ExOfficio Quick-dry Neptune Long-sleeve Tee
As this dreadful winter comes to a close, I can finally turn my attention to the pile of spring clothing I’ve been itching to get to for weeks now, starting with this great long-sleeve Neptune Crew t-shirt from ExOfficio. I’ve been wearing this biking, hiking, and walking around town and have found a new clothing item to put at the top of my packing list.
For me, a long-sleeve t-shirt is ideal to pack for a variety of trips in any season. Unless it’s blazing hot in the tropics, you can use one on a regular basis—even then if you’re trying to cut down on the amount of sunscreen you’re using. Apart from a whole host of other attributes, this lightweight shirt also manages a 30 SPF in sun protection. You can wear it under another shirt for days thanks to its Nanoplex od0r-fighting properties. And of course it’s a great shirt for active adventures since it wicks sweat easily, is lightweight, and dries quickly after a hand washing.
This Neptune tee has been performing really well in my tests and I can’t wait to take in on a long multi-day biking trip I’m taking next week. It’s going to be one of the wondergear items that allows me to ride for days with all my clothing in a small backpack. I like the way it feels on my body and it’s flattering—as in accenting the form, but not so snug it shows every bulge. There’s no tag behind the neck and flatlock stitching keeps it all smooth. It breathes well and the people can still breathe around me after a workout: as with the Spyder baselayer I reviewed earlier, I put this Neptune to the test by wearing for days on end before throwing it in the hamper for a wash. 
When I took it out of the washing machine, I put it in the sun and it was dry in less than an hour. A few hours should do it in a hotel room, so you can wash it before going to bed and have it ready to go in the morning.
My version is the darkest color available, yet it doesn’t turn many shades darker when it gets sweaty—my only beef with the short-sleeve ExO Dri Tee I reviewed last year. This shirt is wispy, but based on all the other ExOfficio warm-weather gear I’ve tried out it should be pretty indestructible: you can machine wash and dry it with no harm.
The Neptune Crew comes in three colors in addition to the two pictured here and lists for $54. (Sometimes you can find certain colors or sizes that aren’t selling well marked down on the ExOfficio site or at REI.com.)
Browse more items from ExOfficio or see more of our ExOfficio travel clothing reviews.
Posted by Tim in Adventure Gear, Travel Light on March 10th, 2010
Brunton Restore Portable Solar Power Supply
If we’re not all charging up our music players and cell phones with solar power, it’s not for lack of trying on the part of device manufacturers. Some of these solar devices actually work quite well too, like this portable power supply from Brunton.
The first idea here is you can charge it up at home or in a car ahead of time, like the iGo Power Extender and CallPod Fueltank Charger we reviewed before. Then you take it with you on a trip, using it to charge up your devices when you can’t get near an outlet, like on a plane or bus.
This goes a big step further though. The second idea is to use it as a solar charger when you are on a long camping or mountaineering trip off the grid. With the Brunton Restore and ample sunlight, you can restore your devices to full power. If it’s fully charged, it’ll reload your iPod or regular cell phone two or three times. It’ll fully charge a smart phone or gaming device one or two times. It has enough juice to recharge four AA batteries and can recharge your Bluetooth headset seven to eight times. For an iPod, one hour of sun equals six or seven hours of music—that is far superior to what most other competitors promise.
I left the unit in the sun for seven hours and it was all charged up—I could tell from the handy 4-light LED system. I was then able to fully charge my iPod twice and a half-empty phone and still have juice left in it.
This Brunton version is a bit heavier than some others I’ve tried, at 7.2 ounces, but it’s rubberized and really solid. It feels like it could be dropped off a roof and survive. It’s water resistant too. It flips open too and exposes two rather large panels, making it easier to operate (especially with one hand) than the three-panel Solio charger I’ve tried before.
There’s a handy design to this whereby you can plug in a USB cord to charge up anything attached to that, or you can pull out the male USB plug and insert it into the device. Or pull out the other end of the cable instead and it goes into a mini-USB slot like you see on Google phones and the SlotPlayer for example. There’s an adapter for micro USB as well, which other devices use. So basically you’re okay charging up any music player, communication device or camera, provided it uses some version of USB.
