So I wear glasses. Without them, my life is a blurry mess. Unfortunately, when biking in the rain, they get foggy and the droplets of rain make them very hard to see through, which is again a blurry mess. Any bespectacled bikers bearing good advice?

put the visor back on your helmet if it's off.
wear a baseball cap.
few drops of rain-x (for your windshield).

My visor never seemed to do much, so I just put on a baseball cap on and readjusted my helmet to fit over it. Even the cap isn't perfect, so I may try a cycling cap instead.

I've actually never had a problem with my glasses fogging up.

I haven't tried it yet, but I'm going to order one of these next time I order stuff:
https://www.nashbar.com/nashbar_photos/medium/LG-WS.gif
Louis Garneau wind screen-velcro's to your helmet.

Personally I just wipe the front of my glasses with the terry on the thumb of my gloves. Might scratch though. My glasses have a Crizal coating so they pretty much don't scratch. If it's raining heavily I do have to wipe the backs occasionally; a pass of my finger usually does it. Maybe a visor'd helmet would help there. My next helmet will have a visor.

Cycling cap helps a lot in lighter rain. In heavy rain / downpour, there's not much you can do other than wipe 'em off with your fingers.

Get smaller glasses that won't trap as much moisture from your face, to reduce fogging. Or I guess you could try some of that anti-fogging stuff they sell for ski goggles.

Try a visor to keep the rain off. I'm not sure if rain-X will work. It will probably destroy any anti-glare coating your glasses may have.

CAT CRAP!!!!

sorry just love the name of that stuff.

"uhh, do you sell, uhhh; cat crap???"

Cycling cap solved the rain-in-the-eyes problem for me. No problem wearing a helmet over that (and a hood in heavy downpour)

A visor or a cycle cap make a huge difference but road spray and fog arre still a problem. If you come up with a good solution let me know.
Craig

I had one of these and didn't care for it. It didn't quite clear my glasses despite having very small rims, and they were very hot which caused fog. Plus the water on the shield was almost as bad as water on the glasses. The icebike website talks about Visorgogs as a similar solution. I still think these are only a solution for very cold weather to prevent tearing and would not be much help in warmer rains.
Craig

The best solution is laser surgery so you don't need glasses. Barring that you can use Rain-X on the outside face of your lenses to encourage the water to bead off and an anti-fog compound on the inside to reduce fogging. A front fender will help reduce splatter from below and a viso may help some with direct rain. I have not had much success with visors. Riding at any speed limits their effectiveness.

However, no matter what you do, riding in the rain with glasses is a pain.

Why does that pic make me think of Speed Racer?


Ski or paintball goggle antifog spray, e.g. Plexus®, works very well.
Dunno about RainX on glasses though.

I thought that until I read the articles on laser surgery in the latest issue of Sky & Telescope. The risks are still too high; there's even a nonzero chance of going completely blind, and the night vision loss risks are still up there high enough to not be ignored. As an amateur astronomer and nighttime bike rider, I kind of like being able to see at night without halos around bright objects and increased dark myopia.

These are not the usual outcome, but there are no guarantees. I wouldn't take laser surgery if they were giving it for free. It's still pretty expensive too. I get pretty expensive glasses at $600 but I wear them for about 6 to 8 years between getting new lenses (at $250) so it would take me several decades to equal what surgery costs. And I actually like wearing glasses.

Besides, even if your eyes are perfect, it's a bad idea to ride without protective lenses. I'd sooner ride without a helmet. I've never dinged my helmet, but I've certainly had my glasses deflect bugs, sand and one or two small stones.

I just wipe them off once in a while. I get used to looking through them, even though they are wet.

As for fog, other people's climates might work differently, but here in Atlanta during the winter, my glasses fog up at stop lights. I just pull them down my nose until I can get going again, which lets the cold air back behind them to defog. I think it's the heat and moisture from my face that causes the fog.

I found that my older, bigger-lensed glasses protect my eyes better than my smaller-lenses from particles and wind that makes me tear up.

I have perscription glasses and my work buys me perscription safety glasses each year. I use the old pair for my bike riding. I do not get fogging up unless I stop. Once I am moving again it clears up. The rain doesn't bother me much but I do slow down because of the visibility problem.

I was coming home just to do a search in this subject.

I don´t wear glasses, but today it was raining very hard, and I was getting hit by water drops on my eyes and I couldn´t see anything.
So I wore my ambar sunglasses. And I still couldn´t see anything.

The rain was almost horizontal, so the baseball hat might only help so far.

I might try that antifog spray. But that will only help with the fog.

What about the drops?
Any ideas?

I read in Bicycling magazine long ago that you can clean the lenses with gel toothpaste to help prevent fogging.

I don't wear corrective lenses and haven't ever tried it. The safety glasses I'm wearing nowadays don't have a problem with fogging.

What about prescription inserts in some cycling specific sunglasses?

I would love to do that but most cycling glasses are 100-200 dollars. Too costly for me.

Be very carefull about using toothpaste as a cleaner, I wouldn't even try it. Toothpaste is an abrasive.

Yep. I completely agree. I always wear a cycling hat under my helmet and in light rain in can help a little, but beyond that, there's not much to be done.

When I get my new glasses fixed this weekend (long story) I'm going to see about putting some sort of coating on my old glasses and using them as my biking glasses (to keep my new ones from getting messed up or gross).

I've never tried this other than during the winter months, but..

Last winter I cut a blank piece of plastic used to make an over head for a presentation down the long axis. Then with clear box tape, tape it to the helmet. It kept all the rain and snow off my face, and out of my eyes. On the rare occasion when the plastic fogged, I tilded my head back a little more, and could see to the horizion. When it rained or snowed, a quick swipe of a finger over the plastic cleared it. I was surprised at how well water beaded on the plastic.

I also wear prescription glasses. This doesn't prevent my glasses from fogging at times. When they do fog, I take tem off. Fortunatly my vision is good enough that I can see clearly out to about 6-10 ft, beyond that my vision is good enough that I can avoid large objects (ie I turn away from any big blury things that seem to get larger as I move forward). I know my route well in the sun and the dark, so I know where all the bumps and hazzards are. When I have to ride next to cars, I hit the side walk and go slower.

That's the point. It is a very fine abrasive and polishes the lense surface. For droplets (the fog on glasses) to form from water vapor in the air, they need condensation nuclei, which is usually in the form of very small scratchs in the lens. Smooth out the scratchs (polishing using a fine abrasive such as gell toothpaste) and less condensation will develop.

They fog up badly I gave up using mine

The trouble is, many people have anti-reflective coatings which are very very fragile. There is no safe abrasive for these coatings.

Good point.