unless you. I would, I would like honestly, if you live in a place where you need some grip, I would just go up to a higher grip, period. Otherwise I'd have something that was just really flat and really good for gas mileage. Like M and S is kind of pointless to me. But they, you know, I mean in California they make a lot of sense for most people. So then what I think is like the holy Grail are the 3PMSF. God, it's complicated but it's Three Peak Mountain, Snowflake and all very approachable piece of gear here. Right?

I mean, wonder why KL had some questions.

Well, totally. And like you'll see this on a sidewall, right? It's like a little, it's like it looks like a little jagged three peak mountain range with a snowflake on it. And that's what you're looking for. KL or anybody else that is maybe kind of wondering what they should do. So what that is actually a rate, an actual rating. So that's hap. That's been existence since the 90s. Tire manufacturers and the Rubber association association of Canada got together and they basically, they basically, it's. They basically said okay look, we want a set of tires that is going to do better than like regular standard all season tires. So they basically do like a comparison where they say a regular all season tires rated at 100. Now what that means I don't fucking know. Right? And then the, the 3P SMF is 110. Okay. So it's theoretically it's 10% better in ice and snow than a tire that doesn't have it. But that is like a giant improvement.

Oh, okay.

Um, and so that's what I, what I always run. I've never had any issues like whatsoever. They, they're going to be great for almost everything that you need to do. Unless you are in like a hellscape snow apocalypse for really or somewhere in like Scandinavia and you're, you're driving on actual ice where you would be better off with like studs. And the way all this work works really is, you know there's different compounds in the rubber and so you, the, the tires that are made for winter are super soft. So they can, they, they're, they're going to remain pliable. When it gets below freezing. They're gonna, they which is surprisingly all it really takes for these tires to have grip on snow and, and ice. So it doesn't matter how cold it gets. They're gonna have some, some pliance, a nice softness to them. M and S tires and just, and regular, just pure all season tires, they actually start to crack when it gets really, really cold. Like the compound is way harder. It's meant for hotter temperatures. It's meant for, you know, they're more comfortable to drive on on pavement that they're built for pavement. And so when it gets really, really cold, they, they literally crack. And so at that point, as you can imagine the rubber is brittle, it's really hard. It's not going to grip onto anything so you're going to lose all, all your traction right there. So that's, that's the main sort of, you know, those, those are the main two that aren't dedicated pure winter tires. Now the pure winter tires are expensive. There's not as many of them out there. You know, there's like what expensive?

Like if it's you said 150 per tire for the kind of mountain.

So like if you like, like, like the, the Bridgestone Blizzax are like kind of the, the go to for most for like a lot around. Everybody around here will have Blizzax. You can get pure dedicated winter tires from a few different brands, but they're like, they're usually you know, 200, 220. I mean they're pretty expensive. And so like what you, what you end up doing, they, but they theoretically last a long time because you only have them on. And so if you don't mind, you get a set of four other wheels, you throw these, you have these on there and in the summer, fall and spring, you don't run them. And then when you know you're gonna go in the snow a lot, you throw on. You go to the tire shop and have them throw these on. So, like, I mean, a lot of people do that, but like, man, like, that's a lot of space to take up in your garage.

Space. It's money. It's logistics of getting it on and off twice a year. I mean, it's just like, eh. You know, again, if you have a real need. But do you.

And like. And like, where's the fun in that? Like, it's, you know, you're. I mean, it's fun to. It's fun to slip around a little bit.

Yeah, that's true.

I don't know if I'm gonna make it. Yeah, like, that's kind of. That's kind of nice.

And this goes back if you listen to last week's episode when we talked about Four Wheel Drive and the overrated, underrated, properly rated, I mean, wonders. We said it was overrated. And it's kind of the same thing here. It's like, all right, so, you know, our read, our listener writing in. It's like, I'm now living in a snowy climate. I just sat here and told you I lived the first 43 years of my life. Oh, wait, when did I move here? 40, 45 years of my life in a place where it could or did snow consistently. You know, like, if you're just going out and you're going snowshoeing or hiking or skiing or whatever, and that's your, like, kind of standard, everyday, outdoorsy person, I think you're gonna be all right without the, the extra set of tires. But if you really are gonna like, you know, go live on the mountain pass, I guess, then it's good to have that option.

