Random Oddities
Product Evaluations That Fell Through The Cracks
Text and Photography by Kevin Shaw

People give me a hard time when I tell them about the various manufacturers who provide me and my staff sample products to test out. Recently, GoPro Cameras sent Personal Watercraft Illustrated and its parent news magazine, Cycle News, a handful of the company's latest rough-and-tumble portable cameras, the Motorsports HERO. Not only that, but GoPro saw fit to include a bevy of other mounting harnesses including a helmet mount, chest harness mount, headband mount and handlebar mount.

We've used and enjoyed the GoPro cameras before and plan on using whatever footage we glean from these new cameras to update our website throughout the year. The GoPros are sturdy, rugged, and are amazingly able to record crisp film footage while being beaten up on open ocean or while mounted to the hull of a freerider's ski. It's really impressive stuff. I personally plan on attaching one to the suspended deck of the new Sea-Doo RXT iS 255 during this July's LB2CAT race.

But, sometimes, the things I get from companies across the globe just don't make the grade. Other times, the product is not exactly suited for our reading audience and wouldn't really fit in Personal Watercraft Illustrated. Most notably of these items were a duo of direct-application deodorant-type sticks, "Pain Zone" and "Chafe Zone." Remember those "Head-On; Apply Directly to the forehead advertisements?" Yeah, it's sort of like that....

-- This is just an excerpt. For Kevin's full editorial, just click here to visit the Watercraft Editorial Forums and get the full story and photos.