Bolle Sunglasses and Goggles
“Jackie O!” was what my husband exclaimed when he first saw me sporting my new Bolle sunglasses. Indeed, these shades (style name: Queen) have bigger lenses than I typically wear — but not nearly as oversized as Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis did in the 1970’s. I absolutely love the style — I feel rather Hollywood movie star when I’m wearing them out and about. While the sunglasses may not take to the hiking trail or the river quite like my sporty and versatile Native Eyewear shades do, I’d happily wear these sunglasses to the pool and the beach, to shopping malls and city streets. They hug my face, don’t slip down my nose and successfully keep me from squinting in the sunlight.
Not only are the Queen glasses hip, but they protect my eyeballs, too. I appreciate the polarized lenses that reduce glare, as well as the extra anti-reflective coating on the backside of the lens that further reduces eye strain. The polyarbonate lenses are super lightweight and offer 100 percent UVA and UVB protection from the sun’s rays. Thermogrip® rubber temples and nose pads deliver a solid (but comfortable) grip.
Manufacturer’s suggested retail price for the Queen style in dark tortoise (pictured) is $139.99, but I found them on Amazon for $111.99.
I also tested some Bolle goggles on the slopes of Keystone, Colorado, a couple weeks ago. While the bright orange stripes of the Quasar Coral Snake frame with Fire Orange 50 lenses aren’t exactly my first choice of hues and style (should have asked the friendly Bolle marketing rep to please send a pair in solid black without the mirrored lenses), I very much appreciated all the fancy features of this technologically advanced goggle.
First, they cover a lot of my face — which is good when the wind is whipping at 11,000 feet in elevation. In comparison to my years-old Bolle goggles (which are narrower in solid black with rose-colored lenses) they just seem to offer more protection. Though I get the feeling I’m channeling Shaun White, or some other sort of rad teenage snowboarder when I’m wearing them, I do like how “solid” and protective they feel.
Second, in a side-by-side comparison with my older Bolle goggles, the orange Quasars blocked out a lot more of the sun; in my old pair I squinted when facing the setting sun, whereas with the Quasars I didn’t have to. The thick, triple-layer face foam is super comfy and cushy, and special coating on the lenses prevents fogging and most scratching (love that, since somehow we lost the nifty pouch that came with the goggles for storage — darn).
Overall, I appreciate the quality of these goggles, but the style is better suited to boys or men. See my husband sporting the goggles while tubing in this Keystone video — he can pull off the look so much better than this 40-year-old, non-flashy, mother of two.
These Quasar goggles (pictured above) retail for $119.99, but I’ve seen them as low as $79.99 on Amazon.com.
Browse a great selection of Bolle styles (and sale items) at Campmor.
Posted by Kara in General Gear on March 5th, 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
Trapster Warns of Speed Traps, Red Light Cameras
CB radios were once the fad for tipping other drivers about speed traps. But the CB is so ’70s.
Enter the modern-day replacement, Trapster—a free app for smartphones that can give drivers advance warnings of speed traps and red light and speed cameras.
Trapster’s database includes more than 1.5 million reported traps around the world. When your iPhone or other GPS-equipped smartphone gets within half a mile of one, you’ll hear a voice warning and the spot will be marked on a moving map. The warning distance can be set from one-fourth to one mile.
When you see a trap, you can add it to the Trapster database with the push of a button. Other users can confirm the location, which helps make the map more accurate. A data plan is required for your smartphone to send the information to the company’s server.
But not all the reports come from drivers who spot the traps. In Texas, the Travis County Sheriff’s Department (Austin area) is entering enforcement locations to encourage safe driving. According to Trapster, deputies also upload other information such as road closures, traffic jams, accidents and dangerous intersections.
I’m impressed by the broad range of phones and operating systems supported by Trapster. It runs on the iPhone as well as Android, Blackberry, Nokia, Windows Phone and Palm devices, plus some Garmin and Tom Tom GPS units. If you don’t have one of those, you can get text message alerts, or use Trapster’s website to print out directions that include the locations of speed traps and enforcement cameras.
Trapster isn’t perfect. Where I live, it shows a red light camera where there’s no light at all. The information will only be as good as the number of people who actively use it and keep the maps updated. The app has more than four million users.
Also, some law-enforcement officers have expressed concern that such apps can be distracting to drivers.
My other problem with Trapster is the company’s terms and conditions, which users must agree to when they register on the site. Now, I usually don’t even read these. But I’d heard there was something particularly onerous in Trapster’s agreement—and it’s this.
If you knowingly don’t provide correct, current and complete information while registering or using the site, you agree to pay Trapster $25,000.
I asked Trapster’s Stefanie Frederick why this was part of the agreement, and she replies, “As you know, most companies have privacy notices or terms of use pages… that being said, the policy is just saying that there are penalties if a user maliciously uses Trapster on purpose. But we hope that never happens.”
For some reason, that condition still bothers me. And while the company can “hope that never happens,” users have agreed to pay $25,000 if they report false information on the site. That could make a free app pretty expensive.
If you can live with the language in the terms and conditions, Trapster is a roadworthy app to take along on your travels.
Posted by JohnG in Business Gear, General Gear, Kids and Family on March 2nd, 2010
Cyber Clean: Good for Road Warriors?
It’s the kind of thing you’d expect to see on an infomercial while flipping through the TV channels late at night.
But does Cyber Clean, marketed as a “high tech cleaning compound” for keyboards and electronic devices, really work and should you make room for it in your suitcase?
The first time I came across Cyber Clean, it was being hawked on the floor of the 2010 International CES. It’s a gel that feels a lot like Silly Putty and works by stretching and pressing it down on the surface to be cleaned.
The dirt it picks up is folded over into the gel and encapsulated, so the goo can be stored and reused. A “strength meter” on the package shows when it gets too dirty and should be discarded. The folks at Cyber Clean say it’s ideal for keyboards since it will mold to the shape between the keys.
Cyberclean could also be used for cell phones, and telephones and TV remote controls in hotel rooms. At the hotels where I’ve stayed, it looks like remotes are seldom, if ever, cleaned by the housekeeping staff. If I’m eating in the room, I won’t change channels with the remote without washing my hands afterward.
Cyberclean does help reach into the nooks and crannies where dirt can hide in keyboards. And I could see using it for TV remotes. Research sponsored by the company found it does work against staph and other bacteria.
I gave a sample of Cyber Clean to a couple of friends and asked them to try it on their office keyboards. One thought it was “icky.” Another said while it worked, pressing it on the keyboard took some time and he thought a product like Clorox Wipes would be faster.
The 2.65 oz. version of Cyber Clean, in a zip pouch, sells at most stores between $5 and $9 for a single pack. It’s available from Amazon, electronic and office-supply stores and home-improvement retailers.
I’m no germaphobe, as you can see from my review here of a product that covers airplane seats. But computer keyboards and TV remotes are notorious for hiding gunk and grime.
For my travels, I’d put Cyber Clean in the optional category. If you’re concerned about germs on the road, it could be useful—or another product might work just as well.
Posted by JohnG in General Gear, Kids and Family, Travel Light on March 1st, 2010
