First, the VanMoof V: this new 31-mph, dual-motor electric bicycle is the brand's fastest eBike ever. How usable is a very fast electric bike, and who is the target customer? Then we discuss sunglasses made from a carbon-negative material called AirCarbon–yet another sustainable material meant to fight climate change. When will this and other climate change-fighting products make it into the mainstream? Finally, bad news about global supply chain delays and the subsequent shipping and availability issues affecting... everyone. We offer some tips and advice about how to find good deals as you start holiday shopping early in the hopes of making the season a smooth one.
The 31-mph VanMoof V eBike, Sunglasses Made from Microorganism Poop, and Supply Chain Stress.
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Nick Caruso:
This is the Gear Patrol podcast for Friday, October 15th, 2021, and I am Nick Caruso. I'm glad you're here, because we are kicking things off this week with a discussion about a new 31-mile per hour dual motor electric bicycle, the VanMoof V. How usable is a very fast electric bike, and who is the target customer? We'll find out soon.
Nick Caruso:
Then we'll discuss sunglasses made from a carbon negative material called air carbon. You may have heard of this being used in other applications too, but when will this, sunglasses, when will these sunglasses and other climate change-fighting products like it make it into the mainstream? That's what I want to know.
Nick Caruso:
And finally, you've no doubt seen the bad news about global supply chains affecting the holiday shopping season, and we're going to mull over that issue, but also offer some tips about how to find good deals, and how to easily start and maybe even finish your shopping early.
Nick Caruso:
So, if you have any questions or anything to say about anything we talk about, tweet at us. The handle is @GearPatrol. That's one word. Or you can email us at Podcast@GearPatrol.com with all your queries and comments. We really do want to hear from you, so take advantage.
Nick Caruso:
And by we, when I say "we" and "us," who I'm referring to are one, Gear Patrol's associate director of production design, Henry Phillips. Hi, Henry.
Henry Phillips:
Hello, hello, hello, hello, hello.
Nick Caruso:
I'm trying to make these intros very exciting for listeners, and for participants.
Henry Phillips:
For those listening at home, I'm dancing with my boxing gloves on, and amping up the crowd.
Nick Caruso:
You're so sweaty, too. It's very weird.
Henry Phillips:
It's...
Nick Caruso:
No, let's stop. And also, in the other corner is the platform's editor, JD DiGiovanni, who... I don't know how to introduce you.
JD DiGiovanni:
I have a towel over my shoulder and a cigar in my mouth, unlit, and I'm trying to impart some wisdom on a young whippersnapper.
Nick Caruso:
Okay, good. Yeah. By the time you're done with us, we'll be eating and, I don't know, crapping thunder. I don't know what the metaphor is. We'll figure out something by the end, here. But guys, it's mid-October. Shopping season really is in full swing, and it's fall, and there's a lot of good news, but we've got some problems on the horizon. Are you ready to talk about them later?
JD DiGiovanni:
You know it.
Henry Phillips:
Absolutely.
Nick Caruso:
Okay, good. That's what I like to hear. Well, before we get to that, let's start with the first story about an all new, very nice little product we have here. It's a story about a very gorgeous new dual motor, pedal assist e-bike. It's a VanMoof. We know this brand. We love this brand, because they make such gorgeous, cool bike tech. The VanMoof V is the brand's fastest e-bike ever. It's got two motors, like I said, which are predicted to deliver a combined kilowatt of power, which is like DeLorean level, if I do the math correctly. So, it's got two-wheel drive, right, with the two motors. Two wheels, two-wheel drive. It's supposed to hit 31 miles per hour, top speed. Lithium ion batteries, an aluminum frame, full suspension, integrated head and tail lights, which are my favorite feature of these bikes. Plus, VanMoof has this turbo boost function, which you know, you press the button and go a little faster. Automatic shifting. Wheel locking device mechanism thing. And all said and done, it should cost $4 grand, somewhere around there. Deliveries are supposed to begin toward the end of this year, and you can make a deposit right now if you want one.
Nick Caruso:
Henry, you're a cyclist, but JD is from the West Coast, and he has all sorts of opinions on bikes in cities, so I'm going to him first. JD, VanMoof V, what's your hot take?
JD DiGiovanni:
Yeah, I mean, it's exciting to see it. VanMoof is a really interesting company, in that they've really kind of focused on updating a very old technology, a bicycle, right?
Nick Caruso:
Yeah.
