When it is cloudy I usually swap out my dark lenses with orange ones. They are great on cloudy days for brightening up the road, however, I get lazy sometimes and don’t put the dark ones in on sunny days. Yesterday was one of those days and after a 3 hour ride my eyes began to hurt. I am curious…can yellow and orange lenses be bad for your eyes? should I be more diligent about switching them on sunny/cloudy days?
Thanks!
There is no reason that orange or yellow lenses would hurt your eyes. There is an old myth out there that because they block a small amount of light, your pupils dialate and because they are not dark, they let in UV light, which then damages your retina. That is complete BS. They block near 100% of the UV light. No worries.
Mike
Nope, no damage, just a little potential eyestrain. Your lenses will be made out of polycarbonate which will block out almost all of the UV light regardless of the colour.
robert
Sweet Thanks!
I tried a yellow m/cycle visor for a while due to its ‘multiple benefits’ which presumably included splitting headaches & mild disorientation… What a crock!
They’re not bad for your eyes in terms of damage but they will cause increased fatique and headaches, in most cases. It’s best if you limit them to one or two hours use and avoid bright sun use, especially if you are light complected. Light skinned people have less pigment in the retina to absorb stray light, and yellow lenses produce a lot of stray “bounce” in the retina. Also, yellow light(444) elevates neural activity in the retina resulting in increasing blood flow, etc., resulting in higher fatique rates of retinal chemicals.
You will naturally “squint” when wearing them in bright light which aggravates the headache cycle. Orange is a little better because the color is denser, for some reason.
This is probably more than you wanted to know but it’s not a simple relationship.