“But Tim, my damned Nokia phone and my damned Samsung phone need different adapters than these!” Well, there’s the biggest drawback with this. Eventually we’ll get to a happy place where every device shares the same standard charger setup, but until that time you have to keep fooling with tips and adapters. Brunton doesn’t offer any help in that department, so if your device doesn’t come with some kind of USB charger, you’re SOL unless you can find some adapter on eBay that will do the trick. For Apple devices, you’ll have to bring along the USB cord to connect the device to a USB port on the charger.
The Restore retails for around $90, but the packaging says it’ll give you the output equivalent of 1,372 AA batteries. You can use this charger 500 times before the internal battery will wear out, which is probably plenty for a lifetime unless you’re a hermit moving to Death Valley. If you’ll be in the wilderness or you’re just a backpacker who will be in a place where sunshine is far more prevalent than reliable electricity, this is a solid solar charger that really works.
Get the Brunton Restore Portable Power Device at REI.com
Posted by Tim in Adventure Gear, General Gear on March 4th, 2010
GoLite Lime Lite Shoes Put Paws on Your Feet
I try out a lot of travel shoes (and wear out a lot of travel shoes) in my search for what will work when the rubber hits the road. Or the cobblestones. Or the trail rocks. The best shoes can perform well in all these circumstances, and still look good at happy hour. Like these new Lime Lite shoes from GoLite Footwear.
“Now those are cool,” was the comment from my jaded other half when I came back from the Outdoor Retailers show and pulled these out. Like many women, she’d rather tool around in uncomfortable shoes that look fab than to wear performance shoes that are too clunky. These GoLite shoes manage to turn heads, putting them in a different league than most boring brown cross trainers, but they’ve also got some impressive innovations going on under the hood.
The first one is how the sole is set up, with pyramid-style rubber lugs on the bottom on top of a soft sole that gives easily. This is supposedly modeled after how an animal’s paws work, a trait we lost long ago in our evolutionary development. I don’t know what this softness means in the long term after months or years of solid use, but for now anyway I’m loving it. To test these out in real world conditions I took them on a three-mile hike through the woods, over rocks, over roots, and through the mud. I also wore them around the mean city streets and even spent a day on a convention hall floor with them.
The flatter the surface, the less difference I could feel between these and any other shoes. In hiking trail conditions though, they excelled. I’m sure they’d be great on cobblestones as well, but I haven’t been to the right spot yet to try that theory out in person. The lugs move around independently, providing great traction but also great comfort in varied trail conditions. In the middle layer of the shoe though is a stable chassis. The idea is that the sole absorbs the shock, without these being all flexible and unsupportive.
The other welcome feature differentiating GoLite is that they seem to be one of the few companies understanding that we don’t all have the same foot shape. I must have toured 20 shoe booths at the Outdoor Retailers show and only found two companies marketing shoes in different widths. To me that’s as crazy as selling bras in only one cup size. Yeah I know, shoes take up more room than bras, so it’s not as practical to sell them in different widths, but “D for everyone” is not a good situation for either product.
GoLite has come up with a serviceable solution though. They make their shoes a bit wider than the norm, but then provide a customizable insert for the footbed. Plus on this model anyway, they feature tongue-to-toe lacing so you can then make them narrower if needed at different parts of the foot. If your feet swell up, adjust the insole and loosen the laces. Brilliant!
These Lime Light shoes are like the drop-dead gorgeous date who is also smart and has a great personality. The whole package, no compromises.
GoLite footwear generally runs for $60 to $120 and this model is at the higher end. The shoes are available at specialty retail stores or online at PlanetShoes.com and Amazon.
Get the women’s Lime Lite at Amazon.
Get the men’s version pictured at the top at PlanetShoes.
Posted by Tim in Adventure Gear, Travel Light on March 3rd, 2010
These Chums Will Help You Keep Your Glasses
The main excuse people give for not buying quality sunglasses is usually this: “I always lose them, so I’m afraid to spend a lot.”
Hey, I’ve said the same thing myself in the past. (Ditto for expensive leather gloves and fancy umbrellas.) There’s nothing worse than losing something nice, as opposed to something cheap and crappy you don’t care about.
There’s one way to better the odds of holding onto good sunglasses though, or your real glasses if that’s the case. You can use an eyewear retainer from Chums. You hook something onto the stems that allows the glasses to hang around your neck. So on or off your face, they’re still on your person.
