A friend of mine once said of jeans, “anyone who buys jeans that cost twice what yours do is an idiot, and anyone who pays half what you do is an unfashionable lout.” The same seems to hold for sunglasses.
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For years I’ve used shatterproof safety glasses from hardware stores. I don’t want my face and eyes cut up if/when I crash. And so often the time of biking is early (sprints & olympics) so I don’t want tinting. In fact, the yellow safety glasses really help me see better on cloudy race days.
Ditto. The Tifosi have become my go to brand for sunglasses. I find the lenses as good as the Oakleys I have, and the fit is just right. Wanted to like the Goodr’s but the fit and shape didn’t work for cycling for me.
ROKA
I’d mentioned up thread I had a pair of Julbo Frequencies waiting at home. They got their first workout today, and thought they deserved a quick review.
As context, they’re replacing a decade old pair of Julbo Treks with polychromatic (darkening) lenses. I’ve worn those for everything athletic outside, but they’ve always been a bit small, last weekend I decided the discomfort wasn’t worth it and ordered the Frequency sunglasses with Reactiv 1-3 lenses (again polychromatic). Conveniently they were on sale, but I’d have bought them at list.
My first impressions the other night were that they were insanely light and comfortable, but looked very 70s wire rim glasses. As part of that, they’re pretty much clear when it’s dark.
Today they joined me for a 9 mile run in blue bird, cold conditions today. The first half was running south toward the sun, the second half away from it. Putting them on under a warm hat they were comfortable but got pulled around a bit by the hat and resting more on my nose than expected.
In the first 5 minutes they’d gotten nice and dark. Definitely comfortable running towards the sun with it relatively low in the sky and cloudless. Intriguingly they were bluer than I’d expected as the last time I looked into them, everything seemed to be yellow tinted. The optics were also really sharp, seemingly sharper than without glasses. Pretty good coverage, but if you look out of the corners of your eyes or straight up, you could see around the lenses.
About 3 miles in I ran past the local reservoir, the polarization knocked the reflections down nicely. I stopped and got a selfie to check how dark they’d gotten. Far less 70s than clear, not as Terminator as most of the cycling glasses.
My next concern was when it was bright, but the sun was behind me. Turned north towards home, grabbed a croissant and OJ and got back to it. Darkness seemed to stay about the same, including going through some tree lined rail trail. About the perfect level of visibility, which my previous pair struggled with.
My initial bike take is a bit mixed. They fit nicely under my Prospero 3 road helmet, but like the pair they’re replacing, they get caught on the MIPS liner. I think it’s a helmet thing, but still annoying. MIPS isn’t new, Specialize helmets are ubiquitous, and the grippy bits seem perfectly designed to catch the edges. I didn’t like it under an Aerohead, the lenses touch the visor and everything moved around.
At the end I really like them. If I wasn’t planning on writing about them I’d have forgotten they were there. They kept things the right level of dark, fit nicely, and weighed nothing. They’re a lot of money ($230 list, $160 on sale), but they were worth it to me.
I went with the Sutros. Got a good deal on biketiresdirect
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