JD DiGiovanni:
A lot of companies are doing e-bikes, but what really differentiates them as a brand is that they've integrated a lot of interesting functions, like their drivetrain, or the kind of chain in the pedals, has an automatic shifting technology. And a lot of the stuff that they've introduced in their kind of current models and previous models are going to be showing up in this new, faster version. So, in some ways, not a lot of new tech, really other than the suspension that they're introducing, but just a lot more power, which is cool.
JD DiGiovanni:
But I think the most interesting thing to me about this announcement from them was that they shared that they're going to be actively lobbying different governments, both on a kind of federal level, as well as on a city and state level, to change laws to better... to change the laws that govern these types of vehicles. Because there is something really interesting about these types of bikes, right? And this isn't the first of its class. There are plenty of other bikes you can find that go around 31 miles an hour, like Super 73, or a couple others are slipping my mind. But they're not quite bikes, but they're not quite anything else, either. It's almost like they have pedals so they can skirt any kind of regulation around them being some other kind of motor vehicle.
JD DiGiovanni:
And there's something that's actually really appealing about having a vehicle like this, that's in the gray zone. You don't have to register this. You don't have to take a course. You don't have to have license plates on it. You can just get on and go. So, that's nice, but at scale, which is really kind of VanMoof's broader mission, which is they want to change the way people move around the world, and around their cities and towns, I guess, is that's kind of bad to have a bunch of really fast bikes in towns and cities that don't have, A, the infrastructure for them, or B, the kind of right set of laws to govern them and make sure that they're safe.
JD DiGiovanni:
So, it's a really exciting thing, because it feels like a more mature version of a technology we've already seen, and they seem to be proactively trying to address the problem with revolutionary technologies, is that they often jump far ahead of our conception of how to kind of get about the world, or move around, and they're proactively trying to make a better environment for the bike, as well as just make the bike itself. All in all, it's pretty exciting to me.
Nick Caruso:
Yeah. I mean, well said. Very sort of complete run down there of what... I mean, it's so funny that something that's so beautiful and desirable also represents such a unique challenge, right? Because there's like a what is the thing, and how do we use it, and how do we integrate it? Henry, what do you think? Like I said, you're a cyclist, so this is adjacent to your hobbies, at least.
Henry Phillips:
Yeah. It's cool. I mean, I love e-bikes. I think, if anybody listening has never had the chance to ride one, absolutely hop on one whenever you can. They are the most fun you can have, and the most pleasant way to get around a lot of places that I've experienced. But we've encountered, with the idea of a nearly-40-mile an hour one... Well, it's limited, but the potential of 40 miles an hour, is deeply scary, especially in New York. That's truly fast. You're talking 15 miles an hour above the legal speed limit in New York City, or nearly, and that is terrifying.
Nick Caruso:
Yeah, which is 25 miles an hour, so if you're going 40, you're going that fast.
Henry Phillips:
Yes, that's key context there. But you know, it's really cool. I love the kind of design, and the idea that, particularly as it applies to Europe, or places that have really well-built out cycling infrastructure, this is an interesting, viable, in its current form, which maybe feels more like a proof of concept than a functional kind of mode of transport in a lot of ways. It's really cool, and it does seem like something that is kind of an interesting way to talk about how you'd want to get around a city. I don't necessarily know that I'd want to get around the city on a hugely fast, hugely expensive bike that I have to nominally pedal all the time.
JD DiGiovanni:
Yeah. There are a bunch of kind of things to think through about a bike like this, because first off, I think if you're in New York, and all of us are, so this is kind of where our bias is, kind of out of touch, coastal media types, right? But this thing's going to be heavy, right? You can't remove the battery, right?
Nick Caruso:
Right.
JD DiGiovanni:
And it's going to cost $3-4,000. So, you don't want to park it on the street, right? VanMoof likes to talk about how they have this theft kind of prevention technology, and they have bike hunters who go hunt down your bikes, and that's all fine and good, but I don't know if you've ever met someone... It doesn't really matter if someone can just put your bike in a truck and drive away, right?
Nick Caruso:
Right.
JD DiGiovanni:
It just sucks, right? But then, a lot of infrastructure, a lot of buildings in the city, you have to walk up some stairs to get to your apartment, right? And then, you're talking about lugging something quite heavy to get upstairs. And then, you have the weather as well, for locking it up outside. It just kind of, I mean, this is where this issue of it not quite being a bike and not quite being a vehicle comes in, because you end up pretty quickly in this spot where it's like, do I need a covered parking space for my bike?
