Oakley Thump Eyewear with Integrated Portable Audio Player Demonstrated to Lance Armstrong
On Saturday, TDFblog reported that Lance Armstrong was photographed wearing a prototype Oakley product combining sunglasses with a portable audio player. Gizmodo reported on this photo as well, saying that Armstrong wore the prototype during the Prologue time trial, citing a SunSentinel.com article for attribution. These articles were pointed out to me in an email from Josh Gray.
Here's how I replied to Josh:
Josh:I don't believe the Sun-Sentinel report that {Lance Armstrong} wore these Oakleys in the Prologue. Here's why:
He wore a radio. We know this because this is what he always does to communicate with {Johan Bruyneel}. We also know that Rudy Pevinage's critique of Jan Ullrich's Prologue performance included the fact that Jan did not wear a radio. This would not have been so widely reported if Lance hadn't either.
If you look closely at the glasses in the Gizmodo/TDFblog photo, and compare them to the photo on Graham Watson's site of Lance actually riding the Prologue, the frames are not the same:
http://grahamwatson.com/gw/imagedocs.nsf/images/04tourPro/$file/11.jpg
Subsequent research indicates revealed that Oakley announced a new integrated eyewear/portable audio player today. The press release says the device will be called Oakley Thump. The sunglasses include 128 Megabyte and 256 Megabyte models, and will be priced at $395 and $495. The product will be initially sold at Circuit City and Oakley O Stores in the 2004 holiday period.
Comparing photographs of Lance Armstrong during the Tour de France Prologue to the Oakley eyewear catalog, it appears that Lance was actually wearing Oakley Zeros. Note that the Thump prototype has a frame piece above the lenses, while the eyewear Lance is wearing in the Prologue are frameless. [ not sure who to credit the photo to, it's been everywhere ]
Update: Frankie Andreu gave the OLN viewers a good look at the Oakley Thump in the Infinity Technology of the Tour segment. If you recorded the July 13th broadcast at 9:30am EDT, look for the segment at about 23 minutes into the program.
Comments
Yeah -- whoever suggested Armstrong wore these in competition is nuts. How would he listen to Johan Bruyneel giving him his time splits if he was listening to the latest by The Wallflowers?
On the other hand, as noted almost everywhere, he was wearing the telltale white earphones of an iPod during the prologue warmup, on a stationary bike.
The shot I ran is pretty clearly on the team bus, and somebody from Oakley probably brought a set in, said, "Check these out", and somebody snapped a picture.
Posted by: Frank | July 13, 2004 1:27 AM
Frank:
I like your work over at TDFblog a lot, BTW.
I think it's interesting that Lance Armstrong is wearing a pair of lenses other than the Oakley Lance Armstrong M Frames in competition. Except that we know from watching "The Lance Chronicles" that the new TT helmet is quite different from the old one, and probably doesn't have the room on the side of his head for the M Frame earpieces.
Posted by: Dave Aiello | July 13, 2004 4:00 AM
there is a better shot of the frames at the oakley website (www.oakley.com). from there, i think it's pretty safe to assume Lance wasn't wearing them at the time trial. Pretty cool idea though - to have music in my shades.
Posted by: Hart M | September 16, 2004 2:32 AM