EQUIPMENT TECH REP

• The Work: Willy Loman never imagined that a salesman's job could be so cool: Endless hours crisscrossing the country in a van full of newly minted mountain bikes, snowboards, and kayaks, and hosting demo events where consumers and retailers sample—and, hopefully, buy—your company's gear. The operative word is demo. You show how a squirt boat performs, and then let the customers try it themselves.
• Time Outside: 20-80 percent, depending on how much office time is required to set up these events.
• Payback: As a rookie working part-time and pulling in a scant $12,000 a year, your motto will be "keep it lean"—i.e., sleeping in your truck and staving off starvation. Eventually you'll max out at $45,000, unless you switch to the six-figure management track.
• Prerequisites: No suit and tie, no advanced degree.What you really need are polished demo-ready skills and a healthy inner show-off: If you're pushing titanium mountain bikes, you'll need to be able to wow the crowd with flawless log-hurdling.
• Networking: Outdoor Retailer magazine (800-255-2824; http://www.outdoorbiz.com) publishes monthly industry news and trends and cohosts the biannual Outdoor Retailer Expo.
• Peon to Pro: Five years to full-time, but true success means no longer having to eat mac and cheese three days a week and bologna the other four.
• Drudge Factor: "People beat the crap out of your equipment," says Chuck Joy, of kayak manufacturer Prijon, "then leave without saying thanks."
• Outlook: Choose your gear wisely: The more radical segments of the industry—rodeo kayaking and sport climbing—are growing in popularity.

PROFILE
Tentmaking It
What is the mantra of a full-time tent designer and tester? Repeat after us: "Seams leak. Real wind is better than wind tunnels. It's not a vacation, it's a field test."

For the past two decades, Martin Zemitis, master craftsman and engineer of outdoor equipment, has worked hard to rationalize and advance this crucial refrain and—to the great envy of his friends and colleagues—make a living sleeping under the stars. As a designer for The North Face, Sierra Designs, and now Mountain Hardwear, Zemitis, 41, has thought up, drawn, prototyped, and tried to destroy everything from fanny packs to extra bouncy bungee cords to intricately vented backcountry cook tents to massive, 15-person shelters. (Last May, Babu Chiri Sherpa spent 21 hours on the summit of Everest in an expedition tent Zemitis designed for the feat.) Perhaps most impressive, he's never spent more than three weeks at a time in his Berkeley, California, office.

Take last year, for example: To test his tents in every kind of extreme weather and terrain, Zemitis climbed the flanks of Mount Rainier, sea-kayaked the Everglades, and whooped over rapids on the Tuolomne and the Salmon. He filled notebooks with trenchant commentary about setup time, ice-encrusted stakes, and the deleterious effects of UV rays on titanium dioxide tent fabric. In short, he's a truant on a salary. "Being outside is my job," he says. "And, no, you can't have it."

Not that Zemitis's work is an endless backcountry idyll. Once while rafting the Colorado, torrential rain infiltrated a theoretically bombproof prototype tent; and during an ascent of Mount Washington, he was lashed by 115-mph gales. Lesser visionaries might retreat to the safety of a watertight, climate-controlled design studio—but not Zemitis. "This is the only life I can imagine," he says. "I get to think about tents. I get to live in tents. And because I make the tents, I can assume they won't leak. Most of the time." —G.R.

BIKE SHOP ASSOCIATE

• The Work: Go the retail route or join the wrench force. Sales associates perfect the three S's: straightening, stocking, and selling. Mechanics get greasy hands. Or be a bigger wheel: Buy your own shop, and do both.
• Time Outside: 5 percent. The good news, though, is that you don't risk your job when you go for midday rides (employees of Mountain Bike Specialists in Durango, Colorado, spend their lunch hours pedaling some of the country's finest singletrack).
• Payback: $6-$14 an hour. Berkeley's Missing Link, an employee-owned co-op, pays an across-the-board $12 an hour, plus full benefits.
• Prerequisites: Retail sales experience is good; mechanical know-how is better. The Barnett Bicycle Institute in Colorado Springs (719-632-5173; http://www.bbinstitute.com) can take you from ignoramus to sage in about 100 hours.
• Networking: The National Bicycle Dealers Association (949-722-6909; http://www.nbda.com) conducts an annual conference and tracks sales stats. Keep abreast of trade buzz with Bicycle Retailer and Industry News (505-995-4360; http://www.bicycleretailer.com) and hobnob with the cog-noscenti at Interbike Expo (949-376-6216; http://www.interbike.com), held every September in Las Vegas.
• Peon to Pro: Five years to store manager. "When you know how to make good on a warranty claim or custom-build bike parts with a Dremel," says Shane Baird, 24, of Mountain Bike Specialists, "you've got it made."
• Drudge Factor: Someone has to wash the grimy rags. And then there are those 70-degree days when you're stuck inside fixing a bike so someone else can ride it.
• Outlook: Fair. Annual bike sales are stagnant at about 11 million, and 70 percent of shops go broke within a few years of opening.

Photo: Ellie Pryor