Nick Caruso:
Right.
JD DiGiovanni:
Which is going to add quite a bit of cost to something like this. And I think for that reason, I'd anticipate a bike like this being much more popular in places in the West, right? These are places that are maybe like Austin, or other kind of towns, like big towns, small cities, where you have enough density to make sense to kind of pop around on a bike, as opposed to getting in a car and driving on the freeway, but also the kind of traditional things like a garage that comes with a house, or maybe weather that won't eat away at your $4,000 bicycle if you do leave it outside.
Nick Caruso:
Right. Yeah, what good is a bike hunter if you're just looking for a bunch of rust? Well, I think these are aluminum, I guess.
Henry Phillips:
With those kind of mid-size cities, big-small cities, I guess, then, I wonder if you run into issues where there hasn't needed to be a bunch of bike infrastructure, and so you end up with this kind of weird Goldilocks city. Austin definitely comes to mind, where it's like, okay, this makes sense.
Nick Caruso:
Yeah, that's a great example. And that's kind of the point. The Verge, one of the links I shared with you guys, the Verge... I mean, many of them cover this aspect. But they talk about sort of the idea is that VanMoof themselves have been proposing, which you mentioned, JD, and they sort of equate it to... I mean, they're talking about proposed infrastructure that is kind of dedicated to vehicles of this type, but I mentioned the Verge because... I should check who wrote this, so I can reference directly.
Henry Phillips:
Thomas Ricker.
Nick Caruso:
Yeah, Thomas Ricker, here, mentions that, he says, quote, "Call me crazy, but if European lawmakers can let Ferraris drive on city roads before turning them loose on the Autobahn, you'd think they could do the same for fast e-bikes on speed-enforced bike lanes." So, that's a reduction of many other points he makes, but the idea is, you kind of need dedicated infrastructure for this kind of thing, if you're going to do in a very dense city like New York. But Austin's a great example of a place that's maybe spread out enough that this could be like a supplemental vehicle, right?
Henry Phillips:
Yeah.
Nick Caruso:
But it's an interesting proposition. Where does this actually...
Henry Phillips:
Weird. It's really weird.
JD DiGiovanni:
And it's one of these things too, that it's kind of not a problem until it gets to scale, right?
Henry Phillips:
Yeah.
JD DiGiovanni:
Where when you have some cyclists, or some people on e-bikes, you can kind of get by with it, right? I mean, New York City already has a bunch of people who are moving around on e-bikes, which are a lot of food delivery guys, who have these big hefty bikes with big batteries on them, and they're not pedaling, they're just zipping around. And if you're talking about increasing the number of people who are on those types of bikes, you just get into more sticky situations where... Yeah, I'm a cyclist. I ride around New York, not in spandex, but just to kind of get around and hang out with friends, and I don't want to be in a bike lane with somebody who's going 30-something miles an hour, right?
Henry Phillips:
You're talking about a 20 mile an hour closing speed. That's super dangerous.
JD DiGiovanni:
Yeah. It's super dangerous, and it's super dangerous too because you're thinking about what are you used to seeing in a bike lane, too. You're going to catch a bunch of people unaware. But this is the thing, though. With anything, like I kind of said earlier, that's new enough and pushing the boundaries, you're just going to find friction points like this. And I just think it's a testament to VanMoof's kind of vision, and the seriousness with which they're tackling it, that they're trying to address these problems before they're really actually coming to a head.
JD DiGiovanni:
Which, in some ways too, is the kind of fun thing about this. They have, for $20, you can go and kind of reserve a spot in line to get one of these. It actually looks like they're going to be shipping in late 2022, in about a year, so not this year.
Nick Caruso:
Oh, my mistake. Thanks.
JD DiGiovanni:
Yeah, totally. But it's almost like that's leverage in these conversations. It's like, we're going to sell so many of these things, you all need to figure this out, right?
Nick Caruso:
Right.
JD DiGiovanni:
Fair warning, it's happening, so figure it out.
Nick Caruso:
Yeah. Mark your calendars. Yeah, for context, particularly if you are in New York City, 31 miles, you're pegging at mile per hour, or whatever, that's the top speed of those Revel scooters.
JD DiGiovanni:
Which have been an issue.
Nick Caruso:
Which it's been an issue, and those are, of course, more substantial than this, too. So, A-
Henry Phillips:
But also require quite a bit more... nominally, theoretically, require quite a bit more licensing and technical precautions.
