Defeet's custom athletics socks

In the early '90s, Shane Cooper brought together the unlikely bedfellows of bike racing and sock knitting to create Defeet International. Cooper, who was a semi-pro cyclist at the time, grew up fascinated with his father's knitting machine parts distributor business, and he decided to try a hand at making a better bike sock.

The result was an innovative mesh-weave sock design that used advanced knitting machines and the then-new CoolMax yarn. Within a short time, the Hildebran, N.C., company was making custom socks for cyclists including Lance Armstrong and Greg LeMond.

Over the past decade, Defeet has grown into one of the largest specialty sock companies in the world, and despite a full line of socks for sports ranging from downhill skiing to adventure racing, custom design is still an important part of Defeet's business. Running clubs, events organizers, professional athletics teams, corporations and high school sports programs can purchase Defeet socks complete with custom colors, knitted logos on the cuff and text on the sole.


Stephen Rengold gets a toe up on other reviewers with Defeet Custom Socks...

To start the design process, customers go to Defeet's Web site and choose a base sock model. Your team or company logo can be e-mailed as a JPG graphic file to Defeet. From there, Defeet has a color picker software program on its Web site - www.defeet.com/customshop.php - where you can test and preview hundreds of available sock color schemes.

There is a $25 art fee to get started, for which the company will tweak and optimize your logo or graphic for knitting onto the sock cuff. After colors have been chosen and you've decided what text to put on the sole, Defeet knits a sample sock and ships it out to you for approval before starting the big knit run.

As the custom design service is geared toward event organizers and athletics teams, Defeet enforces a minimum order of six dozen pair for custom alpine ski socks and a minimum of 12 dozen pair for other models. Depending on the model, prices start at around $4.50 per pair at the minimum order level and decrease in price the higher the quantity purchased.

(The company is working on technology to make smaller batch custom orders more economical. In the future, Defeet hopes to make its custom services attractive to small athletics teams or even individuals who would like custom graphics but cannot justify purchasing dozens of pairs of socks.)

For the Gear Junkie custom sock, I chose Defeet's Cush model as the base. This sock is a version of the company's original Air-E-Ator mesh-weave bike sock, but with a thicker sole to accommodate running or hiking. Designing the sock took me less than 20 minutes, and the company had a sample sock shipped to me within a couple weeks.

Defeet knits the socks at its North Carolina factory. The entire process takes four to six weeks from design to construction to delivery.


Contact: Defeet International, (800) 688-3067, www.defeet.com.

Full Metal Backpack

Talk to any group of well-traveled people and the stories of surreptitiously lifted purses, picked pockets and swiped backpacks will eventually start to infiltrate the conversation. Passports, cash, credit cards, plane tickets, camera and hotel key can be lifted quiet and clean in an instant, forcing a woebegone trek to the American Embassy for identity reclamation, phone calls and money wired in from mom and dad.


Pacsafe Daypack...

Pacsafe's line of security travel products are some of the few items I consider to be on-the-road essentials. The company gained notoriety years ago with its Pacsafe Backpacker, a lockable net made of high-tensile stainless steel cable that cinches around a backpack to ward off opportunistic thieves. My favorite Pacsafe product is the Travelsafe 100, a small nylon pouch made with steel netting hidden under the nylon body.

The company's latest product is a midsized backpack impregnated with stainless-steel mesh. At first glance, the Daysafe looks like a regular backpack. It has an over-the-shoulder harness, a sternum strap, mesh exterior pockets and a regular zipper-accessed compartment. It's 18 inches high and has about 1,500 cubic inches of capacity.

Inside the Daysafe there is a second compartment lined with steel mesh. It cinches closed and locks with a small padlock. Like all Pacsafe products, it has a long steel cable that can be pulled out, looped around a stationary object and then locked back onto the pack to keep it from walking away with a thief. A padlock and keys are included.

Another advantage: The Daysafe's mesh-protected compartments are slash-proof. In some heavily tourist and downtrodden locales, thieves may forgo swiping a bag from, say, an American college student waiting in line for a subway train. Instead, a razor blade is quickly slashed over the nylon fabric and a small hand goes in for the goods.

