I was going to start this post by stating that like most folks, I don't spend a whole lot of time thinking about my socks. While that's certainly true most days, I realized that there have been times in my life when I've thought a whole lot about my socks. These have usually been times when I've been miserable or, more importantly, times when I've been planning ahead to avoid misery.
Allow me to explain.
I have, at various times, done things that push me beyond my comfort zone. These include things like riding my Bike Friday from London to Edinburgh and back, or riding a fixed gear bike from Issaquah to Minnesota, or being the first person to ride a single speed bike from Port Roosville, Montana to Antelope Wells, New Mexico. On these and other adventures of varying degrees of stupidity, I've considered my socks carefully. When you are traveling light, you want the gear you bring to be up to the job.
On most of my adventures, I bring wool socks. In general, I'm a fan of wool. It's warm when wet and while some folks are allergic to it, I'm not. Over the years I've written quite bit on this blog about the virtues of wool, so I won't bother to repeat that here. Instead I'm going talk about something better than wool socks: alpaca socks.
Brain Davis apparently thinks more about socks than I do. I first got to know Brian through the internet and his nifty Fix It Sticks. Since then Brian and I have kept in intermittent touch and he's gone on to create several other products including the Weatherneck and the BackBottle. His latest project is a pair of socks made from Alpaca fiber. He sent me a pair to check out and I'm impressed. Well, impressed enough to do this blog post. They really do seem better than regular wool socks. Brian explains it better than I do, but they really are warm, not itchy, not stinky, and very comfy. I suppose you could say I've been bribed with socks, but a bribe only works if it's something of value and by gosh these socks are valuable. They've earned their spot in my kit for my future adventures.
Anyhow, like most of his ventures, Brian is Kickstarting this one. I know he'll succeed because they're good socks and he's a smart, hardworking guy who delivers on his promises. Here's a link to his Kickstarter campaign:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/briandavis/performance-alpaca-socks
