Torrent is a street/sport hybrid with a lot going for it—particularly a low price tag. The star of its little show is a photchromic lens with impressive range. Called the Light Night Fototec lens, it starts the day at 56% visible light transmission—lighter than most other mutable lenses—and darkens to a comfortable 16% in bright sunlight. As a street shade, it’s super lightweight (24 grams) so it can perch happily for hours at a time—not that I’d want to wear it that long, optically speaking. It also has broad though streamlined temples, and a dash of attitude. Sportier attributes include shatterproof polycarbonate lenses with ventilated corners to dissipate fog, and embedded rubber on the nosepiece and temple tips. The hybrid conceit starts to fall apart if you’re a mountain biker or trail runner—the full rim obscures downward vision, but Torrent doesn’t claim to be a specialist. Optical clarity is only fair, but so is the price. It’s an impressive piece of work if you’re not an optics zealot and need decent shades for a short hike or casual bike ride. Buy it: $62 Free Shipping at Zappos
A triumph of midprice crossover optics, Native’s new Bolt plays well on the trail and around town. It’s a fusion design that secretly incorporates a couple of sport features: a soft and generous rubber nosepiece and miniature chimneys in the frame along the brow that let your steam rise up and away to minimize fogging. But this is nothing you see from the outside. From there, the look is all street, and it’s a good one: broad temples and some cool design motifs—dig the green Jungle option. That means, of course, that you give up some peripheral and bottom visibility. It’s not a sport shade for the hard-core set; more like a street shade that can be pressed into athletic duty, but one of the most comfortable street shades you’ll encounter. Our test model has green polycarbonate polarized lenses—predictably color-true and glare-defeating, but Lacking the brilliant crispness you get from pricier lenses. Buy it: $100 Free Shipping at Zappos
What does a bike company know about sunglasses? A lot. Uracco’s bike pedigree is evident, because it incorporates a long checklist of the features that make roadies cheer, starting with the all-important cut of its attitudinous jib—its rakish styling makes you want to glance back at the peloton with a sneer before launching a solo breakaway. More important are features like generous eye coverage and a grilamid frame with just-so grip that’s as close to bombproof as sunglasses get. Nice touch: Half of each temple is embedded with a soft rubber grid that keeps the shades firmly in place even when they’re propped up on your headbone during the post-race interview. I’m a big fan of photochromic lenses for cycling, because light conditions are so likely to change in the course of a long workout. Specialized’s Adapatlite lenses strike a just-right balance, ranging from 39% to 12% visible light transmission. Their high-contrast vermilion tint makes them seem lighter than that, and that’s a good thing—they’ll let you start out at dawn, get you home at dusk, and spend time in dark woods without feeling blindfolded. These also are open at the corners like the wind wings in your dad’s old sedan that kept the windshield from fogging. Specialized uses NXT lenses—a shatterproof plastic with fine optical quality. They’re not polarized, but then again, roadies spend most of their time on dry land, not staring across bodies of water. $95 (including hard case and lens cloth) from Specialized.
Both winners of the Ford Ironman Triathlon in Kona, Hawaii—and, in fact, every finisher of the race last Saturday—had something in common besides unwavering determination and an astounding level of fitness. They all wore sunglasses. That’s quite a change from a generation ago when most cyclists spurned them and it didn’t even occur to runners to protect their eyes.
Of course, sunglass technology has advanced tremendously since then—better lenses, lighter-weight frames that grip securely without excess pressure, and soft rubber nosepieces that allow shades to ride cozily where they belong with no bounce or slippage.
It was no great surprise that Oakley seemed to be the dominant eyewear of choice. Women’s winner Chrissie Wellington of England (above, Matthew Murray photo) wore a new model called Enduring—the first women’s-specific sport shade.
Men’s winner Craig Alexander of Australia (below/Matthew Murray photo) wore the venerable Oakley Radar. I also noted a smattering of Rudy Project, Nike, Specialized, and Foster Grant in the field as the athletes toiled in a fierce tropical sun and battled capricious crosswinds whipping across black-lava badlands.
Why the dominance of Oakley? It’s an iconic brand that pioneered those sport-shade innovations mentioned above. And, as the crew inside Oakley’s portable laboratory demonstrated for Ironman spectators, the company does exceptional R&D and quality control. The Rolling O showed Oakley’s outstanding performance in a series of ANSI tests for optical quality and impact resistance.
But the proof is really out under the sun. Craig Armstrong told me that he started wearing Oakley long before sponsors slid him free shades. “Down in Australia we’ve always had a consciousness about sun protection. I remember saving up for a pair of mirrored Frogskins. They were the best. I never wanted to wear cheap shades. I’m out in the sun so much—I really have to look after my eyes.”
Chrissie Wellington’s version of Enduring was actually a special-edition Pace Breast Cancer Awareness model in honor of her grandmother, who passed away recently. (Chrissie is pointing to the emblematic pink ribbon in the photo above.) She auctioned her shades after the race to raise money for breast cancer research.
Links
Enduring
Oakley Radar
You have to wonder who Ryders sold its soul to in order to produce this three-lens sport shade for 50 bucks. No matter. What you get is an ideal lineup of polycarbonate lens tints bundled neatly in a soft-sided zippered case, so you’ve got a lens at the ready for virtually any situation. The gray lens is for bright light; its visible light transmission is 15%. The orange (an affectionate persimmon, I’d say) has 47% VLT, and the clear is, well, clear. All three are 100% protective against UVA and UVB light and wrap nicely for sidelight protection. You can’t expect brilliant optics at this price point, and you don’t get them. But these are decent and functional lenses: Sprint is an ideal beater set. The flexy temples grip well. Rubber nose pads are awfully rigid, but at least they’re adjustable; you can nail an optician fit. The system is everything I like and don’t like about interchangeables. Like? The aforementioned range of lenses. Perfect. Dislike? You really have to manhandle them to get them into the frame. Be sure to carry a lens cloth, because you’ll have your grubby fingerprints all over them before they click in. I found myself wearing the orange lens most of the time and forgoing the swap hassle, because a hassle it is. Wear them for virtually any land-based sport; they’re even ventilated to prevent fogging on a mountain bike climb. But nonpolarized Sprint isn’t a good choice on or around water. Not RXable. $50. Info: ryders.com.
