Hey everybody and welcome back to Gear 30 on the Blister Podcast Network.

I'm Jonathan Ellsworth and you can check out everything we're doing and reviewing over at

blisterreview.com.

Okay, today we've got another shop talk episode for you where we talk with folks from one of our

Blister recommended shops to get their perspective on a mix of topics ranging from broadly

applicable to all of us to topics that help us better understand what's going on in the

local community that each shop

serves. And today, we are talking with Mark and Jeff from Gear West in Long Lake, Minnesota.

Now, as you are about to see, Gear West is a remarkable shop in a number of different ways,

and I had a great time talking with mark and jeff

about the minnesota ski scene the gear west campus yes campus uh we even ended up talking

about dropping cliffs in the iowa backcountry which is now high on my list of places to ski, which is simply

never something I ever thought I would say.

But it's true.

I also talk to Mark and Jeff about the fantastic and growing bike culture surrounding

Minnesota and more.

And so let's go ahead and get to my conversation with Mark and

Jeff. Okay, well, I am here with Jeff and Mark. Jeff, why don't you go ahead and kind of get us

started? Tell us a little bit about who you are. I am from Midwest, true, but I lived out west for a while. I lived out in Utah

for almost 20 years and worked in shops was kind of am pro snowboarder and rode the bird,

rode Brighton all the time, hiked a lot of backcountry, that kind of stuff. And then moved back to the Midwest to raise my daughter.

Just trying to get back to roots, get closer to family, that kind of thing.

...