Archive for the ‘Triathlon gear’ Category

Zoggs latest goggles offering ticks all the right boxes

Triathlon and open water swimming have been a massive boon for goggle manufacturers. It’s been amazing to see over the past few years how much innovation can be squeezed out of something that essential comprises two eye cups and a piece of elastic.

From a triathlete’s perspective, swimming goggles must fulfil a number of criteria:

• Visibility – you need to navigate around swim courses in a variety of lighting conditions.
• Security – goggles mustn’t leak, nor must they be easily dislodged by a stray foot or elbow.
• Comfort – you might be wearing them for an hour or more.
• Hydrodynamics – while goggles or masks probably only contribute relative little to your overall resistance through the water, you obviously don’t want something that will slow you down.

With the Predator Flex, Zoggs have convincingly fulfilled each of these criteria. Lenses are impregnated with an anti-fog compound to help keep them clear for longer. They are also curved to increase the field of vision and the mirrored version is ideal for those early morning race starts or evening swims when the sun is close to the horizon.

Michael Rice is founder and CEO of Trixter, the maker of X-Dream, the most sophisticated training bicycle we’ve ever seen.

Many a weekend warrior will know how discouraging it is to jump on your bike on a Saturday having been chained to a desk for 50-60 hours over the previous five days only to find their legs don’t want to push the pedals.

Before Michael Rice set up Trixter he worked as a Chartered Accountant in the City and then as the MD of struggling, £80m/year turnover company. He spent three years successfully turning the company back to profitability, but at the cost of his fitness and waist line. Consequently, he found himself repeatedly being wiped out by his fitter friends on their weekend rides.

He desperately wanted a means to keep in shape during the week that fitted with his office-bound lifestyle, but he couldn’t cope with the tedium of the standard exercise bikes on the market at the time. Nor, as a mountain biker, did he want to work his arms and legs separately. It took too long.

In triathlon’s early days, before the existence of specialist triathlon clothing, male triathletes would often race in a pair of tight Speedo swimming briefs and a running vest. As the sport grew, other manufacturers developed triathlon kit leaving Speedo to focus on the swimming only market, for which it created the LZR Racer ‘Pulse’ fabric. Swimmers in these suits picked up an impressive number of medals and world records at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Realising the synergies with triathlon, Speedo used its technical expertise in fabrics and hydrodynamics to develop Speedo LZR Race Tri Pro triathlon suit, which hit the market in 2009 at the London Triathlon. Speedo has now followed this up with the TriathELITE range of triathlon gear, which includes a range of wetsuits, tri suits and other triathlon related kit.

Tzero was invited to test some of this kit at Speedo’s swanky, swimming-pool-equipped offices in Finchley. This is what we found.

First up was the wetsuit. Speedo’s entry level STR Comp retails at £210 and is aimed at beginner triathletes looking for additional buoyancy. Next up the scale is the STR Pro (£260) and at the top of the range is the STR Elite (£360). This is Speedo’s no-holds barred wetsuit incorporating “everything we know about making athletes move through the water faster,” according to Dr Tom Waller, head of Speedo’s Aqualab research centre. This is the one we tested.

A home exercise bike used to be something your parents bought, stuck in a spare room and forgot about. It had a fat saddle, elevated handlebars and plastic straps over the pedals to keep your feet roughly in place, just in case someone felt inclined to ride, although that was hardly ever the case.

Now you can find stationary bikes designed for and ridden by serious riders. Add in accurate measurement of power output and you have a means of tracking your progress as an added incentive to keep training. Tzero tried out one such example, the Kettler ErgoRace.  This is a solid piece of German engineering that takes two people to lift but once in place does the job it’s designed to perfectly well.

The ErgoRace has a good range of seat and handle bar positions, both of which can be adjusted vertically and horizontally to roughly match your usual road position. However, the adjustment uses a series of pre-set holes about 1cm apart and so millimetre precision is impossible. Other bikes do this better. The handle bars offer ‘bull horn’ and ‘aero’ riding positions. We felt the padding on the elbow rests was a little thin for extended training sessions but good enough for up to an hour or so. The bike can be fitted with any pedals.

