Hello. I'm Alex. I make shorts now.
I'm a mechanical engineer and product developer in Boulder, Colorado, and most of my life has gone into doing things outdoors that take longer than they should: running, mountaineering, biking, ice climbing before work.
I fell for sauna at University College Dublin, going every day after training. Now I go at a gym in Boulder. I wanted decent shorts for it, ones that had never seen a squat rack, with somewhere to keep a cold pack that didn't involve a towel and an explanation.
So: soft linen, a cotton liner, and a pocket with its insulation on the room side, so the cold goes to you and not to the sauna. That's The Heat Break.
Plenty of products in this category give you a number with no method, and a few try to frighten you first. I'd rather make something comfortable, tell you how it's made, and publish the numbers when they're in.
Alex
Things you may as well know.
- Former unofficial burpee mile world record holder. "Unofficial" is doing real work there. The attempt raised money for the Evans Scholarship.
- Goes burpee hiking. It's what it sounds like.
- Roasts coffee with data.
- Writes poems and loves a speech. You've been warned.
- Owns a hat that says "Law Zero: Proceed accordingly."
- Helped leave a scroll of 28 "laws of man" with younger scholars, "one foot in the absurd and one foot in the real." That's roughly the plan here too.
What we won't do.
- Quote how long it lasts without showing how we know.
- Try to frighten you into buying shorts.
- Say they do anything for your body. They're shorts.
- Run a countdown, a fake shortage, or a sale that was always going to end Sunday.
- Reward anyone for staying in the heat. Leave when you want to.
What's next.
Shorts first. Then maybe a Granq Works towel, and one day, if this goes well, Granq Works saunas. None of that is a promise. It's just where my head goes in a hot room.