Will Porter

After spending thousands of hours on the soccer field, baseball diamond, and various municipal golf courses throughout his childhood, Will had a thing for gear from an early age. In fact, his first-ever buyer’s guide can be traced back to a PowerPoint he and his friends put together in fourth grade, nabbing pics and specs of various basketball shoes from Eastbay.com (rip). While this was probably an effort to get his parents to buy him the latest Jordans for rec hoops, an obsession with sports gear, and shoes in particular, was born.

Will’s cycling career started on a borrowed Felt road bike, riding Chico, California’s Wildflower Century. His first half marathon, the Austin Half, came off the back of his final club soccer season at Texas A&M and, among other things, introduced him to the importance of anti-chafe cream. Soccer is still a regular part of his life, but those cycling and running events were the catalysts for a lifelong obsession with cycling, running and everything that comes with it.

As an English Lit major who actually liked writing his big senior paper, it’s no surprise Will found his way into journalism. Add a borderline unhealthy infatuation with all kinds of gear and it was only a matter of time before it became the focus of his career. He’s been covering gear exclusively for the past four years, writing about everything from on the latest cycling tech to the intersection of fashion and sport, plus a healthy amount of deep dives into golf gear.

After three years in Brooklyn, he’s currently residing in Boise, Idaho, testing trail shoes in the foothills out his back door, restoring a 90s Specialized mountain bike, and frequenting the area’s numerous craft breweries. He’s working on putting together his own 50k training plan, though it’s more likely he’ll just end up using whichever one the ultramarathoning subreddit says will get him fit by race day at the end of summer.