eye protection in wind
 

this thread is mainly an excuse for me to post a stupid ass picture of myself in totally ridiculous ski goggles, but i actually have a question -- do many of you have problems with eye wind burn? do you kids wear eye cover? for me, the wind burn on my eyes is the worst part about riding in the arctic-ass winter.

i wear contacts and my eyes dry out pretty easily, so by the time i get to work (or anywhere) i generally look like i have smoked an entire kilo of weed due to the blazing redness and dryness of my eyes (hell, i often have cottonmouth, too). i often wear sunglasses for purposes of, well, dimming the sun, and i've found that they do absolutely nothing for the wind -- the **** just goes around the sides and into my eyes.

so, being a slave for really bad fashion, i picked up a pair of totally dumb-as-**** ski goggles on ebay. they are the ultrajam. i seriously cannot imagine winter riding again without some sort of full eye cover. other than going with ski goggles, as i did, does anyone have suggestions for eyewear?

oh, and here is the totally dumb picture of me. let the mocking commence:

http://www.chemicalwarfare.net/~apratt/goggles.jpeg

i do the same thing, or plan to, when the temp in CT dips further. add some more ugly colors, shants, and they'll match the ugly hat in your avatar.

my question for you is gloves. is there anything as warm as, but less bulky, than ski gloves? the degrees this morning (low-20) penetrated my fleece mittens (actually glittens).

I wore ski goggles this morning. My eyes water like crazy if I don't have eye protection, so I usually ride with stylish clear-lensed glasses. It's too cold today though (5F).

For gloves, I use Outdoor Research brand "Windstopper" gloves. As long as I'm active, my hands stay warm. They make several types of gloves. www.orgear.com

New av.


edit:

That said, yes, ultrajam. Except they don't work well with my mirror, personally, and I am perilously attached to the little guy.


All about the yellow lenses, too.

Agreed.

Also. I just ordered those Nashbar clear no-frame sunglasses for this purpose. Others have attested to their wonders. Thanks for making me feel like they're not going to work. Doosh.

I have heard that another bomb hookup is the $ 5 Home Depot Glasses. I wear Smith glasses with prescription inserts. I had multiple instances of contacts going indy from my eyes while riding, gave up on contacts as a result. My hands and feet were cold this am, too. But not so cold that I'm going to change anything. I asked for the Wool Cycling Socks for Christmas.

Shantz, that picture says more than my words ever could.

haha, sorry. granted that i was wearing some garbage-ass plastic sunglasses, but the wind just hit the front and swept around the back right into my eyes. if you have glasses with lenses that curve to the side a bit, i suspect that it might direct the wind differently (that is, away from your eyes). i wasn't willing to risk it, so i went with 90s-retro full-cover ski goggles.

as for gloves, i wear a pair of pretty intense mittens. but, as is your experience, they don't really hold up to 20mph winds in sub-20degree weather. i think i'm going to knit (once i figure it out.. the ladyfriend is supposed to teach me) some very thin tight-fitting mittens to wear under the mittens that i currently use. or, for the short-term, i might buy a couple pairs of those cheap form-fitting gloves and rock those. i think it would go a long way to keep my damn fingers warm (or less cold).

I saw some really cool looking clear glasses at a truckstop on the way to DC. They were just a clear plastic shaped like a google but glasses size with foam around the edges with a elastic band to hold it tight to the face. Didn't know how well they worked... now I regret not buying them.

this morning was pretty brutal.

i'm also quite happy about these particular goggles, because it means that i now get called a "***" even more frequently than before. my current record is 5 times in 3 blocks. totally unassociated people (other than that they were all ******bags).

Last time I got called that I was pushing my baby in a carriage with my wife next to me. That made sense.

Get wrap-around sport glasses. Clear lenses. It's what I use. No back-flow around the edges. You can't really see them but I have them on in my avatar.

It's just that when it gets this cold out, I had them freeze to the bridge of my nose once last year, and there's not enough facial wind protection in general. Otherwise, I use them all year. In the summer they're great for keeping bugs out of the eyes on night rides.

best ******bag jock voice: "well, of course, dude. i mean, only a *** would take care of his wife and kid. dude, c'mon -- only **** have kids."

generally speaking, "***," albeit a term that ultimately refers to *****exuality, it has become pretty distanced from that and is just a standard pejorative/invective for large portions of the ******bag population. of course, when i get called it while wearing my stupid goggles on my pink and black bike, i think they intend to be calling me a *****exual. i love it.

I picked up a pair of racketball goggles for real cheap at a sporting goods store. They are similar to ski goggles, but instead of the square profile they are a little bubbly. The lenses are clear and they keep the wind & debris out. They will keep you rolling in the height of fashion for sure.

I'm even running Answer winter boots and my feet still get cold. Heavy Pearl Izumi gloves. Two pairs of wool socks. You just can't stay warm when it is this cold.

Don't take this the wrong way cause I don't know you but those goggles don't look half as dumb as the hat in your avatar.

yeah, at a certain point, i definitely agree. i just ride quickly to shorten my exposure to the damn winter apocalypse.

hahaha, you might be right. i will have to take a picture of me with BOTH.

i don't think it's distanced from stigmatizing *****exuality, so much as it applies the apparent stigma of *****exuality to anything that fails to appropriately exhibit and exert socially sanctioned dominant masculinity.

Not that there is anything wrong with that.

A friend out in portland had these crazy thick wool versions of lobster gloves.

They were awesome.

i think it's been problematized before.

Yeah, that was supposed to be a joke. You know, an ironic play on the Seinfeld episode?

Clearly, dunderheads prancing about with shoulders thrown back and calling people ******s, whatever their sexual behavior may be, is misguided.

aye. i think that the sting of being called a "***" is indeed supposed to originate from the supposition that *****exuality is bad, but i think that its use has become so normalized that many users of the term skip the cognitive association that "***" means *****exual (so like, **** are *****exual, *****exual is bad, so **** are bad) and instead just have the brute association of the term "***" with things that are not good. evidence of this is that people often employ the term in situations that have nothing to do with masculinity or *****exuality. the other day, i heard someone talking about how their friend was failing his math class, and some other guy said, "god, what a ****ing ***. how in the hell do you fail that class?" in any case, i concede your point to a large degree.

yeah. i think we're saying the same thing, but we're doing it in different ways.