Outdoor Retailers: Everything you need to get out

Timex, the watchmaker, will go to the very heart of the outdoor market next year, while the makers of the Swiss Army knife will touch on the very sole of recreationists. Black Diamond, the climbing company, will shed more light in the outdoors, while National Geographic, the magazine giant and mapmaker, will lead travelers across the arid reaches of southern Utah with greater confidence.

New and more comfortable environmentally friendly clothing, roomier backpacks, lighter tents, easier to use locators and an even greater selection of footwear are among thousands of new products exhibited last week at the annual Outdoor Retailers Summer Market in the Salt Palace.

The show is, as one retailer suggested, an outdoor enthusiasts' candy store, with no end to the tasty treats soon to appear on retailers shelves.

This year it was reported there were 3,300 exhibitor booths taking up every usable space in the Salt Palace. Organizers were able to make extra space available for 100 new exhibitors, but even then some companies were turned away. About 20,000 retailers attended the show.

The show is, to the casual observer, overwhelming. There were thousands of items shown, many for the first time. Listed alphabetically, there were nearly 70 companies falling in the A column. And, as expected, there were companies known worldwide and others very few, if anyone, knew about.

Timex, for example, known worldwide for its timepieces, introduced two new digital heart-rate monitors at the show.

The Ironman will have a 50-lap memory with average heart rate per lap, a chrono or interval workout review and automatic heart rate recover with multiple preset durations. But better still, information from the monitors — Ironman and Road Trainer collection — can be downloaded by way of a USB device to provide online training logs.

Where, said Ken Mandelkern, "individual training tips can be given to the user. What we're looking for is a long-term relationship by offering a greater range of functions."

The Ironman, expected to be available by September, will retail for $219.95 and the Road Trainer for $99.95.

The company will also introduce a series of new watches — E-Instruments. Official reports say the watches feature "multimotor, multihand, microprocessor-controlled Quartz analog movement."

Suunto will introduce its X10 model with one of the "smallest and lightest wrist-mounted GPS devices."

Wenger Swiss Army, owner of the familiar white cross on the red background introduced on its multipurpose army knives first introduced 100 years ago this September, presented attendees with their first look at its two new shoe designs, named, as always, after Swiss landmarks or products — Alps and Chocolate.

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