This past winter I purchased Oakley's Prizm Snow lens to replace the lens in my ski goggle, and after having good luck with that setup I was excited to see the Oakley Radar EV Path come with a similar Prizm Trail lens designed for mountain biking. The grapefruit base lens color works well in a variety of light conditions, making it incredibly versatile. On bluebird days the lens prevents squinting, but the lens also restores a landscape's washed out colors. The enhanced view was almost enough to make me laugh, it was unbelievable that the lens could improve my view even on the most perfect of days. The real benefit of the Prizm Trail lens is felt on an overcast or dreary day. The lens redefines the depth and detail of obstacles on the trail that are lost in flat lighting. The most challenging lighting for the Oakley Radar EV Path sunglasses occurred when transferring from full sun on the trail to no sun in dark timber, times when it took a few seconds to get used to the change in conditions. Exiting the woods was a much less abrupt transition, and there was minimal squinting when re-emerging into the full glare of the sun. Even though the lens can be easily interchanged, the Prizm Trail lens has a wide enough range that this would only be necessary in the darkest of conditions. The Radar EV sunglasses are extremely light and promote airflow around them while you ride. I never had the glasses fog up, and the increased ventilation kept my face cooler than my regular sunglasses. I was also impressed by Oakley's Unobtanium rubber, which did a great job of securing the sunglasses on my face - the frames never slid down my nose, and the sunglasses were secure even on the rowdiest of descents. However, even though they're quite comfortable, the sunglasses didn't integrate well with my helmet. If the temple arms of the sunglasses were tucked inside of my helmet's size adjustments, they wouldn't properly sit on the bridge of my nose. The alternative was to place the temple arms of the sunglasses on the outside of my helmet's sizing adjustment; this worked well for a short period, but after two hours or more of use, the temple arms would start to pinch and cause discomfort. Out of curiosity, I took the Radar EV Path sunglasses to my local bike shop and tried them on with all of their helmets on display. My helmet was the only helmet I found to have a problem cooperating with the Oakleys, but it's not a bad idea to try the sunglasses on with your helmet before purchasing them to guarantee a comfortable fit. If you are looking for sunglasses with a minimal frame and a maximum size lens, the Oakley Radar EV Path with the Prizm Trail lens are worth a look. If you are already wearing Oakley sunglasses and considering a different lens, the Prizm Trail lens is a great choice for the rider who prefers one lens for all occasions. - Jeremy Muskat |
About Us
Contacts FAQ Terms of Use Privacy Policy Sign Up! SitemapAdvertise
AdvertisingCool Features
Submit a Story Product Photos Videos Privacy RequestRSS
Pinkbike RSS Pinkbike Twitter Pinkbike Facebook Pinkbike Youtube Pinkbike Instagram
If you crash, the glasses need to fly away. Helmet needs to close properly.
Good glasses are designed to go over the straps. And good helmets are designed to have straps close to your temple.
Buy italian stuff if you want to get something that works right. There are a lot of bad designs out there (giro, spy + etc.)
It is also more aero than having flappy straps*
* I'm taking the mickey a bit but it is actually true!
Pros wear glasses over straps to show the sponsor and glasses more clearly. Or to reduce the pressure on your head from the straps pulling on the glasses, which doesn't happen with glasses that actually fit close to your face, or helmets with straps that are offset.
It's not a safety thing. That's stupid. If you have wide glasses, put them over. If they fit your face, put them under.
over the strap is like wearing the helmet backwards.
if you look back... even in the 80's... you can see photos of snowboarders and skiers with the glasses over the beanie. it is a safety issue. glass need to be able to fly off your nose and not be moved by the helmet. or you can cut your face etc. etc.
That said, lots lots of glasses nowadays are so cheaply made, that you need to put them inside the strap otherwise they do fly away.
And why would you want your shatterproof eye protection to fly off in a crash??? Then you no longer have eye protection on, which really sucks if you end up rolling downhill or taking multiple impacts. I'd much rather keep them on.
cdn.zouchmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Photo-4-EAD.jpg
I've got the self esteem to wear these but can't imagine paying the asking price for these plastic sunglasses. I got Tifosi Veloce with 3 lenses for $35. The Oakley are nicer but not 700% nicer.
www.usatoday.com/story/gameon/2012/12/13/skiing-miller-accident-wife/1767091
I like glasses that actually protect my eyes, not shatter when a pebble hits them.
BS argument. A bazillion dollar pair of Oakleys is no safer than a $10 pair of ballistic safety glasses or a $65 pair or Ryders/Tifosi/Whatever.
I have a £5 pair of Dewalt safety glasses that look very similar to the above with a clear lense. They work perfectly.