“But those things are so dorky” or “Do I look like a surfer?” I can hear you saying. Well, there are probably a lot more of these eyewear retainer styles than you thought. The past few weeks I’ve been using a new $10 model from Chums, the ultra light Orbiter. You can barely see them in that photo at the top. That’s because they’re made of very thin coiled wire. They weigh in at less than a gram. A gram! Little rubber nubs on the end stretch to go over the tips of any glasses stems. You forget they’re there until you need them and they’re inconspicuous.
There’s what they call a “halo effect” too, which means they extend a bit to the back and stay off your head. That’s good I guess, but maybe not if you’re trying to lean your head back on a beach chair or someone walks up behind you and gets a wire in the face. Being made of metal, the Orbiter can also get a bit chilly in the cold: better for summer than on the slopes.
If you want something more traditional, you can get other eyeglass retainers in cotton, rope, or neoprene. If you’re a surfer or kayaker, you can even get a floating version.
I also hooked up a kids’ version to the first pair of sunglasses my daughter has ever worn that are worth more than $10. So far she’s gone a month without losing them, which is close to a new record. A highly recommended $6 investment for your junior traveler(s). You gotta like their promise on the package too. It says “Proven to withstand 1) white water rafting, 2) 200 mph freefalls, 3) 10-year-old on sugar.
And here’s something you don’t see often on products retailing for a few bucks: “Home grown in the USA.”
See the whole line at Chums.com
Posted by Tim in Adventure Gear, General Gear, Kids and Family on February 24th, 2010
Lensbaby Turns Photos into Works of Art
One of the most-carried pieces of travel gear is a digital camera. And if you’ve moved up from a point-and-shoot to a DSLR—or are thinking about it—Lensbaby can help take your photography to the next level of creativity.
Lensbaby makes a series of lenses, and optic inserts for those lenses, that can turn ordinary photos into extraordinary works of art. I’ve been spending some time with the Composer lens and the Soft Focus Optic on my Nikon D90 and enjoying the results.
First stop was an old-fashioned carnival where I got so busy with the Lensbaby, I forgot about the cotton candy.
The Composer is a selective-focus lens. One of the best ways to call attention to a subject is to have it in sharp focus, with the background or even the foreground blurred. This is a great-looking effect. And it’s where the Composer shines.
Lensbaby Composer's view of the Fun Slide
The focus area can be in the center of the picture. Or, with the Composer’s ball-and-socket design, the sweet spot can be moved to the right or left and up or down.
Then, just focus and shoot. A built-in locking ring, if needed, will hold the spot.
It’s possible to get a similar type of selective focus with a regular lens by using a wide aperture, giving the picture a shallow depth of field. But the Composer makes it easy and can create a more dramatic effect with a movable sweet spot in only a portion of the frame.
The Composer also includes changeable aperture discs ranging from f2 to f22. I used manual exposure settings for my D90. Some other cameras allow light metering in aperture-priority mode.
The Composer is available with mounts for most popular digital SLR cameras.
Lensbaby offers two other selective-focus lenses—the Muse, with an accordion-like design, and the Control Freak for tabletop and macro photography. The Composer, Muse and Control Freak can each be used with interchangeable optics for different looks.
Carnival ride with Soft Focus Optic
One of these interchangeable optics is the Soft Focus, which I’ve also been testing. It gives pictures a softer, velvety look. This effect is seen evenly throughout the image, without the sweet spot of the standard optic in the Composer.
It’s great for portraits and landscape shots and can do some really interesting things with lights as you can see from the photo of the Wipeout ride.
Lensbaby has an online gallery of photos. There’s also a Flickr group for enthusiasts to share their favorite pics and tips.
The Composer sells for $270 at Lensbaby’s online store. Street prices are very close to that. It’s available from Amazon and other retailers nationwide. (The Amazon link is for the Nikon model—be sure and choose the correct mount for your camera.)
Carnival ride with Composer
The Soft Focus Optic sells for $89.95 from Lensbaby direct and is also available from Amazon. Note that a Composer, Muse or Control Freak lens is needed to use one of the changeable optics such as Soft Focus.
Of course, setting up a Lensbaby takes a bit longer than using an automatic lens. But the small amount of extra time invested pays off with stunning photos.
Point and shoot cameras are great when you want a small, easy-to-use camera to carry around during your travels. But for serious photography—minus the shutter lag, fixed lenses and other annoyances of the point-and-shoots—a DSLR is definitely the way to go.
Then, adding a Lensbaby can help you look at the world in a new way.
Posted by JohnG in Adventure Gear, Business Gear, General Gear on February 22nd, 2010