Nick Caruso:
Right. That's a great point. I guess, which is a good thing, because of the point I was going to make, which is that you're on a bike with no faring, no nothing. 31 miles per hour, in New York City, on basically just a tube, is a dangerous proposition if things aren't paid attention to, and if there isn't any infrastructure, which there isn't. I mean, you already have, those delivery guys you mentioned, JD, those guys are fearless, and they'll go the wrong way up a one-way sidewalk.
JD DiGiovanni:
It's amazing.
Nick Caruso:
And adding more and more vehicles like this to that mix is quite an experiment.
JD DiGiovanni:
Well, I mean, at the very least, in the meantime, everyone here listening should check out our buying guide on helmets, because as much as I'm happy about the way that VanMoof is going about this, and the kind of challenge they're posing to legislators on different kind of city or national governments, you know, government moves slow, so buy a helmet. Be safe.
Nick Caruso:
Yeah. Wear a helmet anyway.
Henry Phillips:
All that being said, if you own a ranch or a compound, or like a racetrack or something...
JD DiGiovanni:
Invite us.
Henry Phillips:
Or live anywhere that doesn't have a city infrastructure, you should absolutely buy one of these things. They look so cool.
JD DiGiovanni:
Yeah, man. They're so sick.
Nick Caruso:
Yeah. I mean, I am terrified by motorcycles, but I've always loved the idea of owning a Cake, one of the...
JD DiGiovanni:
Yeah!
Henry Phillips:
Oh, yeah, yeah.
JD DiGiovanni:
Similarly priced.
Nick Caruso:
Similar in a lot of ways to this.
JD DiGiovanni:
For listeners who don't know that you're not talking about a giant birthday cake, you should explain what the Cake is. They're so cool.
Nick Caruso:
Much slower. I'm also not talking about the band, which is one of my favorites of all time.
JD DiGiovanni:
Short skirt and a long...
Nick Caruso:
That's right.
JD DiGiovanni:
Sorry.
Nick Caruso:
Short spandex and a long... Yeah, Cake is a motorbike... I mean, they're not really motorcycles. They're motorbikes, really. A brand with this gorgeous design language, this Scandinavian... It's like if Volvo launched into the future and made a pared-down, beautiful motorcycle.
Henry Phillips:
That's a great way to put it.
Nick Caruso:
I mean, it's just, they're so good-looking. I'll have to drop a link to this stuff.
Henry Phillips:
I think they're selling them as a package with [inaudible 00:18:58] now.
Nick Caruso:
They should. This is, they're essentially like the electric motorbike from the Tom Cruise movie...
Henry Phillips:
This always returns to Tom Cruise movies.
Nick Caruso:
What the hell movie is that, with... Where he's on Earth, and it's...
Henry Phillips:
Oh. Wait, I'm lost now.
Nick Caruso:
I know. It's not Edge of Tomorrow.
Henry Phillips:
I know which one you're talking about, but the name is escaping me.
Nick Caruso:
Elysium?
Henry Phillips:
No.
JD DiGiovanni:
But it's like that. They live in a tower, and he goes down...
Nick Caruso:
Oblivion.
JD DiGiovanni:
Yeah, that's it.
Henry Phillips:
Yes, exactly.
Nick Caruso:
I just re-watched it, too. Fantastic movie. Anyway, I think the point here is that there's a lot of promise, and Henry, you make a really good point: if you have the space and you're very confident, you should definitely... and can, definitely get in the saddle, because these things are cool. But it remains to be seen what the experience will be like in late next year, into the following year, as these are delivered. But you can reserve now, so you should. And I'm making a note about Cake, except I don't want people to know about them, because then they're going to...
JD DiGiovanni:
Yeah, they're so cool. They make one that's very similarly priced and similarly specced. Quite a bit slower, technically, though they'll all be limited, called the Makka Flex, M-A-K-K-A Flex. It's $3,800.
Nick Caruso:
Is that the... there's like a utility bike or something, almost.
JD DiGiovanni:
That one's the Osa. I'm just looking at the page. I don't have like encyclopedic whatever.
Nick Caruso:
Cake knowledge?
JD DiGiovanni:
Yeah. But the Makka, same way.
Nick Caruso:
Cake Boss?
JD DiGiovanni:
It doesn't have any sort of licensing. Actually, it does maybe require a driver's license.
Henry Phillips:
I think some of them aren't street legal. I think that's the thing.
