Outdoors | Evolving Consumer

Sustainability Makes The North Face Top a Bonus

The North Face Women's El Cap Temple 1/4 top. — The North Face and Polartec boost recycled materials and function.

Polartec’s Women’s El Cap Temple 1/4 Zip top from The North Face is made from sustainable resources. Part of the fleece manufacturer’s eco-engineering line, it contains a minimum of 50 percent recycled content, and both companies continue to push to raise the bar on post-consumer materials. Why opt for a garment with such a high content of reused materials? Each shirt saves 6.6 lbs in C02 emissions, and 0.17 gallons of gas.

The earth conscious gear has its benefits. The pique knit is soft on the skin. It carries an ultraviolet protection factor (UPF) of 30. The El Cap Temple wicks moisture in a number of ways. It draws sweat and moisture away from skin while setting up a dry zone next to the skin. Moisture wicked to the surface is spread across the outer layer of the garment, and continues to make the top breathable. Wicking is crucial in a long sleeve garment, especially since it’s likely to act as a base layer for outside workouts.

The North Face’s Women’s El Cap Temple 1/4 Zip shirt is appropriate for a base layer in outdoor workouts over the winter. It’s also a great transitional top in those days nice enough to go out for a run, but not quite nice enough for short sleeves. The dual-layer fabric provides a degree of wind blocking, an important factor in transitional weather.

Team Radioshack Cycling Made its Debut; HTC-Columbia Wins First Tour of the Year

Remember the hype last summer; seven times Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong announced a new professional cycling team? Well, Team RadioShack Cycling actually made its debut last week in the Santos Tour Down Under, which marks the official start of the pro cycling season. Yes, it is still about six months until July’s Tour de France, but cycling is much more than just the big show through France – and for the record this year’s event will begin in The Netherlands! Cycling can be confusing when nations are considered.

This was the 12 annual Tour Down Under, which ran from January 17 to 24, and it was won by Germany’s Andre Greipel (only the second ride to win this race twice) who races for the American HTC-Columbia team, the most winning team in cycling. HTC by the way is the Taiwanese-based mobile phone company that made the first “Google Android Phone,” the G1 for T-Mobile (itself a German company). HTC has a three year sponsorship deal with owners Team High Road. And actually the HTC-Columbia team had formerly been the T-Mobile Team, but following some scandals we won’t bring up, the team switched nationality from German to American, after T-Mobile dropped its sponsorship! Confused? Maybe this is what makes cycling, and those high-tech sponsors, just all the more interesting to viewers.

And while Armstrong didn’t win, he wasn’t expected to do so. He’s just getting in shape for the big show in France!

Energizer Lights Up Your Run

At 60 lumens the Energizer Micro LED Headlight will shed light on your evening run.

Evening runs get to be a bit daunting in the winter months. It gets dark, and you want to be sure you can see and be seen. That’s especially true in residential or even rural areas where streets may not be lit to brighter-than-day standards. It’s for these late-day runs and camping that the Energizer Micro LED Headlight comes in use. The LED light packs 60 lumens into a small light, and is waterproof to 1 meter, so you can even use it in the rain.

The light is mounted to an adjustable elastic band that fits snugly around your head, and the single AA battery fits discreetly in the back. The light has three modes: bright 60 lumens, dimmed from 100 percent to 6 percent light, and light from two red LEDs. The bright spotlight is rated to provide two hours of power, while the red light will shine for up to eight hours on a single battery. The light itself can also be angled three ways while mounted on your forehead including straight ahead, and two angles facing down.

In our tests the spotlight was quite bright, and even at a dimmer setting we were able to see what was ahead of us, and even a little wider area. If you use the light for running, or doing work around the house, you’ll have no problems seeing where you’re headed. The interesting setting is the red light setting. This is best for camping or being able get around in a dark space but not necessarily doing work. The red color is a bit easier on the eyes, and doesn’t cause you to lose all sight when you turn out the light. We were able to see in detail objects at arms length, and even a little beyond. We could read text easily, and saw enough detail to get around tight areas without colliding into objects.

No matter the setting, we advise you to adjust the light to face down slightly. This will still shine a bright light in order for you to see and more importantly be seen. Yet you won’t blind oncoming traffic. You’ll also save your own eyes in case you look into the mirror. That bright light will shine right back in your eyes! There’s other headlights on the market we’d like to try, but we do think Energizer gets it right for providing different brightness and light settings, plus angles while keeping it light and secure enough to stay on your head while running or doing other activities.

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Brooks HVAC Glove has Silver Lining

Gloves are an essential for winter running. It’s important to cover all skin from exposure, but fingers are more susceptible to cold. The HVAC Glove from Brooks Sports packs some tech features into its grip. Its HVAC material is made with silver-embedded fibers to thermally balance body temperature, and transfer moisture. It also kills bacteria within an hour of contact so germs don’t build up from one run to the next. The finger tips have a polyurethane coating to aid dexterity and grip objects. The HVAC Glove also has a thumb pad that can operate an MP3 player with the gloves still on. That’s key to keeping warm on your next jaunt. Brooks also built in a magnet to keep gloves together when not in use. This way wherever you throw them, in a closet or a bag, you’ll pull them out together.

Brooks Sports

Brooks Women’s HVAC Glove

Brooks Men’s HVAC Glove

Wozniacki Says No Sweat at Australian Open

Adidas Stella McCartney Tennis Performance Dress — Stella McCartney Tennis Performance Dress by Adidas worn by Caroline Wozniacki.

Danish tennis player Caroline Wozniacki made it through another round of women’s singles today at the Australian Open Tennis Championships. She stays cool outfitted in Adidas by Stella McCartney gear. On the court she’s wearing the Tennis Performance Dress, which is made with Adidas Climate technology. Climate Technology consists of layers of special materials and mesh panels on the sides of the garment for proper ventilation. The garment also features flatlock stitching that makes all seams flat and prevent the discomfort a seam with bulk might add.

Cameras with Geo-Tagging

Add geo-tags to your digital photos with Samsung HZ35W.

You were on a hike. You took a picture of the view from the summit. When people ask, you can give them the general vicinity of the photo, or you can give the exact coordinates via GPS technology built into the camera. Samsung’s HZ35W has GPS technology built in so adventurers can geo-tag digital images. Photos are tagged with longitude and latitude and post the city, state, and country and even reference a map on the camera’s active-matrix OLED (AMOLED) screen.

A 12 megapixel camera with a 24mm wide-angle lens and 15x optical zoom, the HZ35W will snap some impressive pictures as you travel hike the nation’s parks or travel abroad. Back at home you can upload photos with their geo-tagging to show your friends where you’ve been.

More info: Samsung.com