Canadian Creations

GetVizy: Created by a Runner’s Quest for Safety

Before GetVizy was created, Uwe Eggers worked as a shift worker in Vancouver. He found himself running in the dark regularly throughout the winter. Each day after work, he headed out on his run with only a ref lective stripe on his jacket and a ref lective logo on his shorts. After a few close calls with cars, he finally decided to go online to buy something that would make him more visible. Yet Eggers found many current products inadequate; that’s when he decided to make one himself.

GetVizy first came into being in July 2018. “After 2.5 months, I had a prototype of the VizyVest and a handful of them made, which I was able to thoroughly test and get feedback from friends, family and other runners. All the feedback was taken into consideration and, in March of 2019, we launched the product,” Eggers says.

The VizyVest is a f lashing led vest with a 160-lumen chest lamp on the front. Unlike many of its counterparts that still use batteries, the VizyVest recharges via usb and is the only one on the market with a chest lamp. The vest is also fully adjustable and offers runners the choice of either six f lashing colours or a single colour. Eggers explains that runners wearing the vest are visible from up to one kilometre away and designed with the Canadian elements in mind.

“The statistics are alarming for pedestrian and cyclist fatalities across Canada,” Eggers says. “The Vancouver Police Department reports on these statistics every year and recommends wearing ref lective gear, so we really encourage everyone who is out in the dark to do as much as possible to be seen on the road.”

The reaction to Eggers’s Canadian-made product has been encouraging. “It’s not really easy to start a business from scratch,” he says. “From run/walk club leaders getting behind our product and promoting it among their members to retailers across Canada stocking and promoting the vest, it’s crazy how much support we’ve gotten from Canadians.”

Eggers’s desire to promote safety in the running community is his main goal for 2020. “We have our eyes set on attending marathons in Vancouver, Ottawa and Victoria. We are really trying to push our message of safety across Canada through marathon expos, working with run clubs, partnering with retailers and utilizing our social media,” he says.