Nick Caruso:
Yeah, I think these might not be.
Henry Phillips:
But maybe this Makka Flex is. Who knows.
Nick Caruso:
Who knows. Who knows. I mean, there's no way to find out, so I guess we're lost for a while.
Henry Phillips:
Yeah, no, shut it down.
Nick Caruso:
But while Henry frantically researches, we can move on.
Henry Phillips:
I won't.
Nick Caruso:
No, we've got to move on to story numero two, which I actually realize, I think I said it last episode, is a very annoying phrase. The second story. Sunglasses made out of plastic that's made from the waste products made by marine microorganisms that eat methane gases. The specific products I'm talking about are from the company Covalent, which is a clever name if you know chemistry, and the material they're made out of is called air carbon.
Nick Caruso:
So, long story short, air carbon is made by feeding these microorganisms methane gas, like in big batches, obviously, in vats, and then collecting a molecular byproduct of that process, of their ingestion and digestion, called PHB, or polyhydroxy butyrate. I did practice that. And PHB can be collected and melted, meaning it's effectively like a carbon negative plastic material. So, since it can be melted, it can be molded, and used for all sorts of stuff. So, air carbon is not just making up the frames of these sunglasses, it's also being used in some Nike products in development, and even Shake Shack, you all may know as the burger chain based in New York City whose crinkle cut fries are superior to all others. Shake Shake has tested out air carbon straws and cutlery, in the hopes of, of course, cutting down on carbon impact.
Nick Caruso:
So, my question, after all that, is about the sunglasses specifically, and maybe the Nikes tangentially. Henry, I want to ask you. We see economy-conscious materials pop up all the time. We've talked about them on the pod before. We've seen synthetic spider cell canola stuff. But the products that utilize these materials are still relatively niche, and sort of few and far between, so what do you think it's going to take for products like these sunglasses to make it into the mainstream?
Henry Phillips:
It's weird. I always feel slightly odd talking about these types of products, because you don't want to be the guy who says this is like greenwashing garbage. Because it is, it's material innovation, and that's the whole point of all of this, is to eventually reach some sort of material that is viable, through costs, and through consumer demand, and through whatever it is, the properties of it, that is more sustainable than the current options.
Henry Phillips:
And so, I think it's cool that this company is providing kind of proofs of concept through sunglasses and outsoles and straws and stuff. But I'm kind of wary of thinking about it in any other way. I don't necessarily think that the future is carbon-captured sunglasses.
Nick Caruso:
Right.
Henry Phillips:
But it's cool that there's some awareness for the new tech. Part of me... I wouldn't get too smug if you buy the sunglasses. I'm sure that the variety of tools used to ship or produce or buy them certainly offsets the two and a half or so pounds of carbon that you've saved. But all that being said, it's a cool product. The science and the kind of biology behind it, or the chemistry behind it, is really interesting, and I think the idea of creating these kind of plastic-like non-plastics is a really interesting path forward. But it's hard to get too stoked, I suppose.
Nick Caruso:
Yeah, I get you. And I want to, I should mention a couple of stats before we keep going. It's actually two kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent gases.
Henry Phillips:
Hey, now!
Nick Caruso:
Which, for our metric friends, is of course different from pounds. And then, the interesting thing about these Covalents is that each of them is... well, they're $150 bucks. $150, $155. There are two different types. And they are traced on the blockchain, so you can actually track your specific pair, and understand how much carbon was essentially captured by your pair of sunglasses, and track how they were shipped, and all that stuff, too. Sort of interesting.
Henry Phillips:
Blockchain is like famously ecologically harmful.
Nick Caruso:
Don't worry about that. That doesn't matter. JD, what matters to you about this?
JD DiGiovanni:
I think these are... I think the exciting thing about this is the technology. The products that this company has been kind of turning out feel to me like a little whatever, in more of proof of concept, kind of like Henry said, right? Where this is evidence that you can really use this technology to produce materials that make something that feels premium and nice. And what's more exciting to me is the fact that they're pairing up with Nike to do this stuff, because Nike's really good at designing products, right? That people like. And if Nike can partner with companies like this that are producing stuff that is carbon negative, then that's great.
JD DiGiovanni:
And in some ways, that is the kind of conundrum of something as seemingly forward-thinking and revolutionary. Revolutionary is maybe a strong word. I don't want to kind of put too much on it. But it seems like the potential could be quite large. Is that it's only really revolutionary if no one ever thinks about it, right??
