so instead of their fastest roadie lid and their full on TT lid, you only got their lower tier roadie helmet in a colour you didnt even request. Yep, id be dark about that too

About 4 years ago Oakley was bought by Luxotica. Lux owns the majority of sunglass brands and stores. They stopped Oakleys production of sunglasses in California and moved most of the production to China. Costs went down but prices stayed the same or went up. Some of the things Oakley makes are made in France but whatever.

I stopped purchasing any Oakley item when this happened. I am not surprised that they have had issues with this helmet. Lux ruined Oakley.

I can easily buy a white Aro7 online in the UK so you are just getting tossed around with excuses.

Oakley clearly bears part of the blame but the WTC is also culpable here. The WTC could easily force Oakley to provide what they promised. At a minimum the WTC could buy the helmets you requested to fulfil their end of the barging and burn Oakley in another manner. One bad mass email from the WTC calling out Oakley would cost Oakley a hell of a lot more than a couple of helmets. The response you got from the WTC is just cheap lip service and its total BS 'they can not do anything else.' At the end of the day you are a small fish and neither Oakley or WTC consider it worth their time to fulfil the commitments they made.

Hello sgy and All,

https://www.bikebiz.com/features/foakleys

Excerpt:

"Determining if they are real or counterfeit can be difficult," admits Oakley on an official FAQ. Indeed, purchasers of fake Oakleys have found that the lenses and other parts are interchangeable with genuine Oakleys.

An often seen claim online is that the fakes fry eyes because, unlike expensive and genuine Oakleys, they let through ultra-violet radiation. This is not true. Fake Oaks have been lab-tested and found to block UV-A and UV-B."

---

Cheers, Neal

+1 mph Faster

Completely true and not much I can do about it apart from sharing the story. We'll see if there is any follow up at all...
Sam

Super lame. I was in one of their stores recently and they had the ARO7 on the shelf.

While interesting, I thought oakley's main selling point was the impact protection over cheap lenses. I have had cheap lenses shatter by sitting on them and i've also had smiths and oakleys get crushed by many larger things than my ass and still be fine. I think the expensive brands ensure military grade impact protection. Perhaps not a huge consideration for cyclists where in a crash your eyes are not on the top of the list of concerns.

---

808 > NYC > PDX > YVR
2024 Races: Taupo

In the day and age of the internet I don't understand how companies can rationalize this decision. 'Instead of 2 high end helmets we're going to give them 1 of our lower end helmets.' People will talk about this online, and your business will not look good. If there truly are production issues and no AR05 or AR07 helmets exist I'm sure plenty of the winners would be happy with a couple pairs of sunglasses, and for the ones who still aren't happy at least you tried. Make an effort to make it right Oakley!

I can’t speak for the white ARO7 but I received my black ARO7 two weeks ago. I’d also wager black is a far more popular color. I too am calling BS on production delays.

---

Favorite Gear: Dimond | Cadex | Desoto Sport | Hoka One One

That is super sad. :-(

I can buy an ARO7 in stock from Oakley right now. I have a feeling this is an Ironman issue not an Oakley one.

I tried on the AR05 yesterday and was totally unimpressed. It appeared bulky and wide sitting on the head, and wasn't 'form fitting' at all. I thought I was missing out on something, but not at all, so don't sweat it too much ;)

(terrible service though, regardless)

Wiggle had the ARO7 on sale for 50% off last week (Canadian $$ in the pic).....a lot of places had Oakley on sale, maybe for holiday weekend?

Wow, that's a shame. I would put them both on blast on every channel possible. On the Oakley/IM Facebook pages, twitter, forums, etc... If they were holding orders until paying customer orders are filled it would be one thing but to promise a product and then deliver a lower quality one, or not even deliver at all, is absolutely unacceptable.

I would first respond to ironman with “you CAN do something about it. You can purchase and send me the 2 helmets promised”. If unresolved, post on Oakley and ironman Facebook and twitter pages.

Yeah it’s definitely an excuse from Ironman. There is no universe they didn’t sign a contract about the promotion that Oakley had to deliver on.

I was looking and couldn’t find the terms and conditions on the promotion though which is kinda odd. The only thing I saw was that you also had to complete the race.

I opened a ticket with Ironman athlete services so we'll see if there comes a response.
I am not going to make a big fuss about this since it is not worth that much energy but in the end we are all customers spending lots of money on WTC events and premium brands so we must remain critical and vocal about inferior service and unfair treatment. This covers quality of events, quality of products, fair competition, clean competition etc.
As I said before, I am super happy with my Rudy Project helmets and glasses and their outstanding service and support for over 7 years now.
I was going to make somebody else very happy with this prize as I always do with items I get from races. So in the end, I still hope WTC and/or Oakley step up...
Sam

Little update: I messaged both Oakley and opened a ticket at WTC athlete services and the WTC people responded positively:
"Good afternoon. I wanted to let you know that I have good news. Oakley will be shipping the AR07 helmets within the next two weeks. ..."
I don't know if there is sth going on internally between WTC and Oakley but at least WTC communicates and finally comes up with a solution.
Also noteworthy: Oakley isn't listed on the IMWC page anymore as a sponsor/partner. They used to be up there.
In the meantime I heard from a few other sources that Luxottica owning Oakley is not a huge success...
Sam

I believe Luxottica has owned Oakley in part or outright for the good part of a decade. I think things are fine there... at least as far as things have been before they came out with bike helmets and clothing.