It seems like goggles are just as personal as are bike saddles. What one person raves about another can't stand.

Over the past few years I tried many goggles and have a basket full of them to prove it. They either leaked, made my eyes feel like they were enduring some sort of medieval torture device, or both. Then I tried the Seal Mask. It had great peripheral vision,didn't leak and I could wear it for a long swim with no problems. The only thing I didn't like was that I think it has a little more drag than conventional goggles. But my body position probably contributed more drag than the goggles so I wore them in training and raced in them for a couple of seasons. I still like them.

Then I tried the Kaimen goggles. They have most of the vision advantages of the Seal Mask. They don't leak, are comfortable for a long swim and offer quite a wide clear field of view. They are more streamlined than the Seal Mask. I use these almost exclusively now and think they're great.

Richard

Rusty:

I too had headache problems with all goggles after more than 30 min straight swimming. Iwent to the seal mask, then back down to the Kaiman's and haven't looked back. I'm still on the first pair, 1.5 seasons in. I'll caveat that by saying that the seal went bad on both sides where the lens meets the gasket, but fixed that with a little shoe-goo poked in there with a toothpick. Doesn't look too great, but works great.

Then last week the bridge of the nose tore in two, much to my dismay. So, I got another pair for $15US from www.trizone.com, but figured that there should be no need to toss the first pair just yet. So, being as cheap as I am, I used some 17lb test fishing line and stitched up the nose bridge. That was two weeks and six swims ago and it's still holding up just fine. Kinda Frankestein-ish but serves me well.

So, durability is pretty good so far and comfort is fantastic. As for drag during racing, I suppose it's higher than the swedish eye-socket goggles, but I'm not threatening Thorpe anytime soon so it doesn't really bother me.

The other post is right that goggles are a highly personal choice, but I'd recommend the Kaimans.

Good luck....Tim

---

"The mind can calculate, but the spirit yearns, and the heart knows what the heart knows."

Tim, Save those old ones, I too had a pair that ripped in the middle, only mine lasted a month. Aquasphere replaced them no charge, no questions asked. They said they did have some problems with that on a few batches of googles. I also had a seal mask that had a bad seal between the lens, it made circular water marks between the lenses. They also replaced those. When I got my Kaimans replaced, I switched to the smaller size, the bigger ones tended to leak on flip turns on the outside of the eye socket. The smaller ones work very well for my face.

I've been using the AquaSphere Kaimans for over 6 months now and, at least for me, they have been the most comfortable and least leak-prone goggles I have ever tried, and I've tried many. But as has already been said, fit is individualized. No two faces will fit identically and no single goggle design will be best for everyone. I consider $40 worth it if my eye sockets don't hurt after each workout and my eyes aren't red from chlorinated pool water leaking in.

I live in missouri and my local super wal-mart sells Kaimans for about half price. NO KIDDING!!!

I work at a specialty store that sells Aquasphere products as well as TYR, Speedo etc. I personally use TYR Velocity googles but I own both a Seal Mask and Kaimans and truthfully don't quite know why I don't use the Kaimans... I just look bad in them I guess. They stay on great, don't suck your eyeballs out, have an amazing field of view and fit almost everyone. That being said there are a couple of drawbacks such as slight distortion around the very edges of the field of view and if you put them on in a rush (ie. run/swim biathlon) sometimes the flexible nosebridge twists all of the way around making them fit just a bit weird. But they are some of the best googles out there and we sell more of them than any other google. Watch out, there are two sizes available and it seems that the easier to find adult version actually is to big for many people where the youth size fits pretty much everyone. And they FINALLY have the youth in normal looking colors instead of the bright orange and green of 02.