Nick Caruso:
Yeah.
JD DiGiovanni:
Where it just, all of the sudden everything that we are buying or using, cords are coated with this stuff, it's in the Legos, it's this, that and the other place, and we're just ending up doing the same stuff, but with a different material, and it's better for the planet. And for me, that is an exciting idea, because a lot of the times... there's a lot of ideas out there about how we need to adjust to climate change, and I'm probably out of my depth talking about them, but I think some of them are kind of kooky to me. This idea of de-growth, of kind of reducing the amount of what we're doing, or really drastically changing how we're living our lives. I think some of that's going to come just by virtue of living on a planet that's drastically different, in terms of the weather.
JD DiGiovanni:
But I also think too that, I don't know, I like it when companies are approaching this as an engineering problem. Can we solve a big part of the problem by changing how we make our energy? Or we're not going to get rid of cars, but maybe let's just have all their power plants be electric. Or let's not get rid of plastic, let's just, I don't know, make it out of something different. And let's not abolish barbecues, let's just figure out carbon capture, right?
Nick Caruso:
Right.
JD DiGiovanni:
So, that is a much more, I think, appealing future to me, and a more animating one, and I definitely see this technology as being kind of one with that, and that to me is very cool.
Nick Caruso:
Yeah. I mean, the promise that it's... I guess the way I posed the question about when will these become mainstream was probably, was a little too, I don't know, clickbait-y. It's so strange to be in the middle of a revolution of any kind, right? And specifically this kind of thing, where we're like, we know there's a problem, the problem is very big, and the problem is now unavoidable. We know how we can make it better, and people are doing it, but at what point is... It's like that philosophical problem, when does a pile become a... or a collection of grains of sand become a pile of sand, right? It's like, at what point have we actually solved this problem or made progress? Like, when is this going to happen? When are we going to actually solve, or be better, or whatever? And it's just kind of happening in front of us, which is just cool. And solving, like you said, as an engineering problem is great.
Nick Caruso:
I love the idea that there are a bunch of these just little homies chilling, eating methane, just living their best lives, making plastic.
JD DiGiovanni:
Right? I love them.
Nick Caruso:
I love them.
JD DiGiovanni:
I think they're great.
Nick Caruso:
Yeah. Henry, do you have any final words? We haven't referenced your background in economics for a while.
Henry Phillips:
Yeah, no. As a former top level economist...
Nick Caruso:
Top men. Top men.
Henry Phillips:
Top man. Top lad. No, I don't know. I'm very excited for the day when one of these products, these kind of innovative engineering approaches, like JD was saying, go reach that kind of tipping point, where it's just like, yeah, the straws are now made of little dudes.
JD DiGiovanni:
Yeah.
Henry Phillips:
And I can't wait for, on any sort of significant scale, for that to happen. I think it will be really exciting, and maybe... We're in that early phase where you're seeing hints of all the tech, and maybe 5-10 years out from actual proper viability.
Nick Caruso:
Yeah.
JD DiGiovanni:
Well, I mean, I'm definitely game for anything that brings me my straws back. I miss my straws.
Nick Caruso:
God. Paper straws, man.
JD DiGiovanni:
I even go to, I go to a coffee shop that's not as good as other coffee shops, because they have plastic straws, because they're immoral.
Henry Phillips:
I actually do that.
Nick Caruso:
Because they don't have ethics.
JD DiGiovanni:
Yeah. That's my type of business, man.
Nick Caruso:
Yep. Skirt it until... Yeah. You know, I also realized that our little very clumsy boxing analogy up top does actually come to a logical conclusion here with the Rocky stuff, because by the time we're done with this ecological disaster, these microorganisms are going to eat methane and crap plastic.
Henry Phillips:
There you go.
Nick Caruso:
Was that as clumsy as the beginning? Okay.
Henry Phillips:
That was a really gracefully done kind of arc for the podcast, I think.
Nick Caruso:
Thanks. Well, there's still plenty more, so it can get way worse. But that does remind me, I watched part of Expendables 2 the other day, when I was just mindlessly doing something.
Henry Phillips:
Oh my god, jeez.
Nick Caruso:
Sylvester Stallone, he still exists, there.
JD DiGiovanni:
That man is on so much... so many steroids.
