Reach and Beach and GoMotion are partnering up to bring you the best lighting system on the market for the 2^nd year running!

and…

 with Retail Sponsoer

Check out the full display of Gomotion products at Fit Right NW’s 2 locations, and find out why Runner’s World blogger Sarah Bowen Shea had this to say using Gomotion at the H2C,

“it was awesome. The chest-height light cast a wide, bright beam–no tunnel-vision light like from a headlamp. And the flashing red light in the center of my back, along with reflective piping, made me feel visible to cars coming from behind.”

About.com Rating 

The Bottom Line

For hands-free night walking, running or hiking, this LED lightbelt is a great solution. It is lightweight and it runs on 3 AA batteries that should last a long time. The front spotlight has three brightness levels, beam width adjustment, and swivels to get the best angle. The rear pack has two red safety flashers. It has two zip pockets for small essentials. I found it less distracting to walk with vs. a headlamp.

Pros

Bright front spotlight, rear safety flashers

Adjustable angle, brightness, and beam width

Battery pack and lights removable for laundering belt.

Cons

No water bottle carrier.

Description

Light belt with front spotlight and rear safety flashers

Uses 3 AA batteries

Two small zip pockets for essentials

Guide Review – GoMotion Sport Runner LiteBelt

Headlamps are all well and good, but the bottom line is that sometimes they are uncomfortable to wear. GoMotion makes several items designed to put the light at sternum or waist level for a different take on hands-free lighting. The LiteBelt solves three problems: lighting your path, visibility for safety, and carrying capacity for essentials.

Spotlight

The LiteBelt has a 1-Watt Luxeon LED spotlight on the front waistband. The beam is fully adjustable. It swivels up and down so you can spotlight your path just where you like it best. It has three brightness levels. An iris adjustment widens or tightens the beam. The position of the light was perfect for me. Headlamps can be somewhat distracting when you are walking in drizzle, rain, or an area with a lot of flying insects. Having the beam at your waist eliminates that.

Visibility Safety

The LiteBelt has a rear flasher with two red lights. You can choose to turn these on or off with a switch on the front spotlight. The pack also has reflective trim for additional safety.

Carrying Capacity

The pack has two small zippered pockets sized to fit a cell phone, MP3 player, identification, keys, or a small digital camera. My wallet didn’t fit, but my Blackberry did. It has a center pocket where the battery pack and flasher are stored. You can place some small items such as keys in there. I could carry essentials for a short workout. But it lacks a sports bottle pocket or other way to carry water, so I would have to factor that in for longer walks.

Maintenance

The battery pack and lights are removable so you can launder the pack itself. They recommend hand washing. It was easy to change batteries in the battery pack without having to resort to tools.

I was very pleased with the LiteBelt and I see it as a good solution for those of us who have to walk or run before dawn or after dusk. It not only provides light when and where you need it, the flasher and reflective trim help vehicles to see and avoid you.

Disclosure: A review sample was provided by the manufacturer. For more information, please see our Ethics Policy.

http://walking.about.com/od/lights/gr/gomotionlitebelt.htm

GoMotion Sport Runner Litebelt – Front View 

“This product has been my savior“

I am an early morning runner which means I run in the dark a lot. If you’re like me you’ve noticed that there is a certain time when the traffic really picks up, usually around 6:30 am where I live. I’ve been building my running inventory over the past couple of years to include items from reflective gear to lights. You can never be too safe when taking your running to the streets, especially in those pre-dawn hours. I use to run with a headlamp but it became rather uncomfortable as it pressed against my head or worse, as I began to sweat the headlamp would begin to lose it’s grip and slip down off my forehead. I began looking for other options.

I discovered the GoMotion Litebelt around a year ago. It’s a waist pack with a bright LED light which adjusts to three different light beam levels as well as adjusting horizontally so that you can direct the beam down to the ground or directly in front of you. The light belt also has a flashing red light on the back of the waist pack. There are two reflective pockets on it for storing keys, a phone or other running necessities. The belt is adjustable to fit all sizes and is so lightweight I barely notice it when I’m running.

GoMotion Sport Runner Litebelt – Rear View 

 

 

This product has been my savior. No longer do I have headlamp imprints on my forehead following my run. Those early morning training sessions of mine are much more enjoyable now that I know the oncoming drivers can see me, and from a further distance than previously. The bright LED shines far enough ahead of me giving me confidence of being seen as well as lighting up the ground in front of me.I have recommended the GoMotion Litebelt to fellow runners whom also run in the dark and will continue to do so.

