Advocacy & Safety - Cycling while wearing glasses

I need some help. This winter ( Dec) I just got a pair of eyeglasses, and I have never riiden with eyeglasses before, the glasses were pretty costly so I want to be careful while riding, is there anything I can do to protect the lenses against damage while I am riding? I wear a helmet as well so will there be any problems wearing the helmet with the glasses. Thanks for all of your help!!! :o

There is no problem cycling or wearing a helmet with glasses.
My current set are made of that bendy metal by Flexon, which is just about impossible to damage.
You need plastic lenses for safety, and an anti-relection coating is useful at night.
The lens shape is important. You need to be able to see through the lens when you are in a head-down position. Most fashion specs are too low and narrow for this.
I find that dirty lenses are a real problem at night, or into the sun, so Im careful to keep them clean. I never just rub the lens, this will grind any dust and casue micro-scratches.I wash them under a running tap with a pinch of detergent, then dab dry.

Thanks Michael, I have platic lenses as well, also anti-reflection coating. The shape of my lenses is round. My lenses tend to get quite dirty at night, and I don't want to have to stop and clean every 30 minutes while I am out riding. I love having clean glasses, and it is probably more important now that I will be wearing them while I am riding, I also tend to do most of my riding in the evening before the sun sets, and also when it is dark.

I have needed spectacles since before I began cycling. On two occasions, accident-triggered breakage of plastic frames lacerated my face; now I, too, wear flexy-metal frames with plastic lenses. The only problem I have is that the lenses can fog up in moist weather, forcing me to stop and wipe them off.

I need some help. This winter ( Dec) I just got a pair of eyeglasses, and I have never riiden with eyeglasses before, the glasses were pretty costly so I want to be careful while riding, is there anything I can do to protect the lenses against damage while I am riding? I wear a helmet as well so will there be any problems wearing the helmet with the glasses. Thanks for all of your help!!! :o

I've been wearing glasses my entire adult life and I have never done anything special for cycling except for attaching a neckband (Croakie or equivalent) to the earpieces to keep them in place when I'm sweating.

For cycling, you might consider safety glasses. They have slightly thicker lenses and sturdier frames, but will provide excellent protection from debris.

You might find that slightly dirty glasses won't bother you so much after you've worn them for a few years.

The greatest danger to my glasses is my habbit of setting them down on the floor when I take a nap. If the phone rings, and I jump up to answere it, there's a chance that I'll step on them.

I think the best thing for glasses wearers is to purchase a pair of regular cycling shades with interchangable shades and get prescription inserts for them. Years ago when I used to wear normal glasses, I used to get teary eyed on down hill descents and became a safety issue. Cycling glasses will prevent this. Your regular eyeglass frame will receive more harm simply from your perspiration during cycling.

George

I always wear glasses though I don't need correction to see at distance. I used to use a neck band, but don't anymore. Went over the handle bar once on my ATB and the glasses stayed in place even sans neckband. I've read that your glasses should go over the helmet strap. That doesn't work for me. I have to have the glasses under the strap to feel comfortable. Holds them on too.

Al

I wear perscription glasses as well. However, I don't wear them when I am on the bike. I wear cycling shades when I'm on the bike. My eyes water real bad from the wind. I am going to talk with my eye doctor about contact lenses this year.

i have pretty bad vision and have been wearing glasses since the fourth grade

fortunately ... the new high density plastic lenses means i have pretty thin regular glasses

for cycling i prefer to wear a wrap around style to protect against wind ... and they must be polarized sun glasses as well

unfortunately you can not have a curved style perscription lens and not get terrible distortion (at least with my degree of correction)

bolle makes several pairs (parole is mine) that you can put a perscription insert behind the shades

cant tell if i put in the dark lenses

pretty goofy looking with the bronze or rose lenses


its another option for you

get contacts, where biking glasses to keep the contacts from drying out in the wind.

Thanks everyone. I tried to reply yesterday, but the site was so slow loading that I gave up. Without my glasses I can still see almost 90%. I have slight astigmatism, so my lenses are really thin. I will try some of the suggestions outlined by the members here.

go to sportsoptical.com and get the ekynox mask frame and then have the Rx lenses made for them.. it's only like $260 all together for me... and i have 2/200 in the right eye and 20/400 in the left... and that was a couple years ago... need to go again before my insurance goes up again. :(

Thx Merton, I may have to try that !!!!

this is a little cheaper than $260 and you can just use the glasses you have right now.

http://www.sunglassesgiant.com/cosu.html

Thx Merton, I may have to try that !!!!

it's what i hope to do.. i have tiny lenses now :(

for me contacts were best. You don't have to worry about breaking your glasses! I'm seriously thinking about saving up to get my eyes lasered, though.