I also have a pair of oakleys for those sunny days and these lenses look very interesting, I've long been considering some different lenses that can be used in the sun and in the dark forest. The black iridium lenses I have are useless in dark conditions.
I like the oakleys plastic frames. They're durable, light and when you leave them in the car they don't burn your face.
I also like that i can change the sides. I've got a normal black set and another set that wraps around more and holds my glasses better while running/biking
Thay said, the rubber expands and gets squishy when they get older. You can't get the rubber seperately wich sucks.
I need something like this, but with prescription lenses. $200 for a prescription frame isn't all that out of line. My insurance has an allowance for eyewear and I can get a set of normal glasses and a set of sunglasses each year. My out of pocket costs are usually pretty low.
Cheap glasses are exactly that. Cheap
I wear them enough that I want a nice set and can justify the extra money for the nice optics. I've tried $120 sunglasses through sams club and they were unusable after 10 months because the uv coating peels off.
I genuinely don't care if people think i look like a tool if these work as advertised. I wear an xc lid with a road jersey and baggy shorts on my fat bike and love every bit of it
I agree some Oakley are a little nicer but not safer or 'more optical'
Whether you like their styling and material choices or not is your own choice...hell I don't really like anything they make outside of the "sport" line, but the fact is, they are the best.
I am a sunglass fanatic, and have a huge collection consisting of many brands and types. For style I prefer Ray-Ban, but when it comes down to business, for safety and sport, nothing touches the performance of Oakley's designs and lenses. I haven't yet tried the new "Prizm" line but wouldn't hesitate to buy the "trail" lens just on trust, because i've never been let down before. That said, i'm trying to get to an Oakley store soon to try it out and see if it's good enough to replace my riding array.
As an example, Oakley, precisley, charged stupid amounts for a pair of gloves (the ones with the knuckle protections, ~70$ for the "military" iirc) which were actually standard chinese catalog gloves that costed less than half from other "lesser" brands on crc.
But until you can get something better (or at least as good), cheaper, the prices will stay where they are.
BTW Oakley's factory pilot gloves are a patented design. There are plenty of Chinese knockoffs, but they don't hold a candle to the real thing. That said, I agree they shouldn't cost $80. But again, they wouldn't be priced there if they didn't sell there.
Just to let you know my everyday sunglasses costed me a "whooping" 6€ (sale price) at Decathlon, years ago; the lenses are flawless in every respect, just as any other sunglasses you can buy from commerce, other than the usual suspects street sellers, cheap Chinese products shops, etc., and like most anything nowadays, big names included, you bet they came straight from China, lenses included. I could've gone for some three figure Essilors though; just wasn't that convinced of the extra benefit, I guess.
And my complete bike was also tagged, new, at right about the same price as Saracen's Amplitude ALX naked frame. Quality standards? No, exact same Indonesian made frame, both...
When it comes to "cool" sunglasses, I buy whatever I like the most. I expect nothing more from anyone else. I even mentioned previously that i'm really not a fan of Oakley's "lifestyle" line. Just not my style at all. I just jumped in on this conversation to dispell misinformation that is often distributed by those who don't own real Oakley products.. No real Oakley lenses are made in China. Lens manufacturing is all US and Europe-based. Some frames are made in China however. There is no reason for anyone to justify their eyewear choice by trying to put down brands they didn't buy. It's dumb. They're sunglasses for God's sake, buy what you like and answer to no one.
I also want to clarify, I don't mean to say that Oakley is right for charging $300 for "plastic" sunglasses. Only that until they have real competition, those prices will only go up.
Not sure where you are going here.
Price AND demand can both easily be set by marketing - that's what it exists for - and the more you spend on it, the better chances you get to succeed at influencing the later into accepting whatever you choose for the former.
I'm guessing you are sour because Oakley, like any company of overpriced sports and fitness-related gear, markets their products as superior based on a pile of made-up technological concepts. Like HDO lenses, which are simply lenses created using the same processes used by prescription lens manufacturers for years (who, incidentally charge even MORE exhorbitant prices for their products), and 3D polarization, which, despite being patented by Oakley, is widely used and a fairly routine technology these days. Or "Prizm" lenses, which are really just cleverly chosen lens tints...not some voodoo magic as it's marketed. This is no revelation...just like Red Bull is really just flavored sugar water, or Apple products are built using the exact same hardware and tech as Google and Microsoft products, and use an operating system that's actually far older and less sophisticated than either company's, and Under Armour is simply repackaging material that's been around since the 60's, and Keurig is forcing hot water through instant coffee, modern "high-tech" OHC engines are actually the oldest internal combustion engine design...the list goes on and on and on. Mountain bikes could possibly be the BIGGEST example of this...yet here you are, on a mountain biking forum, complaining about a high-end sunglass company. The point is that all of these products WORK. As long as they do what they are advertised to do, they will sell. And even sometimes when they don't. The general populace believes that the guys who design these products are akin to aerospace engineers, while we know the real deal...but again, what does it matter when they work?