In more peaceful settings, the Daysafe can be used as a normal backpack with its lockable interior compartment left open. The retractable cable snakes inside the nylon case and out of the way.

Beyond travel use, the company recommends the Daysafe for college campuses and business settings. Locking up a laptop computer would be a common scenario.

The pack has no hip belt and is not sleek enough for serious athletics like mountain biking. It has no tie-down straps on the exterior and is not large enough for extended trips with a sleeping bag. But for an average day out on the tourist trail, the Daysafe provides a one-of-a-kind security solution that offers asset protection and peace of mind.

Price: Daysafe, $100.
Contact: Pacsafe, 1-800-873-9415, www.pac-safe.com.

The art of body lubrication, part II

My feet may never forgive me for the past two years. Three marathons, ten adventure races, a triathlon, several mountain climbs and hundreds of hours of training have left my dogs beat up, ragged and just plain ugly.

But it looks like I'll be able to save the three or four toenails I have left. After so much carnage, I've learned how to take care of my feet. It's a formula that starts with good shoes, appropriate socks, some strategic taping and -- for me -- gobs and gobs of foot lubricant.

Hydropel, a greasy, gooey salve made by Genesis Pharmaceutical Inc., has become my foot lube of choice. It goes on thick and stays that way for hours on end. For a 24-hour adventure race, I usually apply the solution only once or twice.

It does a good job eliminating friction -- both between your foot and the sock as well as the skin-on-skin rub between toes. It also repels water, an important trait for people who may tromp through mud puddles or thigh-deep rivers during an average hike.

For my first three or four adventure races, my feet would invariably get wet within the first hour of the race, and I'd have to run, bike, climb and paddle all day long in wet socks. Without lube, my feet would get saturated with water, promoting big, painful blisters.

With Hydropel, I can run through the woods all day and night with wet feet. The water actually beads up on my skin where the lubricant has been applied.

Though I prefer to use a dry powder lube on other areas of my body, Genesis Pharmaceutical recommends Hydropel for use beyond the feet, including for your thighs, chest, bottom, underarm and anywhere else that gets chafed during a workout.

The product comes in small, 2-ounce squeeze bottles, which cost about $13 each. It's not cheap, but used somewhat conservatively the bottle should last you for five to 10 lube-ups.

Price: $13.
Contact: Genesis Pharmaceutical Inc., 1-800-459-8663, http://www.genesispharm.com.

The art of body lubrication, part I

The unmentionable and embarrassing bodily effects of repetitious exercise -- chafed thighs, armpit rash, butt burn -- traditionally have been managed with greasy lubricants. Petroleum-based salves or sport-specific rub-on products help eliminate the painful skin-against-skin chafing and chapping common in running, cycling, hiking and other outdoor sports.

Squeaky Cheeks' namesake product is a non-greasy alternative lubricator. Made of corn starch, bentonite clay, slippery elm bark and other natural ingredients, the product fights chafing by keeping your skin dry.

The company recommends using Squeaky Cheeks under sports bras, in biking shorts, under the arms, in your shoes or any other place that may get clammy, sweaty or chaffed. Squeaky Cheeks is marketing the product to everyone from marathoners to golfers to fly fishers.

Testing it out during a marathon and several adventure races this year, I've been happy with the product's performance. The powder lasts pretty much all day long, keeping me dry and chafe-free in tender areas.

As a powder, Squeaky Cheeks is a little cumbersome to apply, especially if you're already out on the race course. Pouring white powder in my shorts definitely got me a weird look or two.

Squeaky Cheeks comes in a 5.5-ounce plastic pouch with a screw-on pour spout. For day trips, I put some in a baggy and keep it in the top of my pack or in a pocket. If and when things get rough, the magic powder is there and ready to soothe, dry and get me on my way again.

Price: $6.
Contact: Squeaky Cheeks, 1-877-667-7832, http://www.squeakycheeks.com.