The Gear Shak, LLC

04/01/2026

After years of requests by customers, and many missed sales, I have decided to become a dealer for Olight
Happy April Fool's. Not today and not tomorrow, but am still rocking out with Fenix, and have some new stuff getting added soon to the website and a few new product videos in the works!

02/23/2026

From hiking the backwoods to walking the Las Vegas strip during SHOT Show, the Hill People Gear Commuter has done a great job with whatever I have thrown at it.

My overview of the Hill People Gear Commuter after 50+ miles and 70 days of use. From the banks of our local backwoods river, to the Las Vegas strip for SHOT...

01/24/2026

was a great time and checked off a bucket list trip. Commuter was a fantastic pack for the week and I'll be working on getting my full review out on it soon. Now time to fly home into the middle of this blasted snow storm 😑

01/20/2026

Let's get this week started!

01/02/2026

Happy New Year's everyone! Commuter went out for another 5 miles today, really liking the functionality of it more and more. It is honestly making me re-evaluate my pack lineup as a whole and maybe switching some up, but that is for down the road. I'm going to SHOT Show in a few weeks and will be bringing this as my personal item and my Connor V2 as my carry-on. After a week of running around Vegas with this, I feel like I'll have enough time with it to share my thoughts in a full video so be looking for that later this month or early February.

2025 was another great year with lots of good memories with a lot of cool people and I see 2026 being the same! Thanks to all who continue to make this journey fun!

12/30/2025

90usd ⛴️ in the lower 48

Vanquest Tekko-4 that has pretty well just sat on my shelf for the last year since buying it. Nothing wrong with it at all, I just ended up never having a real use case for it like I originally thought.

12/25/2025

12/22/2025

And today we find the Commuter in the city landscape pulling dad bag duty while out with the kiddos. Swapped out the orange 10x12 for a ranger green 10x12 to keep their water bottles easily accessible in. Plenty of ways to stow their sweatshirts when it was time to play.

11/27/2025

Happy Thanksgiving ya'll! Took the kids out for a walk on the farm the other day and came across these mushrooms; they always remind me how cool the small things in life can be and to be as equally thankful for them as I am the big things.

11/11/2025

Happy Veterans Day to all those who have served!

10/31/2025

I set off this evening with the goal of actually getting some fall foliage pics at sunset from the overlook this year, but well, it didn't decide to clear off till I was halfway home, so foggy fall foliage it is.

Anyways, if you have some distance you need to illuminate, the handy Fenix HT18R is a great option. The 2800 lumens and 300,000 candela will give you a good useable beam to about 350 yards with the naked eye and 500 if using an optic of some sort. Powered by a 5,000mAh 21700 battery, it provides long runtimes and is easily rechargeable by the built-in USB-C port. The large head houses a reflector that creates a great hotspot with a useable spill and also sheds away heat pretty well.

10/22/2025

New day brings a new headlamp model! Meet the Fenix HM55R; a USB-C rechargeable, 18350 powered headlamp sporting the options to have white flood (5000k tint), white spot, or red output. With a max output of 1200 lumens / 7453 candela and an amazing runtime of 141 hours on the low 5 lumen mode, this compact light is ready to be your next go-to light source! Oh, and for all who might ask, yes, it is CR123A compatible (albeit with reduced outputs and runtimes) as well as 16340 compatible. The HM50R V2 has been my recommendation for several years to those looking for a basic headlamp, but this is likely to change that.