In our quest to add the best motorcycling gear to range for you to choose from we’ve included the famous brand Oakley to add assured eye protection to our shop. Well-known for their high-quality lenses and frames, they’re a potentially major enhancement to your riding – let’s check out why.
Cover Your Eyes
A fair few of us ride in full-face helmets – the added chin bar protection and the visor are key aspects that allow for riding in many weathers, but many riders prefer the option of an open-face helmet, or even a modular flip-front one that gets left open at lower speeds, especially if it’s warm out. This presents a major eye hazard, with grit and other muck from the road presenting a real risk to your vision, alongside any unlucky flying insects that might get in your way. Not only is it a risk of long-term eye damage, but having something fly into your eye, even if it’s minor, will prove a major distraction while riding. For those who ride in a full-face, sunglasses can still be useful if you’re not blessed with a drop-down sun visor, or get caught short with just a clear visor in the sun.
The solution? A quality pair of glasses that’ll withstand impacts from debris without trouble, allowing you to focus on riding. Oakley have been making glasses just for this for years and years.
Choose Your Look
The two major choices you have are for the type of frame and the type of lens you want to go for. Thinner frames may help them fit into your helmet, so it’s well worth popping into the shop to try them with your gear on – the nagging headache that comes from glasses not fitting properly under a helmet is no joke if you’re on a long ride!
The lenses you choose not only define the look of the glasses, but what the lenses can do to improve your ride - many of them improve colour and contrast to allow you to more easily pick out imperfections on the road surface like potholes or gravel.
For those that need prescription lenses in their glasses, Oakley have a few options available, although the frame choice is limited by the lenses needing to be relatively flat, and potentially quite thick. Their excellent lens tech can be found in these glasses however, so they’re still a potentially great choice for glasses wearers.
PRIZM lenses are what enhance the detail of what you see, and these are also available in a polarised version to better reduce glare, especially on shiny surfaces such as wet roads. Meanwhile, the Unobtainium rubber you find on the bridge and arms will prevent the glasses from slipping, reducing the need to adjust them on the move.
Oakley Gascan
The Gascan is one of the quintessential models that people associate with Oakley, with boldly coloured lenses and signature wraparound frames. You can just as easily have more plain dark lenses or some interesting patterns on the frames instead. With the relatively thick arms it’ll be well worth trying a pair on with a helmet, but for eye coverage these are hard to beat.
Oakley Whisker
Something like the Whisker might tickle more people’s fancy, with a much more understated design, but packing the Oakley lens tech and great fit. Slim arms are great for helmets, while the lenses offer great coverage, and there’s even a bold orange colour option for the lenses if you want to stick out a bit.
Oakley Clifden
For those determined to look like someone out of Mad Max, the Clifden will be right up your street, and in fairness they’re pretty decent protection-wise. Packing a semi-goggle design will keep all the dust out and could suit those on scrambler-type motorcycles who want to do some soft-roading. The arms taper down considerably so should be decent for many helmets, although the goggle design will reduce your field of view a touch. Life is full of compromises however!
Oakley Wire Tap 2.0 - Prescription Friendly
The Wire Tap 2.0 is a great example of glasses that could be worn on and off the bike for those who need prescription lenses. A subtle frame packing the useful Oakley tech suits both helmets and a day out in the sun. More conventional frame types are also available with prescription lenses for those who want some everyday glasses that offer extra protection to their eyes.
Oakley EVZero Blades
If you’re looking for the most coverage and widest field of view then the EVZero Blades are probably the ones to look at, although the looks are certainly divisive! Designed as cycling glasses, the slim arms and wraparound design make them very useful for motorcycling, but it’s very much a love/hate thing with the looks.
If you need some expert advice, then you can have a chat online with us via web chat on our website. Our shop is open, with our café opening at the weekends. If you’re a bit far from Stevenage, our online shop is alive and well, and taking orders for delivery. You can also check out our full range on our website with free delivery for any order over £50 on the UK mainland, and delivery possible to almost anywhere else. Not only that but our ‘No Quibble’ returns policy allows for returns within a 365-day period – see our returns page for more details.