Nick Caruso:
I mean, who among us isn't? Okay. Well. Yeah, that's why I'm so huge. Dear listener, if only you could see. Our last story is not about a product per se, but it is about news about procuring products. Between the pandemic, which is still, of course, raging, and other logistical bottlenecks, supply chains, which are a boring thing to discuss generally, but supply chains are super stressed right now, and those are, you know, how things get from one place to another in the globe. And unfortunately, this is happening just in time for the holiday shopping crunch.
Nick Caruso:
So, brands and shipping companies and even the federal government, as of today? Yesterday? Today. Are doing what they can to work around the clock and deliver stuff on schedule, but it's still going to be more challenging this season than most. We can expect shipping delays, and in some cases, literally fewer available products overall. Now, what products specifically is just a long list that we are not going to really dive into too hard. But it's going to make a headache here and there.
Nick Caruso:
So, it may sound like a really bad situation for people looking for holiday gifts right now, especially for those of you, or us, shall I say, who tend to wait for late season deals. So, waiting later, may run into a shipping crunch, whatever. So, JD, Henry, I want to pick your brains about any advice you may have for listeners, or any hot tips and tricks, vis a vis deal shopping, since that is a big part of what we do at Gear Patrol, is find stuff and find ways for people to get it. Gift ideas that might be easier to come by the next couple of months, that kind of thing. So, JD, dare I begin with you, your thoughts on the situation?
JD DiGiovanni:
Yeah, totally. I would say that if you're listening to this and thinking, yeah, this is going to be for other people, they'll have issues with it, and I'm not, I just want to beat the drum, it's totally, it's everywhere. I was back in my hometown last week, and I was going to visit the first place I ever had a job, this great little shop called Bird In Hand, and just talking to the folks who I knew who run that shop, and they're getting shipments that they ordered like six months ago, like just now. And they're doing this thing where they have to order like double the amount that they want, because everything is showing up short anyway, and showing up slow. And so, this is really... if it can happen in my relatively small hometown, it's happening in your town too, and to all of your favorite suppliers or brands.
Nick Caruso:
Yeah.
JD DiGiovanni:
So, yeah, I was trying to think about tips. If I could just boil it down, I think probably the biggest one just is starting early, starting now, even. And then secondly, is just prepare yourself for shipping delays. You can make yourself nice little cards for your loved ones for the holidays, and say this is on its way, as an option. Because look, honestly, when it comes to frustrating shopping experiences, half the battle is actually just expectations, right? So if you're clear-eyed about the fact that this is just going to be tough, and some things may not show up when you want them to, you're going to save yourself a lot of agita, if you just kind of know that this is an issue, and there's not much you can really do about it. Because it's a huge, global and complex one.
JD DiGiovanni:
And then, finally, if I could give anything else, it would just be, think about things that don't have to be delivered, right? So like gift cards to stores, to restaurants, museums. All of these places are places that, restaurants and museums in particular, have had a hard time over the past like 12, 15, 16 months, or whatever, at this point. And it's not a bad way to kind of support whatever is going on locally. And then, I think passes to national parks and state parks are also a good one, where you can...
Nick Caruso:
[crosstalk 00:38:02]
JD DiGiovanni:
Yeah, because you can do that, you can essentially give your loved ones a free pass to some of the most beautiful places on earth for free, for a year, and they can kind of do with that what they will and on their own schedule. And that's something that I've gotten in the past, and I've always really appreciated. So, yeah. Those are my hot tips.
Nick Caruso:
Excellent run down. I like the gift card idea, because you can pass... if it's like a store, right? You can pass the stress of shipping delays on to your loved ones.
JD DiGiovanni:
Delegate.
Nick Caruso:
Exactly. Hey, this is your problem now. Henry, what do you think? You got any ideas here?
Henry Phillips:
That was like four straight minutes of really excellent advice. So, I'm going to just sit here and bumble for about a minute and a half. No, I totally agree with everything that JD said. The good news is that everybody's encouraged to start early. Sites like ours are going to start early. You're going to start to see quite a bit of kind of buying advice for the holiday season significantly earlier than usual. So, I think buying early and then, I do love the idea of buying kind of things that aid these experiential... restaurants and museums and things like that, that aren't necessarily limited by a supply chain quite as heavily. Let's go with museums, because you don't want to be out of your French onion soup. But yeah, I mean, it's all a load of great advice, and cash in an envelope always works, too.