Until recently, I had no idea Jeep made footwear. But I now know that as well as over-sized off-road vehicles, Jeep also sell all sorts of branded clothing, including socks. And surprisingly good socks too, especially for keeping your toes warmer on long, winter bike rides. 

The socks are described as ‘Terrain Socks’ and are intended to be both comfortable and tough: they score highly on both counts.  They’ve quickly become my favourite socks for daily wear and, while not specifically designed or marketed as cycling socks, they’re great for outings on frosty mornings.

For years, I’ve suffered from cold toes on long bike rides. I’ve tried waterproof socks, double socks and over-shoes. Nothing seems to work once the temperature drops below freezing, as it has done frequently this winter. But the Jeep socks made a real difference.  They both delayed the onset of cold and reduced its impact.  They’ve certainly been a factor in keeping me happy while riding outside this winter. 

Comfort for cold toes

For running the socks are perhaps too thick as my feet felt a little constricted. Fortunately, running doesn’t  have the same bone-chilling effect on my feet as cycling, and so summer socks are normally fine. However, I was very happy to pull on a pair for running in the snow.

VRX-Biking is indoor cycling with a difference: the bike has movable handlebars to add an upper body and core workout to a quad busting cycle session. Tzero took a class.

With winter dragging endlessly on, maintaining cycling fitness becomes increasingly difficult. How many days training have you missed because of snow or ice, or simply because you couldn’t face another wet, cold and dark bike ride?

The turbo trainer, the usual alternative for many triathletes, sometimes loses its appeal, even with the aid of motivational videos.

Another way to keep enthusiastic about training is to join a spinning or indoor cycling class for a group sweat session.

Scott Beaumont rides the X-bike

Tzero accepted an invitation from Trixter to join an indoor cycle class with a difference at the Vale Hotel and Spa near Cardiff, with Trixter instructor Neil Troutman and mountain bike national champion Scott Beaumont.

Unlike some other stationary bicycles, the Trixter X-Bike set up more closely resembles a mountain bike than a road bike. The biggest difference though is the moveable handlebars. As well as simulating steering, they allow you to engage your upper body and apparently increase calorie burn by up to 55%. The idea is to mimic riding outside as closely as possible.

Puma Ventis

Out of the box, the PUMA VENTIS have a chunky look, but once on the feet feel snug and secure without being tight or constricting. They are also lighter than they look. Into the park and the Ventis coped well with mud, gravel and even snow, gripping the ground superbly and keeping out the odd splashes of water. The shoes also have plenty of cushioning for hard surfaces. My feet neither froze nor overheated, although given recent conditions there was little danger of the second.

Although they are large I had no problems with these shoes catching my ankle bone as I’ve had with others in the past.

For a final test I trialled these shoes on a 5k parkrun (www.parkrun.org.uk) and ran my best time in years. I can’t say that this was because of the Ventis, but they certainly didn’t hold me back.

Packed full of technical features, the shoes are aimed at runners with “normal running stride characteristics” and retail at around £90. I’d be happy to wrack up a chunk of winter miles in these shoes and wouldn’t feel disadvantaged racing in them, despite the size.

Swimming goggles should sit pretty close to the top of any triathlete’s essential kit list. Without them it’s uncomfortable to train in a chlorinated pool and difficult to see where you’re going in open water. But how do you decide which goggles to buy? And how much difference can there be between various makes?

Quite a lot, surprisingly. Factors include size, shape, colour and fitting mechanism.

We trialled a pair of Aqua Sphere Kayenne goggles, which have been designed specifically with open water swimmers in mind.

Aqua Sphere Kayenne Goggles (image: Jonny Gawler)

While we were not brave enough to take these goggles into open water in February, we tried them in indoor and (heated) outdoor pools. The manufacturer’s claim that  the goggles’ curved lens provides excellent visibility in all directions stands up to scrutiny. Vision both under and above the water is excellent. Additionally, the buckle fitting system allows the goggles to be tightened while wearing them, a huge advance on more traditional systems that must be adjusted before pulling the goggles over your head. The goggles didn’t leak and we are reasonably confident they would stay in place during the chaos of an open water swim start.