They are kind of my signature now. My neon orange Ryders Hijacks. I’ve had them for about 3 years, and wear them, well, most of the time.

The orange sunglasses, before the nose-piece disintegrated…

The only problem was they were starting to wear out. The orange was fading, the nose piece was disintegrating and my contact at Ryders said they didn’t have any in stock…I was not to be dissuaded by any of this, and kept wearing them all the while looking for some store, any store, that dealt with Ryders that still had a pair. Alas, from Campbell River to North Vancouver not a single pair of orange Hijack frames were to be found.

The orange sunglasses on their way to the Hapush Bowl.

Oh, I found Hijack frames – but none of the other colours were really all that inspiring. I even looked at orange frames from other companies…but again, nothing inspiring. To throw salt in the wound, there’s this “other guy” in the Comox Valley, also a mountain  biker, who somehow found a pair of ORANGE HIJACKS!!! My girlfriend, bless her heart, even talked him up once to see if he would sell them. No dice. What was I to do?

Enter my contact at Ryders, Monica. Somewhat out of the blue, she contacts me to let me know they are having a sale, and have some great deal on discontinued frames. To my astonishment, she tells me she saw some ORANGE HIJACKS in the discount bin!

I actually panicked.

I think I had heart palpitations!

ORANGE SUNGLASSES!!!!

I scrambled to make it happen. To connect with Monica and place an order. And today – like magic – they arrived!

 

 1, 2, 3 – 3 pairs of orange sunglasses! Ha ha ha ha ha!

That’s right kids, I ordered three pairs of them. I expect to be wearing orange sunglasses for at least the next 15 years.

Now to stock up on lenses…