KTAF NEWS

A summertime trip to the beach includes a few necessary items, like a frisbee and some tea or a cold bottle of vino. If that beach is in Oregon or Washington, a rain jacket and wet suit may join the list. Mountain biking in the northwest works similarly, and the state government should hand out boot dryers along with voter registration pamphlets when folks move here. ,Anyone who plays outside in the rain knows about wet feet and likely has some clever remedies to deal with their soggy gear. This Advantage Heated Shoe and Boot Dryer from Peet Dryer seems a sensible machine to check out ahead of a long winter of “atmospheric rivers” currently plaguing the great PNW.

Peet Dryer makes a few versions of this little machine ranging from simple to more complex, and this one seems to make the most sense for avid mountain bikers. If you ride through puddles often enough it likely makes sense to own two pairs of trail shoes and to keep them rotated so the material can fully dry and the stank can dissipate. This double-sided dryer sports four billowy spouts to aerate both pairs of shoes, or one pair adjacent to some gloves. It will ultimately dry whatever you want to mount on the plastic tubes.

I ran the Peet Dryer for a few months this fall, following five to seven wet rides per week, and my electricity bill barely budged. That bill likely rose by a few dollars for the convenience, but that shift may have also come from my daughter cranking up the heat in her room after school. I didn’t see a meaningful difference in costs, and the benefit is massive. The company says that the dryer will have your saturated kicks parched in one to four hours, and I’ve found that three hours seems accurate for wet gravity shoes with loads of padding to work through. By “wet” I mean soaked through to the sock from plowing through puddles like a child.

There’s a digital display on the base that shows how many minutes you’ve selected for drying, and a second switch toggles between heated air or ambient temperature. During the sweaty months, you could use the dryer without heat to blow the sweat out of your shoes and keep them smelling better for longer. If you’re someone who regularly experiences smelly shoes or athlete’s foot this might be a good use case.

The hot air setting doesn’t get warm enough to damage shoe material, and the company says it’s safe for all footwear fabrics. Speaking of safe, if the dryer somehow gets bumped or tipped over it shuts off, further pleasing the fire department.

Keeping my shoes dry and mold-free is one of those “why didn’t I learn about this twenty years ago?” lessons, and I’m stoked to have this simple tool to do the job. The Advantage Heated Shoe and Boot Dryer from Peet Dryer retails for $99 (available at Amazon) with a five-year warranty, and it weighs about as much as a six-pack making it easy to pack along to the cabin.