Here's story for you, though:
Years ago Gillette came up with their super-duper 4-blade razor, supposedly the best thing since sliced bread (which btw already was nothing but a (major) pure marketing feat), and... it tanked. No one would take it and it just didn't sell. So what do to do? Well, what they've done is spend a whooping 700 (seven hundred) millions in marketing to try to prop up the turd and make it desirable. And it worked! Yes, that's it, you've heard it right: they've created... wait for it... demand! Magically, all those fine people that couldn't care less about it beforehand, suddenly "realized" they just couldn't live without it any longer and it became a major success - a *marketing* success. All this without even changing a thing about it, all just by the wonderful magic of marketing illusion and the hard cash that goes with it. They've tricked all those people into believing it really was something *they* wanted. And all simply because it just had a higher profit margin than its already perfectly capable predecessor.
Moral of the story? Marketing does work; marketing DOES create demand. After all, like they say, there's a sucker born everyday... but hey, their money, not mine.
As for the Oakley in general, even if I liked them or believed them to be worth the asking price in the first place (which I don't, btw), they just happen to really not work for me at all, so, much to their fanboys chagrin, they're out of the question even before you ask.
Nice try, though.
Have a nice shiny day.
And I think what you mean to say in your story about the razor, is that marketing made people feel like they NEEDED the razor, despite the fact that their current razor did the job just fine. We are not in disagreement about any of this. THis is how marketing works and has worked since the beginning of time.
What I still don't understand is why you are so mad about it? You have made it very clear that you are happy with your cheap sunglasses and don't need $300 sunglasses, and that you are happy with your current cheap hardtail and don't need a $5000 Pike and CCDB equipped boost 148 rig. Cool. Not everyone is as lucky as you. Some of us are much happier with our nicer bikes and more expensive sunglasses. I started out on full-suspension, and built a hardtail about 10 years ago just to experience that kind of riding, and hated it. After three rides I sold it and haven't touched a hardtail since. Likewise, wearing standard "el-cheapo" sunglasses is torture for me on the trail. Even my Killer Loops (about $200 new) sucked to the point where it was almost dangerous for me to wear them. My first pair of M-frames with VR28 lenses were an absolute revelation. So, again, sometimes it's not all marketing...some of this stuff actually does WORK.
What's funny though is you feeling the need to stress how your more expensive bike and glasses are supposedly much nicer than mine (maybe, maybe not; not losing my sleep about it), as that makes it look like you're worrying about it. Still, i feel sorry for your inability to pick nice non-expensive sunglasses, but if you can't see beyond a particular brand, quality wise, not being a competitor, it's fine by me as well.
And about my glasses, nothing special about them, but then nothing bad either - they just work as they should (as in they do their job without you even noticing them - you can read about it further above) and that's all you should need.
About my bike, funny thing is I actually would've bought a fs by now (the reason why I even created an account)... if only anyone would sell it to me, but apparently pb is more full of attention whoring posers than actual sellers and buyers, otherwise they wouldn't have miss a chance to sell/buy to someone that more than meets their demands (and that the few times you even get an answer, which has only been after insistence), but then, who cares? ultimately, and for the price of a cheap frame, you can pick a fully equipped wc winning class trials mc, which would take me places no bike or work out ever could, so again who's mad?
You are either totally misunderstanding, or purposely twisting what i'm trying to get across. I'm going with purposely twisting. If you really get so butt hurt over people with nicer bikes and other things, you DEFINITELY don't want to be a member here. My bikes are by no stretch the nicest around, in fact i'd be willing to bet i'm below average in ranks of "badass bikes" here. Yet i'm not calling out the members with brand new carbon frames and enves.
I don't judge people on the gear they choose. I judge them on their attitudes and words.
Any recommendations for mid-priced glasses in a Wayfarer-ish style with a lens that's not too dark (for cloudy days only), fairly neutral-coloured and contrast-enhancing?
I am a big fan of the shield-type sunglasses, because when I ride i'm not worried about how I look, i'm worried about how I SEE. But I know lots of folks who will not wear them, but that's what the single lens "jacket" style is made for.
www.amazon.ca/Oakley-Prizm-Radar-Sunglasses-Polished/dp/B00UT4AJA8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1438190143&sr=8-1&keywords=oakley+prizm+trail
It was originally developed for golf I believe.