I. I really think that this is like so many other things that we talk about on, on this show and the rock fight too. It's just like we get into this default setting where it's like, oh, here's a. Here's a item that fills a role that I do. Sometimes I have to have that.

Yep.

Like, I have. I have. You know, obviously I'm talking to people with, like, income that, like, they can, like, blow $1,000 in tires out of being a big deal that they don't actually need. But, like, so many of us do that. I've. I mean, I've done that so often, you know, like, like, I'd really like.

To go snowshoeing this winter. But you know, I don't have a new Gore Tex shell that I really want so.

Or I'm gonna buy snowshoes rather than just rent them. Yeah, I mean it's just like. Right. It's crazy. You know, I mean like my buddy who's who you know, has the new blizzax on. Like I was as I walked past the other day, I'm just like, dude, you're not. It's not even going to snow here for two months.

It's never going to snow where you are this ever.

And like this is your only car like driving around on these. And like dude, you, you will shred winter tires driving around in like a warm conditions. I mean like I don't even think you get 20,000 miles out of them. I doubt you would.

Yeah.

They're so soft and so like you could probably notice the difference in the treads just like driving across town and back. Like they're just not made for that. Right. And. But it's like, you know, it's just another thing that you.

By the way, just as an aside, you know everybody, a lot of talk in the. How the outdoor industry and outdoor products and our listeners appreciate this. You know how it affects. In microplastics. You know what actually puts more microplastics into our waterways in a year than anything to ever come out of your clothing.

Tire wear? Tires.

Yep.

Yeah.

Yeah, yep.

Yeah.

Because it gets us nowhere to go. Most in the United States, most of the microplastics or fibers that come off of your clothing gets trapped in your. In the. Either in your, your personal laundry, your washer dryer or by the municipality collecting your water, your. How that cleans your water. If you drive outside, you're shedding plastic, all your tires and everything that you go by. So keep that in mind.

What we're learning too is that it's like it's really bad for. I mean, ah, like this is a duh moment but like, like all these studies have come out recently that's like. Oh yeah, it's like really bad for fish like particularly. It's really hard on like salmon.

Right. As you're whizzing by that lake, you're just spewing microplastics into that one to that lake.

It's like around here like coho are coming back a little bit. Like their numbers are finally returning. And like pretty soon when it actually does like rain for real, all the creeks will open up and the salmon will be coming up and like it's A big deal. Like I love going out there. It's not that far away. I can. There's a pretty good sized river near us. Well, it's really a creek I guess and. But it's beautiful, like surround, you know, it's just all tucked into the redwoods and like you see these giant cohosts swimming up. It's right next to the only road that goes east and west here.

Yeah.

And it's like you can't get, you can't touch that water because it's that they're breeding. You can't do anything in that water, but you can drive next to it and every time it rains it just pushes all this in there. And we know, we now we know it's toxic to the fish. I mean it's like. Yeah, it's wild. Yeah, it's wild. Which is like, you know, it's just a. Like everything about. That's the other thing too. Everything about the creation of tires. What happens when you actually use them? It's all awful. I mean they made, they're made from petroleum, right? Like, it's just, it's just like we just, we took all the worst in the world and like made it into a semi hard form that you put on your car. Great. It wears down pretty fast. You got to get new ones all the time. They're fucking expensive. They're awful for everything. You should be buying as few of them as possible. So like that's another thing. Like I just don't want to own eight tires. Right. I mean they're. It's. It's like I gave more money to these tire companies. They're around more. It's just not, it's. I just, it's just not, it's not for me. It's not. It's not for me. And I don't think it's, I don't think that many people need them. I mean how often have you died in it? How often have you died in a, in a crash because you didn't have.

Multiple times I've been reincarnated.

Yeah.

No, no, but I mean.

Well, maybe you should have.

And by the way, your neighbor is probably the best example not to like you sit here and continually rag on your neighbor. But it's like, you know, that's the person who's usually buying winter tires. It's the same person who has the gas can on the outside of their truck. It's the people who like over prepar to have the outdoorsy look. It's more of the vibe and Everything than it is the actual need.