I've worn prescription eyeglasses since I was 5 yrs old. I'm 32 now. Since I've been cycling seriously, (about 12 years now), I've learned what the best type of glasses are for me. Now this has changed over the past 12 years. Mainly because eye wear technology has changed.

I've always had a safety rated plastic lenses. For the most part I've had the scratch resistant coating & the transitions lenses as well.

Currently I have what are called Crizal lenses. Talk about a durable type of lense. They work great both on & off the bike. They are both scratch resistant & transitions, plus they reduce glare from just about every kind of light source, especially artificial light.

I have also worn contact lenses. Decided glasses are easier to maintain and better on my eyes.

I know people who have the inserts in a pair of sunglasses. They claim they work well. The only problem is when they go into a dark building like a bar, (my club's rides always stop at a bar), it is sometimes harder to see if the person does not have their regular glasses with them to switch to. Most often they don't.

As far as the laser surgery is concerned. One thing you need to ask the specialist who is performing the surgery is how much better will I see with the surgery compared to corrective eye wear. I've been told several times I'm a good candidate for the surgery but after I asked if I will see as good or better afterwards and was told no I elected not to have it done. So be careful, ask questions & get more then 2 opinions.

My vision is actually better then 20/20 with corrective lense then if I did not need glasses. Why would I want to give that up? I will never have the surgery unless my vision can be equal to what it is now with my glasses. Right no one can make that happen, no matter how good the technology is or the person using it.

The stated success level for laser eye surgery is overstated, and the side-effects, where they occur, can be bad, such as flare (similar to scrached/dirty glasses at night).

The problem of air turbulance blowing into your eyes can be serious.Some types of std glasses are better than others. Maybe Ill take a hair dryer on my next visit to the opticians to test this.

what do them crizol lenses cost? i would love to have some in an ekynox mask... maybe by the end of the summer! ooooohhhh it will be so nice! no more of these damned ear peices diggin into my head! elastic straps all the way baby! :D

I've worn glasses since i was five. I had a brief affair with contacts in the 80's but didn't find them worth the fuss. Considering I have worn glasses for most of my life, i really don't pay them any attention. THere are only a couple times where they cause problems on the bike.

Sweat...REally not that big of a deal if you have them adjusted correctly.

Fog...Pretty much sucks if they get heavily fogged. In the winter when it is really cold i pull them off of my face and stick them in my pocket until i get home. I have pretty good vision in one eye so i figure being able to see less than 20/20 is better than not being able to see at all.

My wife has worn contacts for years. She spends far more time screwing around with a messed up contact than i ever do with my glasses. My last pair, i just went ahead and bought some with the transitions lenses so i could have some sun protection.

Having multiple pairs of glasses or clips is nothing but one more thing to have to look for when you can't find it. And believe me you will lose them.

not if they stay on yer head... i've never lost my glasses.. and i'm legally blind. *confused*

I've worn glasses since about age three (over 40 years), and have never considered special glasses for cycling (except, perhaps, over-the-glasses goggles such as ski goggles for winter cycling). I've always liked the protection of glasses in front of my eyes, so I've never wanted contacts. You'd probably feel differently about this, though, since you're relatively new to glasses.

I had glare-coated lenses for a while, but I found that the glare coating was too susceptible to damage, and seemed to do little to reduce glare. My current glasses are safety rated plastic, with UV filtering and scratch resistance, but no glare reducer.

This time around, I also got a Flexon frame, as described above. I can't say enough about how amazing this frame is. I had a Georgio Armani frame before this, and even though I had it for many years (two prescription changes), it eventually broke, probably as a result of a long-standing weakness from a bike crash several years earlier, which bent them pretty severly. My Flexon frame, in a similar crash, would simply flex and flex back to its original shape.

I'm as blind as a bat. Been wearing glasses since the 3rd Grade. I need bifocals to boot. Got a pair of fancy bikin' glasses with the perscription inserts....hate 'em. I just buy sensible shaped glasses, anti-glare coating, anti-scratch coating, clean 'em befor each ride, put on my sun clips (glasses came with this nifty little magnetic sun clip), and go. The ones I'm wearing now are about 4 years old, so time for new ones.