I'm exploring more of a commuting lifestyle and had a thought on dealing with eyeglasses (which I have to wear) in the rain. There are any number of 'clip-on/flip-up' sunglasses. If I could find a (possibly oversized) pair of those that only flipped up to 90 degrees, that might make really good rain protection for eyeglasses.

Has anyone tried such a thing? There are many models out there, but it is hard to tell from the marketing literature how 'high up' they flip.

Thanks.

dave

I've found fog to be a hassle with glasses but never really had a problem with rain. With wind and spray from cars your glasses are going to get wet regardless of any covers you provide. I wouldn't worry about rain on your glasses.

I too wear necessary prescription eyeglasses, and find that a billed baseball cap under the helmet works nicely as a "canopy." A pair of wide industrial safety glasses, as from Home Depot, also works well to keep the eyeglasses dry, and the safety glasses can be easily wiped with a finger.

Jim, what is it about safety glasses that makes them 'easily wiped with a finger' vs. just doing that with you eyeglasses?

Thanks.

dave

ps. I suppose another option is a sunvisor.

I've been riding bikes and motorcycles as my primary transportation my whole life, here in the PNW that means riding in the rain a lot. I have found its often a choice between fog or rain on ones glasses as anything that protects glasses from rain restricts air flow and causes fogging. If you don't have hills or a lot of stops, a hat or helmet with a low visor works well for shorter distances depending on the amount of road spray from passing vehicles.

The safety glasses ride in front of the prescription glasses, and when they get wet I just wipe them with the finger. The prescription glasses are necessary for vision correction. so I think it's more important to keep them dry and clear (as possible), whereas you can still see pretty well through the clear plastic safety glasses until they accumulate too many raindrops.

Now if you decide to take up winter commuting, fogging becomes an even more dangerous hazard, for which I also use such safety glasses as a windscreen.

PS: Though as mentioned above, in the "nice" weather, greater than about about 35-40 degrees F, I just wear the baseball cap, and finger wipe the eyeglasses as needed.

Cycling cap and an occasional wipe with the back side of my gloves works

Visor on a mountain bike helmet does pretty well shielding the specs in light rain. In heavy rain, periodic wipes help, in a downpour, fuggedaboutit.

I just wipe my glasses off as best I can with a glove as I ride. That's about all you can do.

If only there were a brimmed cap designed for cycling.

For me clip-on sunglasses (if they are effective for this case) would be far more convenient. I just don't like hats (whether under a helmet or not). But clip-on sunglasses could be an 'always there - I don't care' item on my rides.

dave

If someone came up with a good solution to this problem it would rank alongside pneumatic tires in the annals of bike riding innovation.

My eyesight is tolerable enough that I usually just take off my glasses when they start accumulating water. Like gregf83 said, fog is the worst.

I've thought about trying to attach a squeegee-like rubber strip to a bike glove, but that wouldn't really fix the problem with fogging inside the lenses.

I did a calculation once to figure out how fast you could ride and still have a visor keep your lenses mostly dry. As I recall the answer was something like "not very fast". It depends heavily on the nature of the rain. Large drops such as you find in a heavy rain fall pretty fast, so a visor is actually helpful in that case. The kind of light, misty rain we usually get around here falls much more slowly and you end up riding into it. Of course, fog is more or less just an extrapolation of this where the drops are so light they stay suspended in the air.

If you're thinking now that I'm a complete nerd, you're right. If you're thinking that you want to see some formulas, check this out (not my work, but surprisingly on topic): https://pentagon.kappamuepsilon.org/p..._Fall_1989.pdf

I guess we can take a lesson from thoroughbred racing. On a muddy or sloppy track the jockeys will wear up to 9 or 10 pair of glasses. As the outside pair gets muddy they just slip that pair off/down around their neck. Continue and hope that you run out of track before you run out of glasses :-)

dave

I've got to try that in a cyclocross race!

Try Rain-X on the glasses. May harm any fancy coatings, I'm not sure.

Yeah, baseball cap under the helmet works great!

This is a pretty extreme solution, but it's what I've started doing: I got a prescription of daily wear contacts. I only wear them on days it rains and only from home to the office where I stick them in a little case until it is time to put them back in to go back home at the end of the day. I know, I know. It's a ridiculously complicated solution to a fairly simple problem, but the problem was driving me nuts! I'll probably do the same in winter when the fogging up issue reasserts itself.

I use a $1 foam visor that I got at Walmart some years ago. I use it every ride and it is great. You can make your own with whatever thickness foam you want and cut it to whatever length bill you want.

Agree with a billed cap under the helmet. I haven't tried a baseball cap, but have used, successfully, a cycling cap under the helmet with the short visor pulled low over my eyes. My glasses stayed amazingly, but not completely, rain drop free on yesterday's commute. The commute is about 30 minutes long and the rain was a medium rainfall. I was soaking wet when I got to the bus stop, but at least I could see! Yea, soaking wet. My rain pants and rain jacket were with me - in a pannier, but with temps in the low 70's, I opted to enjoy the cooling rain rather than putting on the sweat-holding rain clothing. If the temperature had been colder, I would have worn the gear, but in the 70's? Let it rain!

I use cheap plastic biking glasses for all commuting. Rub some rainx or similar and that is about as good as it will get. The finger swipe also works but overall vision gets affected in rain regardless so generally just ride and let bead off.

About $10 for one of these. Helps a lot. I always have at least one cotton cycling cap in rotation. Fogging is still the biggest issue, but seldom a problem for me on commutes, which aren't all that long. Of course, I have the option of forgoing the glasses altogether, I just wear sunglasses to protect my eyes from the sun, rain and random debris.

lasik

Grundens https://www.fishermansheadquarters.co...1_hat-100w.jpg

^ This.

This is a permanent solution to the problem ...