Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Sungrass! five dorrar!

Last weekend, I discovered that my blatantly generic budget sunglasses were scratched. I might be OK with this, since the glasses came with multiple sets of lenses, except I threw the rest of the lenses away when I bought them. One of the spare sets was so garishly bright orange that it gave me the appearance of a radioactive superhero. I'm sure that if I ever wore those lenses, I'd need to put a special visor over top of them to protect the world from my freakishness. So, no more lenses. There is also the issue that the rubber tips to the earpieces have completely fallen off. These glasses are clearly history.

So I face a dilemma: purchase another pair of cheapy glasses, with the intent of misusing them to destruction? Or, finally step up and buy some real glasses?

I wear glasses when driving, cycling, and running. I'm not exactly a style nut. Spending a fair amount of my cycling time on a tri bike in the aero position means that I value visibility out the top of the glasses, leaving me to consider one-piece lenses with no top frame, a-la Rudy Project Maskeryna.

I've also taken a liking to Julbo's Race series.

Though they have full frames, they appear to have lenses large enough to not block vision. They also seem more sport oriented, while the Maskerynas strike me as a fashion statement. At the very least, the Julba glasses are available with Zebra lenses, which seem pretty spiffy.

At any rate, if anyone actually reads this blog and has sunglass-related expertise, please let me know what you think.

3 comments:

Boz said...

I've settled on the Tifosi line of sun glasses. A very good value while being somewhat high performance. I've had a pair for over 3 years now, and are in perfect shape. The Oakleys, Killer Loops ect that I've had all get lost or stolen way too soon.

smartypants said...

I've looked at some tifosi models. They have one (the vogel) that seems to be a direct ripoff of the Maskeryna.

I should note that I have a big head, yet I seem to have trouble with lots of glasses slipping off my face, which is annoying. I'd rather not have to reach up and nudge them every 5 minutes while on the bike.

What model do you have? Do they have the fototec lenses?

Boz said...

Ive got the Morph, an older model w/ interchangeable lens. They aren't fototec. With the slicone rubber nose pad and stems, they stay put very well. I wear them everday and they don't scratch. I paid $30.00 on sale. They look like the Stelvio in their current line-up.Hope that helps.