Zyro 2012: Tifosi glasses, Bryton GPS

Last week Singletrack was lucky enough to be invited to the annual Zyro dealer show which, apart from leaving us very well fed and and watered, also gave them the opportunity to show us around all that is new and shiny.

Tifosi

Tifosi have a gob smackingly huge range of glasses and a fairly simple premise as a company: offer everything that the other sports brands offer (you know, the big one that begin with “O” and the other one that begins with “S”) at a much better price. We tested a set of their Dolomite glasses in Issue 68 and got on well with them.

Their range is huge, so here is a list of highlights:

1) They use Grilamid 90 for there frames from everything upward of their Envy glasses. This is the same super bendy material that’s used by the premium brands, it’s very tough hard to break and grips nicely. Interesting fact, you’re going to see more sunglasses with little bobbles at the ends of the arms soon (the bit where the arms grip the little dip in your skull behind your ears). This is because Oakley have finally lost the patent for these tiny grippy baubles! (Yes, patent law in America is mental)

2) They have glasses for people with heads like melons! Seriously, they do three sizes: for smaller  faces all under the moniker “wisp” (The women’s market was suggested but also guys with delicate features), a medium  size for most of us and finally they also do a XL frame which they kindly refer to as “King Heads” but we’ll call “huge moonfaced Clydesdales” (and the American police you see in Police Camera Action!).

3) They currently have the fastest photochromatic lenses in the business (well, at least as fast as the best). Tifosi use NXT technology which has some of the fastest times in terms of light changing from light to dark and also some of the toughest lenses to damage. With the photochromatic technology embedded within the lens, it not only helps faster light changing times, it also makes it nigh on impossible to damage the light changing technology, unlike other lenses where the polarising technology is on the outside of the lens. Check below for light to darkness magic.

Bryton

Bryton make a wide range of GPS navigation and training devices either bar mounted , or in the form of watches. The company that owns Bryton have sold over 30 million products worldwide and all of their technology is designed in-house, including their online resources. Research says that about only five percent of outdoor users currently use GPS devices and Bryton (and we guess all of the other GPS manufacturers) are keen to make stuff simpler to use and more appealing to the average person.

Bryton Rider 20

The Rider 20 is their entry level model. Basic functions include speed, distance, heart rate and cadence (you’ll need to get the sensor for the cadence and heart rate monitor part separately) and all of it is downloadable so you can get routes mapped with elevation, speed uphill versus downhill and other bits of data to your heart’s content.

Bryton Rider 35

The Rider 35  has all of the functions of the 20 plus power meter (using SRAM power meter or Cyclops) plus altitude and slope (steepness). Again all of this is uploadable and you can share the info with others, compare how you’re doing against a training buddy if you have one and a host of other stuff that for non-training luddites like Jon and myself were confusing and amazing all in one.

Bryton Rider 40

The Rider 40 has of course all of the features that the previous two models have plus training modes. These mean you can set warm up zones, intervals and so on, all of which you can pre-program them so it tells you when to PEDAL!!

Bryton Rider 50

The Rider 50 has – you guessed it – even more features including full colour display with maps, compass, zoom and comes with preloaded maps of the UK including Sustran routes. They don’t currently have OS maps available for download but it is something that Bryton are working on and expect to be able to deliver shortly, possibly in the form of the new Bryton Rider 60…