Nick Caruso:
Yeah. Love cash. There are a couple of things. I've been thinking about, we just, I think just today published, or re-shaped with readers, that Amazon's sales, like Black Friday deals, are already, they're already branding current deals as Black Friday stuff, holiday stuff. But in general, hopefully you get a lot of your advice from Gear Patrol, because we have great advice, and really good insights and all that. But wherever you're looking, you can treat any sort of deal right now that you see as a holiday deal. Don't necessarily wait for a holiday gift guide to start buying stuff. There's no time like the present. JD is 100% right, you are going to be affected by this in some way, small or large. So, get on it. And Amazon and other retailers are making that kind of easy, if you do choose to go for the real physical gift route.
Nick Caruso:
And interestingly, retail sales, I shared this quote with you guys, are expected to increase this year, even in, despite pandemic stuff, and despite this looming atrocity of delayed shipments. But no time like the present.
Henry Phillips:
Life finds a way.
Nick Caruso:
Ooh. Yeah, I've decided to endorse the shopping.
Henry Phillips:
But I also, I ran into this kind of delayed supply chain gift shipping thing. I got my dad an Ooni pizza oven for Father's Day.
Nick Caruso:
Love it. Love it.
Henry Phillips:
Which he adores. But Father's Day, I will not remember if it's in June or July. I'm going to say June.
Nick Caruso:
That's a good guess.
Henry Phillips:
And he got it like, early-mid-September.
Nick Caruso:
Yep.
Henry Phillips:
But you know, Ooni was hugely communicative about the whole thing, and I feel like so long as everything is communicated reasonably well, the excitement builds. And for the last three weeks, he has been cruising through pizza dough.
Nick Caruso:
It's incredible. I have an Ooni. It's just the most phenomenal thing. You feel like a god, just cranking these things out. It's wonderful.
JD DiGiovanni:
That's the real advice here, is just don't... Just get everyone an Ooni pizza oven, and just know that they'll be very communicative, and they'll be very late.
Nick Caruso:
That's right.
JD DiGiovanni:
And you'll be so happy when it arrives.
Nick Caruso:
Yeah, you really will be. I mean, this stuff has been going on forever. Last year, friends of mine waited for furniture for I think 10 months, or something, before finally strong-arming them into... So, this is definitely nothing new, but just don't, if you're going to buy stuff, don't wait is the bottom line.
JD DiGiovanni:
Another thing, this just struck me, another thing that could be worthwhile, subscriptions to good magazines.
Nick Caruso:
Ooh. Can you think of any?
JD DiGiovanni:
Yeah. There's one called Gear Patrol that's all right. No, but I mean honestly, this is just another one of those things that, you know, magazines still work. They show up in the mail. They have digital elements of it too. If you've got some nerd who likes checking out gear, or wants to read the New Yorker, it's not a bad one, either.
Henry Phillips:
That's a great idea.
Nick Caruso:
Nerds and their dumb reading stuff.
JD DiGiovanni:
I don't even know how to read.
Nick Caruso:
I gave last year the gift of the New York Times games subscription thing.
Henry Phillips:
That's really cool.
Nick Caruso:
For like spelling bee and the crossword and everything.
JD DiGiovanni:
Nice.
Nick Caruso:
Primo. Just something to think about. So, great. I love it. Guys, this is good advice from the pros. We've covered a lot today, and we're going to call it quits here, but I want to thank everyone for tuning in yet again this week, in the middle of October, as the year rapidly winds down. If you want any more information about anything we've talked about today, whether that is the VanMoof, the little microorganism methane eaters, or shopping tips for an early holiday season to avoid shipping delays, hit up the show notes, check out the site post where've you're listening to this. You'll find a bunch of links that will help you with further reading, if you know how.
Nick Caruso:
You can also find us on social. Hit us up on social. Like I mentioned up top, our handle everywhere is GearPatrol. It's one word. You can email us at Podcast@GearPatrol.com, which not enough of you do. I'm just going to say that again. Second week in a row, calling you out.
Henry Phillips:
Shame on you.
Nick Caruso:
Shame on you for not emailing us. And finally, hopefully you're here every week, and if you haven't yet, you'll subscribe. And if you like what you hear, if you subscribe, sounds like you like it, you'll rate us too, and give us a five-star review. That helps us keep going. But we're going to stop now, instead. So, Henry and JD, thank you both for your time and your insights, yet again.
JD DiGiovanni:
Thank you, Nick.
Henry Phillips:
Thank you, Nick.
Nick Caruso:
You're welcome, guys. You're welcome. For Gear Patrol, I'm Nick Caruso, and until next time, take care.