Now don't. This isn't to say that if you, you know, like I said earlier, if you, if you're questioning it, you don't. Yeah, right. Like if you're questioning, do I need these? You don't. You know, when you do like, you know for a fact, you know, like, oh, I drive all the time in really bad conditions.

You're not listening to us right now.

Right, exactly. And like my regular, like, you know, my, my truck or whatever like slips around all the time. So I got winter tires long time ago. I'll never look back. That's great. You, you. But again, you would never ask the question. So that's, you know, this is a lot of outdoor gear I think is like this. Like if you're questioning whether you need it, you almost certainly don't like the use cases present themselves really quick with this sort of stuff. And so I've never been in a situation. I've driven through blizzards. I'm in the snow a lot in the winter. I've, you know, I purposely seek out like off road trails I can drive on in the winter. I've never once been like, damn it, I wish I had actual pure winter tires. It's never once occurred to me, should.

We have an emergency red phone? When Wesler, you know, gets worried, he feels the disturbance in the force and he starts calling us to yell at us because he's like, they need to have snow tires.

I mean, I haven't, I actually wanted to go look and find a bunch of his, of his columns about it. I mean he, he would probably, I'd.

Like to hear the argument.

I think he might agree. I feel like he'd probably agree with me here in the sense that it's that, that like you, if you know that you, if you're asking, you probably don't. But there is just. For whatever reason, there's just, that's the other thing too. With like car culture and the outdoors right now, it's just like so overkill. It's like, God, you have to have every possible thing on it when deep down inside I think we all know we'd be a lot happier with if we were just driving 2010 Honda fits, you know, little stick shift, like hatchbacks, front wheel drive. Don't even know. Probably don't even have matching tires.

I don't know, man. I mean, I think if you weigh out, you know, having a $300,000 built out van versus a, you know, $500 tent, I think it's pretty, you know, pretty clear where you.

Well, Colin is also a board member of KOA and Winnebago. Colin would prefer if his house just had wheels on it and he'd never ever have to. He's the most home bodied, outdoors person you've ever met in your life.

I like my bed. What can I tell you? Are we at the second sip or we have it.

A second sip. Yeah.

Cheers bud. Yeah, I'm really enjoying the sign stock by the way.

This is great. Yeah, so my, I mean I already talked about it but my favorite brand of tire by far is Nokian. They've been around for, they've been around for a really long time. They're a Finnish brand. They've only been in North America for a little while. I mean if you're like a car person you know about them but they're not available everywhere. But they're, they're clawing into the North American market share. But they make phenomenal tires. They actually invented the winter tire 80 something years ago. So like they know more about this than anybody. It's Finland, right? Like so like if you want to get like if you live somewhere where you really do need some like serious tires, you're gonna end up probably like some studded Nokian with some unpronounceable name.

Yeah, I'm waiting for the hate mail from Alaska to come in for this episode. Like what the.

Well again dude, they know, they know you know and they probably have studded Nokians, you know, like something absurd. But I just, I just love Nokians and they're a lot cheaper than. They're high. They're premium quality tire but they're a lot cheaper than others. So the first one I recommended was Outpost Apt. Their naming conventions kind of blow. Apt I think is like all. I don't remember exactly what it stands for but it's, it's a much more mellow like off roadish tire like you could have. They don't make any noise. They're pretty user friendly. They're great for like if you have a Subaru and you go camping sometimes under roads and you go skiing a few times a year or you live somewhere where it snows and you don't need anything crazy like they're, they're, they're just re, they're. The quality is off the charts. I love them. What I run on my truck are the Nats, also called Outpost. But these are like dedicated full on burly allterrain tires. Like big chunky tires. They get horrifyingly bad gas mileage they're loud as hell but these are by far the best tires I've ever had like for off road stuff like by far I you can, if you just Google like Nokian out Outpost NAT video you'll probably find a video I made for adventure Journal where I'm in the desert kind of talking about I'll put.

I'll link it in the show notes.