GoMotion also makes running litevests. There are the Street Runner and Trail Runner Litevest options. The Trail Runner Litevest has a larger storage area on the back which holds a hydration cell.

http://lvrunningscene.com/2010/02/10/gomotion-sport-runner-litebelt/

“I was automatically in love with my GoMotion light”. 

When I first used the GoMotion Sternum kit, it was as if I was snowshoeing with a big headlight on my chest.  “That thing makes you look like Ironman with his ‘glowing repulsor’ heart,” my snowshoeing buddy said.  Of course, nerdy comment aside, I did feel like Ironman; I discovered that an LED light makes the surrounding snow glow.  This nifty “glowing” effect comes in handy around dusk, when the sun drops below the mountains and darkness starts to set in.  I was automatically in love with my GoMotion light.  Every snowshoer needs one of these, in case it does get dark during a snowshoe outing.

GoMotion designed the Sternum Luxeon LED Kit for hikers and endurance runners who want to use their existing packs when hiking or running in low-light conditions. The Kit features a high-output 1- or 3-Watt Luxeon LED with separate battery box and hard-wired power cord for quick mounting to shoulder straps at chest level by two Velcro straps.

Here are the features:

*Three-Level Beam Intensity
*Flood to Spotlight Beam Control
*Adjustable Beam Angle
*Two Flashing Rear LED Taillights
*Three AA Energizer batteries Included
*Accepts GoMotion Rechargeable Battery Pack
*Low Battery Signal

One of my favorite features was the adjustable beam intensity and beam control.  This allowed for a more focused beam on certain objects – like upcoming trail obscurities – or a flood light over a wider area of space.  I found myself using this feature often and enjoying the control.  

The GoMotion Sternum Light was situated comfortably on the middle of my chest.  It wasn’t too inconvenient or in my way when snowshoeing.  It used the straps of my backpack for stability and provided enough light for the hour I used it on my trip.  In my mind, the GoMotion Light made the snow glow around me similarly to a full-moon lighting effect.  If you’ve been on a full-moon snowshoe trek, you’ll automatically understand what I’m referring to: the snow majestically glows in the dark with direct full moon exposure.  

The one downfall of the GoMotion Light was the battery pack.  It’s already heavy enough without three AA batteries and sometimes becomes troublesome when finding suitable storage during a snowshoe trek.  The battery life seems to last a while.  After using it frequently last season, I dug it out of my gear this season and it turned on with no issues.  Sweet!  I think that makes up for the weighty battery pack issue.  But, that is one problem with batteries in general, they’re heavy and sometimes inconvenient to all electronics (unless it’s an iPod).

  “Consistent light. Stash pockets. Reflective trim.  This LED running belt is our new BFF”.

Fresh finds, true stories.

http://www.dailygrommet.com/products/251-GoMotion-Sport-Runner-Lite-Belt-Vest

Review – GoMotion Sternum Light

Many years ago when I was focused on becoming a professional road cyclist I was hit and run down by a car. Although not crippled the spinal injury gave me problems that required medical treatment and various operations. The final operation sorted out the trapped nerves BUT unfortunately I was allergic to the antibiotics, subsequently I gradually lost my hearing and my balance is seriously affected.

One day I could ride a bike the next day I couldn’t; end of my cycling hopes and no more cycling – for over 20 years! So I switched to hiking which progressed to hill and mountain running, which progressed to racing.
At the time I lived in Yorkshire, UK, an area with a very strong tradition for fell running so, although I started to compete I always struggled on the single track/tricky bits and the downhills as my balance difficulties caused me problems. I was even worse where my peripheral vision was restricted, narrow stretches between trees, tunnels, gorges, snow whiteouts where sky and ground merged and worst of all NIGHTIME.

My balance problem means I require a visual horizon and as my hearing became worse so did my balance and unfortunately wearing a head torch made this even worse. 10 years ago, I decided to leave the UK and move to Andalucia. The UK climate was getting me down, so with new sporting goals I found a home in Andalucia where beautiful weather, numerous mountain tracks and quiet roads saw me training and ‘learning’ to ride a bike again. With determination and extra concentration I started to mountain bike and then road bike, I raced again, this time duathlon, and I began to win my age category.

I progressed to endurance events (ultra running and mtb) including a 126km off road duathlon, I did ok, won my category but the final 3 hours were in the dark and I really struggled, where I should have been able to ride I couldn’t balance, I ended up running using the bike for support and moonlight to see as the head torch was making things worse. Since then I have avoided any night time events and on the rare occasions I have been caught out I have had to hold the headtorch low down/hooked over a waist belt in order to make any progress.

Although I have this problem I know that quite a few other runners have balance issues when wearing head torches and apparently it is caused by fatigue of the optic nerve creating an imbalance in the inner ear.

