How we make reviews and recommendations

I have spent my fair share of time looking for online advice when I go to purchase new gear. I have been a biker for a long time. It amazes me how so many websites out there are giving advice on e-bikes and biking gear when it’s clear the author has never ridden an e-bike before. We can’t touch every piece of gear out there (we wish we could). We use our knowledge and comparisons to what we have tried and reviewed to make judgments on gear we haven’t had a chance to try. We never just randomly take the top 10 most popular items on Amazon and call that our top 10 list. A lot of gear sites follow that exact method.

We only promote brands we’ve tried

We only promote items from brands that we have some hands on experience with. If we’ve never seen or used an item from a particular brand we won’t promote it here. We don’t believe in promoting junk just to make a quick buck.

In-Depth

We like to try items out and test our manufacturer’s claims. If a vendor says a paddleboard will work with a 350 lbs paddler, we’ve got a 6’5″ 330 lb tester who is ready to put that claim to the test. We try out ski goggles on sunny days as well as flat foggy can’t see anything kind of days.

We will try out cheap and expensive items.

Nothing is too cheap for us to try out. We’ll try out a set of $20 generic Amazon sunglasses right next to a set of $2000 paddleboard. There is a lot of junk available on Amazon but there is some really good stuff too. It is challenging to tell what is good and bad just from reading the Amazon buyer ratings and feedback.

Lots of images so you can see everything

We want to give you enough pictures to see the details of every part of an item. We want you to feel like you saw the item and got to play with it in person yourself by the time you’re done reading. If there is something you want to see that we didn’t capture, feel free to send us a note and we’ll take a picture for you if we still have the item.

Ratings for important performance measurements

We only like to review and rate items for activities we actually do. We understand how equipment gets used and what will work well and what won’t. For ski goggles things such as anti-fog performance and flat light performance are really important. For paddleboards, stability and ease of transport matter.

We purchase items and accept items from vendors

We do a mix here. We accept items for review from vendors and we go out and buy things ourselves. It lets us review more gear for our readers. We’ll give the good and bad of all our review items. Nothing ever gets a glowing perfect review unless it’s something that we really do love that much.

What do we do with products we won’t recommend?

We have gotten several items from vendors that we felt were poor values or just didn’t function correctly. A few items have broken and stopped working after just a couple of uses. If the item was provided by a vendor, we share feedback with them and then decide whether or not to publish our findings.

Can I get my item reviewed on your website?

It’s possible. Send us a note at info@greatlakesbikeskiboat.com and we’ll talk about it. It has to be something we’re knowledgeable about.