Bad light, cycling glasses and lenses

RayKinsella

Folks,

I was on a bike ride yesterday. The sun was pretty strong over the top of the trees, and was blinding me over the top of my glasses (with reactor lenses). The road itself was well shaded by the trees, and ... I am a little bit photo-sensitive. With all these factors - I could not see the road, and hit a number of wide, deep, successive potholes. I did well not to come off the bike. Thankfully because of the conditions I was going slowly enough.

In my car, I use "Ray Ban G15 lens" in my glasses specifically as they provide great contrast in bad lighting. These are a great solution for the car. Can people give me any prescription cycling glasses recommendations - something similar, specifically something that is good to provide contrast?

Ray K

MidlandsGrimpeur2

The best thing is to find an optician that offers prescription lenses and try a few out, everyone has different preferences and certain lens shades will work well for different people.

Not sure how many companies offer a prescription lens these days, Oakley and Rudy project are the two main brands that spring to mind, but the oakley range in prescription lenses is limited

pblakeney

I use Serengeti but they don't come cheap.
I justified the cost as I wear them all the time for cycling, driving, and everyday sunny days.

sungod

with the sun still low this time of year, a cap can be a good option to help keep the sun out of your eyes

for instance...
https://www.google.com/search?q=castelli+cycling+cap&oq=castelli+cap

froze

First off, you shouldn't be wearing sunglasses made of glass while riding a bike, if you have some sort of crash that hits the lenses of your G15's you could damage your eyes badly from flying glass, that's why cycling sunglasses are made of plastic.

Unless you like to spend a lot of money on stuff like sunglasses, you don't need to, Tifosi brand makes very good sunglasses for not a whole lot of money, and replacement lenses are cheap to buy, plus most of their glasses you can get replacement nose pads, and even the frame.

neeb

IME if you can't see because of very contrasty lighting (e.g. low sun in winter shining straight at you but the road surface itself in shade), there's not much that any sort of lens can do about it. The contrast in light will remain however you filter it. If you put on dark sunglasses you might reduce the glare, but you will also reduce the light coming from the unlit areas you want to see. If you don't wear glasses or wear clear ones, your eyes will adapt to the glare or you'll squint in a way that has much the same result.

The sort of situation I find lenses offering extra contrast or polarising filters are useful is when there's reflection from the road surface (e.g. bright sunlight after rain).

Just like in the car, when the sun is shining straight at you the best thing is to block out the glare, which in the car you do with the fold-down visor. I'm not a cap person but can see that the same might apply with a cap brim.

pblakeney

neeb said:

IME if you can't see because of very contrasty lighting (e.g. low sun in winter shining straight at you but the road surface itself in shade), there's not much that any sort of lens can do about it....

My experience is different. I became aware of this when I lost my first Serengeti's. No other glasses (I tried) came close in comparison. Cheap lenses definitely make it worse.
Just my experience and opinion, no factual evidence.