Fifty Plus (50+) - computers and the law of unintended consequences

In a previous post some trouble was noted with polarized sunglasses and some computer displays. Since I had planned a light "play around" ride for today I decided to undertake some research. It turns out that you don't need to ride to check this out but any excuse to go for a ride is a good excuse.

I have brand new clip on polorized sungalssis to go over the top of my regular glasses that are the self tinting "transitions" Somewhat overkill but they came free and I plan to use them in the fall and for right now when there are no leaves on the trees (sorry California Dwellers, I will attempt to send pictures to explain) and the sunlight/shadow bars when the sun is low in the sky are a pain.

Low and behold, 6 different computer displays are almost invisable from certain angles and have morie patterns and looked burnt from others. Polorized glasses off, gone, ok to read.

I went about trying to establixh a mounting angle that would work. My old trick of mounting the display on the bar with the front slightly down from horizontal appeared to help for some ie My Cateye Strada is ok with this method but my high end Cateye double wireless can't be read at all. Appairently the lens over all of these displays is already polorized and the interaction of the two polorized lenses is bad (didn't we all play this game in school). There is no way to know if the manufacturer is consistant with the lens so what works for one display may not work for another on the same type of computer.

I plan on using the polorized glasses as necessary and mr. computer will just have to go along for the ride on those days.

Can anyone test the Garmin 305 for this. I'm certainly not going to spend the money if I can't read it.

Rats.........

Did the transition lens function properly under the clip ons?

I tried this years ago when the old style transition lenses were popular and the clip ons filtered out enough light to keep the transitions from getting darker.

Interesting about the displays being hard to read with polarized lenses. My riding sunglasses aren't polarized and I haven't had this problem.

My Garmin Forerunner 301 works fine w/ polarized sunglasses,
as does my VDO wireless (are the others wirefull?) computer.
I don't know how LCDs are made but I believe that they do
polarize the light thru them. The manufacturers all know the
polarizing angle in our sunglasses and can make their products
compatible. The marine instrument industry knows that they
can't sell anything if people w/ polarized glasses couldn't read
them.

BTW, I couldn't read my instruments w/o bifocals. Hope you
haven't overlooked the focus (or lack of focus) issue.

The transitions work. I cannot say if they work fully though. I'll have to figure out how to check that on a ride. (I fear that it may be like checking out the fridge light) I can see myself whipping off the sunglasses to see if the transitions are working only to have them start working.

I am as surprised as you about the lenses and the polorized glasses. If I had not gotten the new ones for free I suppose that I would have just gone on riding without noticing. This is going to require testing in the future before buying more computers. Since I usually buy for about half price on Ebay or in closeout sales this will be a challenge.

The trifocals which have replaced the progressives are both good and bad. They have relieved neck pain by letting me keep my head down while peaking out the top of the lenses but the computer is somewhat fuzzy. The tri section seems to be useless and I will change back to regualr bifocals.

I've been riding and walking at work with Polarized Clipons made for the glasses and Transistion lenses. I do notice that while I am walking the Transistions will also darken up a bit. Of course this is a noon time walk and the sun is right above me at that point.

When I rede, I wear an MTB helmet with a Visor on it and this seems to block some of the sun and my glasses do not darken as much.

My older Cayeye computer goes dark on me with the clip on's on. My glasses are small enough that I can just look underneath them to see the computer fine. Thank goodness the numbers are big enough for me to read! LOL!

Chris

No offense, but the real Mad Max would not be caught dead wearing clip-on sunglasses.

I couldn't wear his tight leather pants either.

One of my first discoveries when I started riding was that my prized polarized Costa del Mar fishing sunglasses didn't work for squat for viewing a bicycle computer. I still wear the Costa del Mars for fishing, but neither of my two pairs of riding sunglasses are polarized.