An Exclusive Look at the New Outside Gear Lab at CU Denver

Last fall, Outside partnered with University of Colorado Denver to open a state-of-the-art gear-testing lab. Now, it’s finally open for business—and poised to upend the gear-testing world.

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The room has a heartbeat. It’s the first thing I notice when I walk into the lab: the gentle thrum of machinery, the metallic click and stretch of springs, and the rhythmic thud of two boots strapped to a gadget called the Time Machine that cycles above a treadmill.

At least, that’s what Adam Trenkamp tells me it’s called. Trenkamp is the Outside engineer who runs editorial testing at this new gear facility on the University of Colorado (CU) Denver campus. The Outside Gear Lab is the first of its kind in Colorado and one of just a few in the country. Last spring, Outside Inc., CU Denver researchers, and Colorado-based outdoor startups began using it to test, study—and break—outdoor gear of all kinds.

I step further into the room, a stark white affair that’s half-classroom, half-science lab, nearly 1900 square feet in size, tucked deep in the campus’s engineering wing. Trenkamp follows me over to the Time Machine, which I later learn is a gold-standard piece of equipment designed and built by footwear test company Heeluxe. There, he pauses, then deftly catches one of the steel arms mid-swing. He holds a boot in his palm, and I peer to take a closer look at the sole.

The machine, which uses a system of weighted plates, shocks, and springs to simulate the impact forces of human legs, has been running on the treadmill for nearly 48 hours straight. That’s the equivalent of 70 miles on each shoe. I finger the tread. You can already see bits of the rubber wearing away. Corners of the sole are in shreds.

“Woah,” I say. I’ve been reviewing gear for ten years, and it usually takes me at least a month to get this kind of durability testing in the field. Trenkamp’s machine has cut that process down to a tiny fraction of the time—and in a way that’s scientific enough to accurately compare the performance of one product against another.

“This could totally change the way we test gear,” I say. Trenkamp smiles, just a little bit.

“Exactly.”