At the end of June, I was lucky enough to travel to Chamonix to watch my wife run the Marathon Du Mont-Blanc trail race. The lead up to the race involved a taper-killing (or boosting) mix of mountain biking, paragliding, hiking, eating, and running that were all beyond what I expected. Chamonix and the surrounding Alps had been very hyped up, and it somehow exceeded our expectations, so much so that basic internet research was conducted on foreign property ownership in France. And apart from the awe at the natural beauty, the thrill of jumping off the top of a mountain, and the overwhelming excitement of watching your partner crush their first international trail race, a few minor product design and sports science insights stuck with me from the trip.
First and foremost, it blew my mind how many outdoor gear companies exist today, and how many of them produce the exact same style of hydration backpack/vest featuring two flexible water bottle pockets on the chest straps and a zippered pouch on the back. I counted no fewer than 20(!!) different brands producing a nearly identical hydration running vest at the event, and I know for a fact that this list (which I’ve included at the end of this article for those interested) does not include other brands that produce the same type of product (e.g. REI). It is shocking to me that so many relatively niche products can survive and be competitive with one another despite such little differentiation, and it raises questions about how such a phenomenon occurred.
In general, I tend to assume that when multiple companies end up creating very similar products, it’s usually a combination of basic copy-catting and what I’d dub “convergent design,” a la convergent evolution. It is very possible that multiple companies all internalized the same sets of problems and requirements and all independently arrived at a design solution that just happens to look and function similarly (like bats and bird developing wings completely independently). This type of unified design can be more visually striking in products with dominant aesthetic or functional features like smart phones, zippers, and planes— a uniformity I talk about more in another article. For these backpacks, I do genuinely think a similar force is at play, but it makes me think about other forcing functions for an optimal trail running hydration product beyond those that lead to the small nuances between the hydration vests/backpacks most popular today.
One such forcing function may be thermal management throughout a race, which was my second major observation from the trip, and an area I think will be one of the next impactful frontiers for performance optimization across a huge variety of sports. Running vests like the ones seen throughout the photos in this article trap heat to the body by limiting air flow past the chest, upper arms, and back. Especially in hot conditions, heat expulsion from the body can require multiple times more power output than mechanical locomotion power, so increasing convective cooling effects by even just 10% could pay huge dividends for ultra marathoners who need to closely control their overall power output and energy consumption over 10+ hours.
We’ve already started to see thermal management move more into the spotlight at events like the Tour de France and ultramarathons, but I think its emphasis will only grow more in endurance sports, and expand to others like soccer, football, hockey, etc. It will be incredible to watch this evolution in real-time over the coming years!
How many different vest brands can you spot in my photos (of varying quality) from the marathon below?
It’s also worth noting that in addition to seeing a huge variety of hydration backpack brands, we saw the same for performance sunglass brands. There were over a dozen sunglass brands that all had nearly identical products, with similar features and designs even more closely linked than the hydration vests. Of course being unique is more difficult for a product meant to protect your eyes from light than for a a product seeking to solve a problem as open-ended as “I need to be hydrated throughout an ultramarathon.” But for me it sparked questions about how important marketing is in the modern consumer product market in relation to actual product differentiation, and how much this varies across the different levels of product complexity. I don’t think I could quickly kick start a new microchip company, but it might be possible to start a successful sunglass or backpack brand on the basis of stronger marketing given how much broad manufacturing knowledge there is for these products and the relative simplicity of the products.
My third and final takeaway is that Chamonix is a must-visit destination. I cannot recommend visiting Chamonix in the summer enough for anyone who is interested in relaxing or adventuring— it’s a great “product” for either activity. It really was an incredible experience to visit such a beautiful place, and if you get the chance to visit, take it. As a teaser, below are a few of the many, many photos I took on the trip— notice how the one photo has the railing in it, which is because I couldn’t overcome my fear of heights to get close to the edge. That could be you!
List of companies making variations of the same hydration backpack/vest product, in the order in which they were recorded in my Notes app:
- Millet
- Mammut
- Scott
- Rab
- Salomon
- Terrex
- Black diamond
- North Face
- Nathan
- Dynafit
- Raidlight
- Compressport
- Wise (Trail Running)
- Rossignol
- Oxstis
- NNormal
- Hoka
- Decathlon (Evadict)
- Osprey
- CamelBak
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