The Good – Choice, Price, Quality, Something for everyone

The Bad – Not much really, being very (very) picky perhaps a slightly thinner chain?

The Ugly – Nada

Despite the  arrival of winter this last week, this is not a post about the cold, or snow or even ice (though given the title you could be forgiven for thinking that). No this is an altogether different kind of ICE……….In Case of Emergency.

Of course the very thought of needing an emergency ID is something that none of us want to think about but in my case I know that every time I head out on the bike alone (or out for a run for that matter) Mrs Rouleur worries, what if he gets hit by a car, or is taken ill, what if he sees a Pro-rider out on the road and gets so star struck he passes out? How will I know? How will people be able to get hold of me?

The answer you are shouting, as you bang your head on your desk, is of course a phone, but I would say perhaps you are mistaken!!

Yes, we all have them, we all use them, we can’t bear to be separated from them, and in the days of Strava we all ride with them so why bother with an Emergency Tag. Well whilst most people (at least I hope its most) will have an ICE contact in their phone and whilst the latest iPhones have an ICE feature on the lock screen, phones, can easily be broken, lose charge, or even be stolen at that coffee stop where you couldn’t resist that 2nd piece of pie.

So what is the answer??? Well thanks for asking, Emergency contact IDs of course.

Emergency contact IDs are something that I have toyed with purchasing for a number of years now but have just never gotten around to buying one and I can honestly say I don’t know why this is; laziness, indifference, more ‘important’ things to buy?

This last one is perhaps getting to the point, I guess I always felt there were more fun things I could purchase than an ID tag, but what a silly thought that is in reality. What is more important than your safety and the ability for emergency services to get hold of your loved ones ASAP (I know we shouldn’t think about this sort of thing really but its better to do as the scouts say and ‘Be prepared’).

In that vain I came across Tagnix,  a family run business that offer a range of emergency ID products including;

• ID bracelets
• Shoe tags
• Bag tags
• Watch tags
• Dog tags (no not for your dog, the kind of thing servicemen and women up and down the country wear).

Fancying myself as cool enough to pull off dog tags (stop that sniggering at the back!) this is the product I went with, and man am I happy with my choice!!

First the nitty gritty, with a price range of £9.95 – £14.95 even the most expensive option is pretty damn cheap (two tags, 2 silencers). In total there are 4 options to chose from with the dog tags, 1 or 2 tags and with or without a ‘silencer’, but its when you start to look at the extra options that you realise how much choice is available.

The Tags themselves come in 9 colours (as you can see I went with red being an LFC fan) and can have up to 6 lines of text engraved, each with a max of 25 characters. On the flip side of the tag is a space for a logo, so you can choose from one of the very many available or you can contact Tagnix direct to see if a custom logo can be created (very, very tempting!!). If you go for a silencer (effectively a silicone band that sits around the tag, keeping the tag/s from knocking together or on other jewllery), the choice continues, a further 10 colours to really nail that custom look!

It gets better though, the Tagnix story itself is a great tale of a small family run business finding a gap in the market and filling it (perfect for us cyclists who love an independent company). Having been disappointed with the choice of styles and colours available when purchasing emergency IDs a husband and wife team set out to create emergency tags that stood out from the crowd and in my opinion they have more than achieved it (the dog tags and silencers alone have 90 colour combinations!)

I have worn these tags on a couple of rides, a few runs, and even left it on throughout the day just to see how it felt wearing it for long periods (after all, us cyclists have a reputation for heading to the hills at every opportunity for long days of riding).

What I can say is that they are nice and lightweight (no need to panic weight weenies) and very comfortable to the point that  I had forgotten I was wearing them. My only sight complaint (and it is slight) is that I would have preferred a thinner chain, but then I am very fussy (just ask Mrs Rouleur).

To sum up, this was never meant as a lecture or scare article just food for thought, but with Christmas coming and a space to fill in that stocking why not head over to Tagnix and get a little piece of mind, I know I will certainly be adding the shoe tags to my christmas list.

9/10