People love new features on their products. Each year manufacturers of every type and class make just enough changes on their products to make consumers think they HAVE to have it, Apple anyone? While I’d like to think our industry is exempt, it may be the biggest offender of all. Want a ten-room tent with cup holders in the walls, screened front porch, and skylights? They’ve got it. Need an oven or deep fryer at your camp? No problem. How about a motorized cooler? You betcha’. My biggest frustration though isn’t the tents, cooking utensils, or absolutely ridiculous accessories, but the camp chairs.
It astounds me how companies can take something so simple, so cheap, and so effective, and turn it into an overpriced complicated mess. Like your vehicle, the more complicated your gear is the more likely it is to fail. Does your chair really need two end tables and an integrated cooler? Does it need a multi-angle folding and disassembly process with finely stained wood and hand-stitched canvas? Or does it simply need to support your rump when you sit in it?
This trend of over accessorizing and retro styling is why Front Runner’s folding Expander chair is a breath of fresh air. $49.95 buys you a simplistic and effective chair that you’ll never have to worry about breaking or losing. You won’t find expensive woods, metals, or other forms of unobtanium here, simply a tube steel and polyester beauty.
The list of features is small, which is one of the things I love about it. Telescoping legs and a folding top allow the chair to compress into a 17.5×16.4 inch footprint, which easily stores in just about any vehicle. You’ll find a small storage pouch on the left side of the chair, while a cup holder and secondary pouch adorn the right. There’s also a Velcro strap to keep everything tucked together while in your truck or its storage bag. AND THAT’S IT!
To really give you a full understanding of this product, we’ve included the following ten instructional steps. Note: all of the following are based on actual camp experiences over the last two years.
- Pull into camp and open your truck
- Remove chair from vehicle
- Gently tug up on the chair and fold out
- Open beer and laugh at your friend’s failing attempts to construct their super combination ultimate camp chair/luxury condo
- Sip beer again while laughing at your other friend falling off of their ultra light micro chair.
- Enjoy evening sky and gaze at stars
- Try to ignore your third friend’s frustrations as their wooden chair breaks beneath them.
- Stretch out and soak up warmth of the fire
- Fold chair together and push in legs the next morning
- Load into car and pity your friends trying to now collapse their $200 camp “chairs”.
If you’re tired of pointless features, unnecessary complexity, and outrageous pricing, check out Front Runners Chairs here:
