Category: Equipment

No More Yelling “On Your Left” – Verbal Bike Bell Does It For You

If you ride on bike paths, in a large urban park or even on bike lanes, chances are you yell “On your left” at least once a ride. The alternative is a bell, but who wants to put a bell on their road bike or time trial bike? Shouting is good, but on a long ride can leave you more winded than the pedaling.

How about a Verbal Bicycle Bell? This can offer up to a 20-second recording, and features a 44mm speaker that plays messages at about 80 decibels – so it is audible over most ambient noise.

Of course this does need three LR44 batteries and is actually bigger than a bell, and will add about 2 1/3 ounces to your bike. Finally, this is the sort of thing that you’ll get at Hammacher Schlemmer rather than a bike shop, and at $24.95 you could probably use the money for something else – might we recommend the Bicycle Speakerphone that the shop also offers.

Seriously, it is a gimmicky device, but it is so silly that it might just be worth the $25 to impress your friends and seriously annoy all those you want to pass.

The Verbal Bicycle Bell at Hammacher Schlemmer
[Via Besportier: Verbal Bicycle Bell Very Effective Car Horn]

SensoGlove Partners With Golf Schools and PGA Instructors

A year ago we had just heard about SensoGlove, and this week Sensolutions, the maker of innovative IT systems for sports analysis, motion and performance measurement has announced that it has partnered with 20 golf schools and PGA professional instructors across the world to glove up.

The SensoGlove, the world’s first digital golf glove, will be used as a training tool to help correct the dreaded golf club “death grip” and help get golfers attuned to making more accurate and powerful golf swings.

“Many of the students we teach at our golf school struggle with grip pressure. More than 90 percent of our students grip the club too tight,” said Mark Durland, Director of Instructions at Naples Grande Golf Club, Naples, FL. “Until now, it has been a challenge to communicate proper grip pressure to a student. SensoGlove gives the student immediate feedback and creates a feeling of the proper grip pressure. I recommend SensoGlove to any student.” Continue reading SensoGlove Partners With Golf Schools and PGA Instructors

Tri(ing) to Reduce the Hassle of Racing

Traveling or shipping a bicycle to an event can be a major hassle and expense. There is the time that it takes to find a box; disassembly/reassembly (twice); shipping through a carrier like FedEx or bringing it on the plane; insuring your bike; and praying that will see your bike in one piece or for that matter…ever again! Triathletes rejoice – now there is another option. Three seasoned triathletes, Erol Sarikaya, Jeffrey Goldberger and Jeff Mark, have launched a new company to rent high-end triathlon bikes that are race-day ready and onsite at certain events.

Their company, Tri-Cycle Rentals, offers a race-day ready fleet of Orbea bikes for rent that athletes pick up at the race venue. Riders reserve the bike online, show up at the event to check out the bike, get fitted on it, then return the bike afterward at the race expo or transition area. Continue reading Tri(ing) to Reduce the Hassle of Racing

Próis Offers Feminine Cut Vest

Female shooters don’t have to wear ill-fitting or bulky shooting attire any longer. Próis Hunting and Field Apparel recognizes that most shooting clothing is designed for more masculine shooters, and has addressed with it with its new Próis Competitor Shooters Vest.

The sleek-looking Próis Competitor Shooters Vest is constructed with a feminine cut, so it falls and fits perfectly. Also adding to the comfort and function of this vest are adjustable cam straps and a buckle at the waistline. It also doesn’t cut back on the features with this new cut. It boasts unique bilateral shoulder padding tailored to protect both sides whether you’re a left or right dominant shooter.

Additionally, interior pockets behind the padding allow shooters to insert recoil pads. Front expandable cargo pockets with magnetic closures makes holding and accessing shells a snap. Plus, the rear mesh pouch is great for housing spent hulls, while an embedded zipper releases them with a quick and simple ‘pull’.

The vest will be available in both black and khaki this summer for athletic female shooter!

Próis Hunting and Field Apparel Official Website

3T Enters the Next 50 Years on New Wheels

The name 3T, formerly known as TTT, has been making high-end cycling components since 1961. On the year of its 50th birthday, this Italian icon has decided to launch an all new product line – complete wheelsets. Two new clincher wheels, the Mercurio and the Accelero both benefit from clean-sheet whole-system design: key performance measures of aerodynamics, weight, inertia, strength, stiffness, and braking equal or exceed the best available; patented hub provides easy maintenance and cassette interchangeability.

TTT (now 3T) was founded by Mario Dedioniggi in 1961 in Torino. 3T handlebars and stems quickly became popular with Italian racing cyclists, and by 1970 they were in widespread use in the professional peloton. 3T was among the first cycle component manufacturers to switch production from steel to aluminum alloys. The firm worked closely with pro racers to refine handlebar design. 3T ‘bends’ took their name from the champions of the era – Merckx, Saronni, Moser, and Gimondi. Continue reading 3T Enters the Next 50 Years on New Wheels

Keep Riding in Focus

For years there has been corrective lenses available for those who are active in sports that could be purchased from most optometrists at a premium price. If you do not require corrective lens to see the road ahead of you, but are finding that when you look down at your cycling computer you can no long read the small numbers, there is a new option out there for you. Dual Power Eyewear is a company started by industry veteran Louis Viggio out of Boulder, Colorado that just launched a new line of eyewear, similar to bifocals, to address this issue.

Viggio founded Dual Power Eyewear after discovering that he could no longer read the small numbers on his bike computer and cell phone when out for a ride. After checking local bike shops and sports stores he found plenty of sunglasses, but nothing that addressed this issue.