Yeah we'll link them in there but they are, they're, they're just, they're bomb proof, they're heavy as hell. They don't make so they only make like LT versions which stands for light truck which means really really heavy tires like they're like I could drive over like nails and that's fine. The apts are P graded which is passenger tire graded so they're much lighter, much more friendly in your gas mileage But I just can't, I cannot, I mean we're not getting paid by Nokian yet I cannot recommend Nokia any higher. As someone who geeks out on tires as you could probably tell well I've had every brand possible. The ones I had on my truck when I went up to Black Butte were the Cooper Discoverer 83s which I thought were pretty good until that Black Butte trip but I've never been left, I've never been let down at all by the Nokians. Everyone I know who has them absolutely loves these tires. They're made in America which is awesome.

Nice.

They have like this big beautiful factory in Dayton, Tennessee super carbon neutral. They pay their workers really well. It's like it's just a good company.

And with the coming tariffs they'll stay cheaper. Cheaper.

They're going to stay cheaper. Yeah, yeah they're gonna, they're gonna say cheaper. Trump does own like significant part of their stock but you know he had.

To throw that in there huh?

I had to throw it in there. Yeah.

The one thing. So when I went from my forest we moved to Washington I needed a vehicle that was a little more family friendly so I got the small Ford Trans like the small, it's like it's a van but it's kind of the size of a. It was great. I loved it. The kids called it the tissue box but then they got to be too tall so that's why we moved on from that. But that was a front wheel drive vehicle and having always had the previous year previous I don't know a couple decades have had always had four wheel drive or all wheel drive for living in snowy climates just for Convenience. I was kind of worried about, like, oh, what if we want to go skiing even though we're in Washington? What am I going to do? So what do you recommend for someone if they don't really care about this? They have that kind of a setup. I'm leading you to a certain place here.

I know you are. What I would recommend is you go drop 80 bucks on. On chains. I mean, like, like, I. Having said all I've just said about, you know, like, getting, like, tires that are going to, like, you know, do you. Right in the snow. I mean, it's hard to argue against $80 chains if you live somewhere that you don't. I mean, honestly, you could probably get away with it. Well, no, because they suck on the highway. But like, oh, my God, like, it's. They're just so much cheaper and they're so much better than they used to be. I mean, if you're. If you, like, aren't familiar with, like, modern chains, it's not like it. Not like when they actually were chains, they were like a huge pain in the ass. Had to drive back and forth over them to, like, you know, a lot of SW and like, bloody knuckle. To put on, like, the most recent set of chains I had, I. I timed it once. I could put them on in. In two minutes.

Yeah.

Per tire, which is awesome. And so it's like, yeah, 80 bucks. And you know what, What I would honestly recommend if you live in a place like California where you have to have them.

Yeah, they're required. Yeah.

You know, it's like, you also can just, like, buy them and, like, keep them in your car and, like, not open them.

You know, that's what I ended up doing in Washington. I got a set of chains. And this, by the way, this goes to some of our earlier points about what you actually need on your car. I mean, I don't even know what the tires were that were on that car. They were supposedly weather tire that came by stock from Ford when I bought that vehicle. And then we were going up to the mountains in the winter. Had to get chains. I'm like, well, we should have them. We had to. We were required to have them. Got them. Went up over Stevens Pass multiple times in snowy conditions, which gets gnarly.

Stevens Pass gets gnarly.

It did. I didn't go out on a gnarly day, but it was snowy. There was snow on the road. Never once had to put them on. Was really happy I had them if I had needed them. And I was also A little nervous like am I going to be able to put these on? Then you look at the instructions like actually looks pretty easy to put these things on on. But the, the point is like in snowy kind of wintry conditions. What was on there? Front wheel drive. It was fine.

So front wheel drive makes a big difference. Yeah. I mean front wheel drive makes a huge difference that I mean if you have a front wheel drive car you'd be just fine for the most part with Right. With. With some just like decent like traction like the 3PMountain, the 3 Peak Mountain Snowflake tires. You're going to be just fine. Yeah, but yeah, chains. I mean it's like I, I bought some last year for the. Even though. So our RAV4 is all wheel drive and we have good Nokians on it. You know it's like in California you have to carry chains.

Yeah.

