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As time permits, in-depth musings on myriad subjects will be posted. Abbreviated adages will be announced via Twitter.

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Red Lining

A couple of weeks ago, I made a post detailing my personal dilemma over using Oakley sunglasses with a Rudy Project helmet for racing & training. In concluding the post, which took me some two hours to compose in the wee hours of a Sunday morning, I'd decided to continue using the Oakley shades and pass the RP lid off to commuting duties, where it wouldn't really matter what it was seen with; my commuting rig itself is a hodge-podge of parts. I thought I could put the (non)issue behind me and get back to the more important issues of the day.

Through a series of rather fortunate events, a dialogue with RP was opened, and I found myself the ultra-pleased recipient of a pair of SportMask sunglasses, one of RP's flagships for their current lineup. According to my contact at RP, this particular style will be available later in the year, but is, at present, possessed only by Chris McCormack, 2007 winner of Kona, and yours truly. Pretty effin' cool, I think.

(as a side note, I noticed that the custom design I created for my Radars last summer was the same that Sam McGlone wore for her debut at Kona -- once again, pretty effin' cool.)

While I've yet to run or ride with the shades (midterms are next week, and I was way behind schedule), I've tried them on and tried the lens swapping feature. Here's my assessment thus far:
  • Unbelievably light weight (0.88 oz., according to the spec sheet)
  • Slick adjustment via the nose piece (akin to the Tayo models [best sunglasses ever])
  • Easy lens exchange, although I did notice some minor chipping on the overcoat of the Racing Red lens. This could have been a defect in the original manufacturing of the lens, though; I noticed no additional chipping with the two or three subsequent removals & reinsertions of the frame pieces from & to the lens itself.
  • The red "Rudy Project" badges on the sides of the ear stems could get snagged, removing them from the ear stems. Should that (unlikely situation) ever occur, the badges appear to be easily replaceable.
  • Hard carrying case is vastly improved over the cumbersome hard plastic case of glasses of yore, though its general design for dual-lens glasses eliminates the possibility of storing additional lenses for the SportMask, something hope to get resolved before this March's Texas Independence Relay
My plan is to sport them on the commute to work tomorrow, as well as at the Houston Half this Sunday (what do you think: should I bandit?) . I hope to eventually shift my entire sunglass array back over to RP (the hinges on the Oakley SquareWires are driving me batty), as well as replace my aging Atmos with something from Rudy (the RP helmet N--- got me for Christmas [the one that started all this ruckus] will be used for TT training, as well as for mountain biking)...maybe one of the older models, as the next gen stuff isn't available for another month or two; you can probably guess how impatient I am.

And thus ends my posting for tonight. It's getting late, and I still need to update my school Web site with next week's midterm info. I'll check back in after the weekend to say how N--- did, let you, my avid, sometimes rabid(?), readers know if I decided to bandit and how the SportMask did on its first few outings. As always, thanks for reading.

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