Recently I had noticed adverts in the American TrailRunner magazine for a company called GOMOTIONGEAR. Their slogan, ‘A New way to See in the Dark’ caught my eye so I had a look at their website, www.gomotiongear.com and was pleased to see a number of ‘why didn’t I think of that’ products which seemed to address the problems I had tried to solve by holding a head torch low down or hooked round a belt.

I contacted the company and ordered a 3 watt Sternum Light Kit.

I have now used the Sternum light on a few test runs and I can honestly say it has been the perfect solution for me.

The 3 watt light attaches via Velcro straps to your rucksack shoulder straps, in effect becoming a second chest strap with quick release snaps. The external battery pack, which takes 3 AA batteries, (included with the unit) can be carried in a side pocket and includes built-in flashing red LED lights.
The lamp has 3 brightness settings, the beam can be adjusted for width and on full power the batteries will last around 3.5 hours using standard alkaline batteries and almost double using lithium batteries. They will last over 20hrs on the lower setting and believe me, the low setting is pretty bright and the high setting is incredible.

With the beam set to wide and on full power I was able to run along forest tracks on a pitch dark night at near race pace. The lamp remained stable and comfortable, (it can be pivoted in its housing to get it just right) and the huge tunnel of light covers an area so wide that you can look around without any problems, whereas with a head torch there seems to be a momentary delay as you re focus ahead after looking off to one side. With the beam coming from below your line of sight there wasn’t the dazzling effect which I get when looking through a head torch beam and there wasn’t any light coming up from the top of the unit apart from a very feint glow where the light switch and beam intensity buttons are.

For many years I have avoided multi stage races or races like the UTMB where night time running is unavoidable and it is partly the reason why I don’t include a night stage in the Al Andalus Ultra Trail (www.alandalus-ut.com) but with the GoMotion sternum light I think night running is something I need no longer fear.

They definitely are ‘A New way to See in the Dark’.

Paul Bateson
Team Axarsport, Spain.

NB. The lights are produced in 1 watt or 3 watt Sternum or Waist versions as well as in a vest form. They are not yet distributed in Europe but if you are interested just email me at info@axarsport.com as I intend to have them available for my training camps and in the site ‘shop’.

Reach and Beach and GoMotion are partnering up to bring you the best lighting system on the market.

Franconia Notch to Hampton Beach, NH Sept 18-19.

“GoMotion, a New England based company focused on providing wearable hi-output lighting products for active use from running and hiking, to Nordic skiing and backcountry, is very excited to be involved with the Reach the Beach Relay Race.  RTB Relay, now in it’s 11th year, is the longest distance running relay race in the United States”.

• Improved comfort
• Increased stability
• Better Depth Perception
• Better Peripheral Vision
• Better Vision in Precipitation
• Better Night Vision

Charlie Engle turned in an impressive finish at this year’s Badwater 135 beating his previous personal record by 2 hrs, and placing 4th over-all in 25hrs 45m 11sec.  It was especially impressive given some of his early race issues, and the time he took to decorate the course in technicolor the 1st 75 miles (Badwater Engle Video ).  He turned it up from there, and was pacing 8-9 min. miles at 115 miles in.  I was recently joking with race director Chris Kostman after he told me about Charlie’s pr, that is was most likely b/c he was using our light during the event.  I then had to confess I wasn’t actually sure if he had, or not.  Charlie was kind enough to confirm that he had indeed used a GoMotion 1 Watt LiteBelt during the race, and had these comments:

“Jonathan,
Thanks for the note. I hope that OR was good for you. I did use the waist belt version of the GoMotion light and it performed very well. I really like the comfort and the adjustments that are available. At one point I was using a pacer and I gave him the light because it was so bright, we didn’t need to use two lights. So he just lit up the entire road for me. It was great.
Charlie”

Badwater takes runners 135 miles from Death Valley (280 below sea level) with temps upto 130F to the top of Mt Whitney (8,360′) for a total 13,000′ of vertical ascent and 4,700′ of vertical descent.  It has been coined, “The world’s toughest footrace”  http://www.badwater.com/ .

Charlie is widely recognized for his part in the powerful documentary, Running the Sahara (http://www.runningthesahara.com/ ) where he, Ray Zahab, & Kevin Lin ran for 111 days straight and 4,300 miles across the Sahara desert to raise awareness for the need of clean water in Africa under the charitable organization H2OAfrica (http://www.h20africa.org/ ).    

 It’s great getting 1st hand, hard-core feedback from someone like Charlie – Thanks, Charlie, and best of luck to you in your quest for the Death Valley Cup this year.