Dual Power Eyewear launches with three styles, the Dual V6, S4, and SL2. Each model is available in two lens colors (smoke or brown) and feature impact resistant TR90 frames, shatterproof and scratch-resistant polycarbonate lenses, and a discrete +1.5, +2.0, or +2.5 Optimized Magnification Zone.

Dual Power Eyewear is intended to be sold at retailers in a similar manner to how reading glasses are sold at most pharmacies. The consumer picks the style and magnification that meets the level of correction, and simple purchases them at the register – no prescription needed. Continue reading Keep Riding in Focus

Saving (Race) Face

The Canadian manufacturer, Race Face Performance Products, emerged from receivership less than two months after the future of the iconic brand was thrown into uncertainty.It was announced on March 12, 2011, that after 18 years of business, Race Face would be entering receivership with many accusations circling of mismanagement by the then CEO, Craig Pollack.

The Race Face website remained unchanged, but their products started cropping up all over the internet retailers in the clearance and ‘specials’ pages. It seemed from the outside that it was the end for Race Face or worse – it would be sold to a company who then produce all of the products overseas… see Control Tech, American Classic, Cannondale, Schwinn, GT, etc. Continue reading Saving (Race) Face

Polar Tour’s France

This week Polar USA announced that it is taking a “Yellow is Everything” attitude, and has announced the release of the CS500 Tour de France, the official Tour de France training computer. The granddaddy of cycling events kicks off in just a month and a half, and now you can give it your best and try to ride like the very best in cycling.

The device features an aerodynamic diamond shape and yellow accents, as the the CS500 Tour de France is designed for event riders who want to improve their fitness at the competitive level through highly effective training guidance. The CS500 Tour de France features twice as much memory than the original, and offers compatibility with the forthcoming Polar LOOK Keo Power pedals, the world’s first pedal-based system for measuring power output and cadence. Continue reading Polar Tour’s France

Possessed to Skate

There are a fair amount of cities and towns around the country, that along with building recreation centers, community pools, amphitheaters and ball fields, have built skateparks. Often these skateparks are proposed with all of the other options a community can choose to fund; but it is not uncommon to find that a community has to pick and choose based on finances or space.

Skateparks are usually subject to harsh and often unfounded criticism based on stereotypes that may or may not be true and can ultimately lead to a skatepark being unfairly passed over as an option. At Kinetic Shift, a few of us have skated in the past and feel that it is better to have our kids out actively skating than to sit in front of the TV playing video games all day. A community park allows our kids to have a safe place, away from our streets and business staircases, to skateboard and ultimately get some exercise. Continue reading Possessed to Skate

BDSM for Your Bike

More than likely, if you are a cyclist, there is not one bit of natural fiber on your bike or in your cycling wardrobe. Cotton and leather has been replaced by Lycra, Coolmax, Nylon, leatherette or any number of other manmade products on the market. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that, but there is still a great appreciation for leather goods within the cycling community – just look at Brooks England, they have been making leather saddles since 1882 and they are still going strong! Continue reading BDSM for Your Bike

BMX Skateboard Scooter

What do you get if a BMX bike were to somehow mate with a skateboard? Technically this is impossible, not just because the BMX bike and skateboard aren’t actually living creatures, because even if they were they’d have different chromosomes and thus not be able to produce an offspring. But getting past those issues, we return to the question at hand, and since this sounds like the makings of a mad science experiment gone bad – let us also say that a third ingredient is added to the mix, namely a scooter.

So now we’re really crazy. But the result would the sbyke, the invention of Bart and Steve Wilson, who apparently broke their BMX bike, ruined a perfectly good skateboard and created a scooter-like contraption.

The sbyke – which is confusingly pronounced “spike”- has  a fixed-position front wheel that isn’t turned using the handlebars but rather by the shifting weight of the rider. There is a break attached to the handlebars to stop this thing at least.

(Video after the jump)

Continue reading BMX Skateboard Scooter

Excursion Bags to “Adventure-Proof” Electronics

Nothing beats getting away, and if you’re the kind of traveler who likes an adventure you know that can mean roughing it or it can mean the conditions can be a bit rough. Either way that’s not good for your electronics, which remain all too fragile. And while there is no shortage of shoulder bags, few are designed to handle the great outdoors and protect your electronics.

But Briggs & Riley have introduced a line of bags for your off the grid trips. The Excursion Field Bag and Excursion Messenger Bag will provide safe and secure storage for your tablets, netbooks and other electronics.

These provide a pull system for easy retrieval and plenty of storage for USB drives, mobile phones, business cards and more. These offer water resistant zippers and are well padded, but still lightweight so you won’t need a team of Sherpas for that hike in the woods.

Briggs & Riley Official Website

No Mountain Need to Do Some Climbing

If asked why do you climb a mountain, the answer usually given is because it is there. But what if you don’t have a mountain but still want to do some climbing? Well, you’re in luck because the MtEverClimb Rope Climbing Machine will let you climb and climb and climb some more.

OK, it isn’t exactly like mountain climbing; in fact it is more like rope climbing from grade school gym class, but you won’t need a 40-foot ceiling and there is no fear of falling from such heights either. More importantly rope climbing is a great full-body strength training exercise as well as a true cardio workout.

The machine features a heavy-duty welded tubular steel frame, a pulley wheel, and a looped rope that creates a continuous climbing action, while a front-mounted switch box allows the user to control speed, power, and direction of the rope. So with this device you can get your climb on and on and on!

MtEverClimb Official Website