And you never know. I mean you get caught in a serious blizzard and you're chaining up a four wheel drive. I mean it happens. Sure. And usually they've closed the roads by then but you just never know. I've been in situations before where the road is closed behind me. Like the blizzard is really bad but it didn't, you know like they like it's. You've already kind of gotten to the point where there's, they can't really. You got to go over the top of the, of the pass and so like the road will be closed behind you and it is just a shit show, you know. And it's like I would have been. There have been times where I'm like I would like to chain up more four wheel drive now. Like this is, this is heavy. But anyway, yeah that like I'll. I, I got some for the RAV4 last year. I had them for a couple months, took them back, never opened the box. And I'll do that again this winter. I'll buy some, have them in the car, probably return them and get my money back at the end of the winter because you often. You don't really need to open them.

Right.

But in. But if you do they're fantastic. I mean they'll turn anything into something that is going to be just fine. In most situations they're easy to put on. They save you a ton of money. You don't have to think about a new set of tires. You can run whatever cheapo tires you want. It's nice. It is so nice to not have to think about pulling over and putting on chains. But it's not that. I mean it's not that you're like, you're going to be driving slow anyway because you're going to be behind people that have chains. So, like, it doesn't even really help that much, you know, like. Yeah, you don't, like, save that much time, so. That's right.

Well, as we about to wrap up, man, so next week looks like we're going to be doing. It's a. We're going back to shoes. We've had. We've had a couple. It's been a while since we've done shoes. Actually, we've done a lot of shoes, but we're doing some super shoes. You've been testing Norda? I've been testing Speedland shoes.

Speedland sounds like a convenience store.

It really does. You could totally see that with, like, a checkered flag.

You know, I gotta run into the Speedland real quick.

Yeah, totally.

Cheetos. Yeah.

That sounds delightful, but I want to ask. That's a tease for the audience, but I need you the sister. What is my beer assignment for our footwear? What kind of beard do you want me to get for our footwear episode?

I guess I think you should probably find what you think a trail runner would drink.

Okay.

Something like, you're really fit. You're probably annoying about it. You know what I mean? I could only have, like, one. I'm like, you know. You know how it is. Super fit. Trail runners is like, well, we can't.

Do athletic because that's what I think.

No, but you want annoying.

I think athletic.

You want something that I would say something low alcohol, something low in calories. So, like, I know what I'm gonna get, and it's a light lager that's pretty low in alcohol.

Okay.

Something that, like, you can crush. Like, you're thirsty as hell. You've just finished a run. I mean, have you ever been really tired and just crushed? Like a real beer? It gets to you fast. Oh, hell yeah.

No, that's why I usually don't drink beer at the finish line of races that I've done. Because I'm like, no, this will knock me out. Yeah, exactly.

So something you can just kind of ignore. I mean, I wouldn't suggest a Michelob Ultra, but something like a Michelob Ultra, Something that's made for athletic people who really want beer but can't quite quite drink a full one for whatever or like a heart. Like a real one for whatever reason.

I have my assignment. Thank you, sir. I will. I will try do my best to get something in that and that will stump the. Stump the cicerone.

Yep. Good luck. I'm one for one. You are one for one. We're going to end that segment right here while I'm 100% well. Colin.

Yes, sir.

We've done another. We've done a gear and beer.

We did another podcast guy.

Yeah, that's episode what, 31,000. It feels like 31,000. Kind of does. 31.

It's just.

It's actually just episode 31. Oh, we've done it, folks. We've recorded another episode of guer and beer. As a reminder, Gure and beer is our production of rock fight llc For Colin True. I'm Justin Housman. Thank you so much for listening. And he's just arrived. He got a little slighty, got a little weird, but he got the right tires on. It's Christa makes bursting through a blizzard. Here to perform for you the gear and beer theme song. We will see you next time. We'll be talking shoes and athletic e beers.

See you guys.

See you guys.

We have experienced lots of tales to tell. Just like you're with your pals out on the trail. We review outdoors adventure gear. Pair it with the perfect beer. Now let the games begin. So glad that you're here at the break. The pudding, the trailhead. We're going to crack up in the cooler and in buy the beverage where we can celebrate our wins. Those losses we hold so close. The bottom line here is you'll get the bear that matter most. Kiran beer and beer.