Road Tested: Yurbuds

The nice people at Yurbuds.com offered to send me free Yurbuds in exchange for a review. In fact, they offered to send me two. I gave the freebie code to a friend who spends enormous amounts of time with earbuds jammed into her ears. She says she’s using them, so I’m guessing they’ve worked out. She’s also a runner, although I don’t know if she’s tried running with them or not.

What are Yurbuds? They are in-ear headphones (“earbuds”) which include rubberized covers that are designed to hold the earbuds in place. The Yurbuds people send you earbuds to go with the rubberized covers, but you can remove those and slip them over your favorite earbuds easily enough.

I’ve worn them twice so far. First for my epic bike workout and then again today on a run. In both cases, they did the job — they stayed in place despite jostling. You have to put them in a certain way, though. You sort of jam them into your ear canals, then twist the headphones so the cords are at a 45 degree angle, pointing toward your chin. Maybe they’d get slippery when very wet, but I doubt it. I like to think they might offer some measure of water resistance if I got caught out in the rain.

I would describe these as “semi-customized.” While they are not molded to your particular ears, the company does make an attempt to send you the appropriate size. They do this by having you take a picture of your own ear (just one will do), send it to them, and they pick your size and send you a pair. I am a 5, the smallest size. I guess I have tiny ears.

I can’t see these things wearing out and I figure that when my current earbuds eventually die, I can just move the Yurbuds to the next set. After the Pearl Izumi XC shoes, the Yurbuds are the best blogger freebie I’ve received yet.