8 Spring Gear Essentials

Spring is a time of renewal, regeneration, and rebuilding. And while that traditionally means getting to work on shedding the layers of fat you might have acquired for your long winter of hibernation, it also extends to the spirit, too: Sometimes a new daypack or pair of sunnies is just what it takes to germinate the new you.

Daypack
Topo Designs X Woolrich Rover

Topo Designs collaborated with Woolrich to build its Rover knapsack out of an amazing, sustainable fabric—wool. Read the full review.
Read the full review.

Get It: $189; topodesigns.com

GPS Watch

Suunto Ambit3 Peak HR

Fitness trackers might be motivating to some people, but stacked up next to fully featured devices like Suunto’s Ambit3 Peak HR, they’re more like pencils in comparison to computers. Read the full review.

Get It: $550; suunto.com

Shell Jacket
The North Face FuseForm Dot Matrix

The North Face’s new FuseForm technology has set the hearts of fabric engineers racing because it enables the body of a jacket to be made from just one piece of fabric, which reduces seams, lowers weight, and increases durability. But what about the hearts of users like you and me? Can we tell the differences? They’re subtle, but yes, we can. Read the full review.

Get It: $199; thenorthface.com

Road Running Shoe

Adidas Ultra Boost

The Adidas Ultra Boost road running shoe is among the best of spring’s new models—an extremely comfortable, extremely nuanced runner so perfectly engineered and built that you can pull it out of the box, slip it on, and bang off ten miles of training without an afterthought. Read the full review.

Get It: $180; adidas.com

Shorts
Tracksmith Longfellow

Self-conscious bicyclists have what’s known as the ten-foot rule: If you get more than ten feet from your bike, is what you’re wearing going to make you look like a dork? Running clothes aren’t quite as revealing as sausage-casing Lycra, but if you’ve ever lamented the gossamer wispiness of race shorts or the breezy billowing of training garb, Tracksmith could be your new best friend. Read the full review.

Get It: $90; tracksmith.com.

Sunglasses
Smith Lowdown XL

Smith’s Lowdown XL frames are one of several classic styles that the optical company supersized in this, their 50th anniversary year. Smith didn’t just make everything bigger, though; it adjusted the frames’ geometry and lens to ensure that sight lines were still open and the optics in the carbonic lenses were still excellent (they use a 6-base lens curve, for you optical nerds following along at home). Read the full review.

Get It: $100; smithoptics.com

Running Tights
Teeki Cloud Hot Pants

Tights aren’t going to do your running for you, but maybe they can lighten the burden a bit by buoying you with dreams of fitness to come. The psychedelic Teeki Cloud Hot Pants are a dazzling Impressionistic melange of the sky at its most fantastical. But for all their ethereal uplight, the Teeki tights are grounded in common sense—they’re made of 79 percent recycled materials and built right here in the United States. Read the full review.

Get It: $78; withoutwalls.com

Wet Suit
Roxy Syncro 3/2

Roxy’s jewel-toned, high fashion wet suits get all the Pinterest and Instagram attention, but it’s traditional black neoprene models like the Syncro 3/2 that get the job done in spring’s chilly swells. Read the full review.

Get It: $145; roxy.com