Julbo is a french, privately owned company, which was founded exactly 100 years before I was born. Since the very beginning they are on the edge of technological development regarding enhanced vision for eyes through good sun protection. This post is part of the stuff – some stories series.

“Cristalliers” sunglasses designed by Jules Baud in 1888

The company offers different specialized products for different environments. The range goes from goggles and sunglasses for alpinists to sunglasses for sailing and kite-surfing to mountain-biking and trail-running. In every sport there are special needs. Since a couple of years they also offer a optical range for correction glasses and sunglasses for citylife.

The most sold product of the company is the really cute “Looping” sunglass for little kids.

As young kids and babies don’t know which side is up, both sides are exactly the same.

Especially at high altitude the intensity of light is a lot stronger, and one needs special protection for the eyes. From the age from 10 to 12 I was skiing a lot without goggles or sunglasses. Since then, I am a bit sensitive and learned, that I always have to wear sunglasses or goggles.

Back to the initial reason for the post: Teammeeting at the Julbo Showroom in Salzburg for Austrian and German riders. It was great fun to meet the other team athletes, some of them I knew already from competitions. Teammeetings are a great opportunity for a company to present new innovations, but also to really build a Team, to make people working together.

Nicolas, the product Manager of the Winter Goggle collection gave us a precise description of all the technical details which create a high quality lens and frame.  Most interesting for me: The material the “first glass” goggle range glasses are made of is NXT. NXT was developed in the 90ies from the military to create a bullet proof eye protection.

That’s me, wearing the “Universe” Model…very wide field of vision

I’m not sure, if the lenses are bullet proof, but I know it’s nearly impossible to scratch them from the outside. I hit multiple twigs during tree runs with my test goggles and I kept wondering, that I can simply ‘wipe’ the ‘scratch’ off.

Another interesting detail: The photochromatic reaction is built INTO the lens, so no way one can scratch it off, and Julbo has the fastest reacting photochromatic lenses on the market. Especially on the mountain one has multiple different light situations during one day of riding, it’s nice when one doesn’t have to fiddle around with changing lenses.

They are also really trying to design a wide field of vision with super thin frames.

Craziest new invention is probable the Aerospace: The glass lifts off a bit, so one has an enhanced airflow while hiking up, which prevents inside fog.

After the technical and organizational introductions, we went for lunch and later on hit the showroom again to make our choices and fill out the ordering forms.

I’m not really good in decision making, but eventually I did it, and even found a new frame for my prescription glasses, which is a good thing, cause my old ones are held together by super glue.

As one can probably hear from my writing: I’m pretty excited. I like the spirit the company spreads, I enjoyed the passion which they put in developing technical details and chemical reactions and another important thing: the Julbo people are really nice.