Posts Tagged double-duty gear
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
OSPOP Shoes: Rugged, Practical, and Cool
“Made in China” is not a phrase that inspires warm fuzzy feelings in consumers. With 40% of the product recalls in the U.S. being Chinese-made products in a typical year, from lead paint toys to poisonous drywall to tainted milk, it takes a ballsy company to embrace its Chinese manufacturing origins. OSPOP has the goods to back it up, however, so they’ve managed to build a whole mystique around a revamped Chinese work boot.
OSPOP stands for One Small Point of Pride and the company’s products celebrate the worker. Call it Maoist or call it Dirty Jobs-ist, but we could probably all use a little more celebration of the people making all the stuff we use on a regular basis. The splash page of the OSPOP website shows a bunch of Chinese construction workers heading to work in the snow. The shoes on offer are modified (and more comfortable) versions of the “liberation shoe” that workers there have been using for 60+ years. (Here’s a video on how they are made.)
But enough on the back story, how well do these cool shoes actually work in practice? I’m pleased to report that the clever marketing does not overshadow the product. As I’ve worn a pair of the OSPOP Steppe Series versions (pictured at the top) around town, I’ve gotten compliments from both guys and gals. They’re amazingly comfortable too—some of the nicest-feeling shoes I’ve worn ever.
Often that’s a bad sign, the old problem of feeling great in the store and then the pillowy cushion wearing down a few weeks later. These seem to be holding up very well though, even after I’ve walked for miles at a time in them. The company obviously didn’t make the footbed part an afterthought, as so many others seem to do. It’s ergonomic too, not flat like a pair of Chuck Taylors. These shoes are rugged enough to work for long-term travel, with wool-lined water-resistant canvas uppers and serious (workboot serious) rubber outsoles. These are perfect-built to be the kind of double-duty shoes travelers need, without screaming, “I’m a traveler!” in the process. These can easily make the transition from city streets to light hiking. They’re better for cooler climates though with the lining, so you might not want to pack these for a trip to Thailand.
The Steppe Series comes in six different colors, from the basic black pictured at the top to a bright orange color called “caution.” There are two other styles as well, Skywolf and Departure, that are different variations on the theme, with other color choices and thinner lining. The photo to the right shows the most basic option.
There are a lot of nice touches when you order OSPOP footwear, from the two sets of laces in different colors to the authentic Chinese packaging on the outside and inside: the box these shoes came in is pictured at the bottom. As for that little logo over the ankle, it’s the Chinese symbol for labor. Feel free to wear these when you’re laboring, but at $76 to $93 a pair, you may want to save them for those times when you’re enjoying the fruit of your labor instead.
Get more info and order the shoes at OSPOP.com
Posted by Tim in General Gear, Travel Light on February 25th, 2010
idox Accessories for iPod nano, iPod touch & iPhone
Here’s a product that pulls double duty for Apple products: it’s a hard case that fully encloses your valuable electronic device that also flips open to serve as a stand so you can watch movies on your iPod nano, iPhone or iPod touch. I sampled the idox for the 4G nano and found that my iPod slides securely into the case. I like that the case snaps closed to keep it safe when I toss the iPod in my carry-on bag. (You do need to store earphones separately, otherwise they just hang loose if they’re plugged in while it’s in the case.)
As a stand, the angle is great for watching movies, say, when it’s perched on the tray table on an airplane; a rubber bottom helps it stay in place — even during mild turbulence. Not that I used the idox on my recent plane flight to Nevada: I don’t have any movies stored on mine. But my 7-year-old (who has now decided the idox belongs to him) has used the stand to watch the lone video on his playlist — Michael Jackson’s Thriller – over and over and over again. (Usually at the kitchen table before he needs to do his daily after-school math worksheets.)
At $24.95, the idox case for the iPod nano definitely isn’t the cheapest on the market. But it is sturdy and functional. And if you typically download new movies to watch while you travel, whether it’s on an iPod nano, iPod touch ($34.95) or iPhone ($34.95), you might get more use out of it than I have.
Related gear reviews:
Otterbox cases
iHome mini travel speakers
X-mini portable speakers
Posted by Kara in Kids and Family, Travel Light on January 29th, 2010
Multifunctional Screwpop Can Fly With You
I started Practical Travel Gear at the end of 2005 (see the archives here) to be an antidote to the splashy reviews I was seeing in magazines. I thought there needed to be a place where $5 items got more play than ones that were $5,000.
That hasn’t changed, so I present to you the $4.95 Screwpop. It’s simple, effective, multi-functional, and cheap. That may not get the folks at Outside magazine excited, but I think this is a great item for people who are average travelers and not cliff-scaling superheroes.
This ingenious little gadget gives you four things: a Phillips screwdriver, a regular screwdriver, a lug nut wrench, and then one thing for when you’re done using the others—a bottle opener. I haven’t had a need for the 1/4-inch hex nut part since the Screwpop people sent me this thingy a few weeks ago, but I have successfully used the other three items. I tightened a loose door handle with the Phillips #2 tip, put something together with the #2 screwdriver tip, and successfully opened six beers along the way.
The two screwdriver tips are on the same insert: you pull it out and flip it around to use the other. The part that surrounds it is the wrench. The bottle opener can also double as a keychain, though obviously you need a little more dexterity to open the bottles with a whole ring of keys on there. (If you can no longer get it to open a bottle, that may be a sign you’ve had too many, so think of it as a built-in tester too.)
Since there is no knife on here, even the most dim-witted TSA agent should let it through in your carry-on bag. It’s made of a chrome-plated zinc alloy, but is relatively light at less than an ounce and a half.
You can order these direct at Screwpop.com and they’ll ship five for the same shipping price as one. Or look for them at hardware and camping stores as the company ramps up their distribution.
Posted by Tim in General Gear, Travel Light on January 27th, 2010
Columbia Sportswear’s Fashion and Function for the “It Girl”
Columbia Sportswear didn’t get so popular without some clever marketing and equally clever design to back it up. After spending 16 hours surfing the manufacturer’s booths at the winter Outdoor Retailers show, it was easy for me to get a little cynical. Are there really major noticeable differences between 500 fleece jackets or 200 different pairs of hiking socks?
I capped the show off though with something that reminded me why there’s a lot to celebrate about the current crop of wonder apparel: a fashion show from Columbia. The company slid me into a VIP seat next to the runway where I could be dazzled by their form-meets-function collection for women that will be hitting the stores this coming fall.
I gotta say I like their attitude. They say this collection is for the “it girl” out there, who may be in her 20s but may be a 40-something mother. She bikes, she snowboards, she hikes, but she works, she pounds the city pavement, and she runs errands. What she wears needs to be comfortable and warm but look good. Her clothes need to do more than one thing. They need to do what they promise without a lot of fuss.
That’s my paraphrasing of a more finely-tuned marketing message, one you’ll surely have seen a lot of by this time next year. Based on what I saw, touched, and tried on, however, they back up the hype with great technology and design.
Enjoy the fashion show video above, especially if you thought that being warm in the outdoors and looking great had to be mutually exclusive.
For more on what’s out there now, visit Columbia.com or search for Columbia at your local retailer, REI.com or Backcountry.com.
Posted by Tim in Adventure Gear, General Gear, Travel Light on January 24th, 2010
