Prescription eyewear

If, like me, you require vision correction, you essentially have four options:

• prescription cycling glasses;

• ordinary prescription glasses;

• contact lenses;

• or none of the above.

I'll talk through these below. But first, bear in mind that I'm short-sighted. There are different issues if you’re long-sighted, like focusing on your computer, but I can’t offer much insight into those. Also, that seems likely to be an issue when training rather than racing. But taking the above options in reverse order...

Going without

Personally, speaking as a short sighted person, I don’t think this is a viable option at all. Maybe it depends on how short sighted you are (I’m -2.75 in both eyes, so I can focus about an arm's length in front of me), but once I experienced seeing the course clearly, I would never ever go back.

Obviously the decision is down to the individual, but this blog is about being the best that you can be in a race, and being able to spot the best lines clearly and react to the terrain as quickly as possible is a major part of that.

Contacts

If you can wear contact lenses (I can’t), I would suggest that this is an excellent option. The major advantage is that you can save significant sums of money. You can wear them with ordinary non-prescription cycling glasses, and what's more you don't have to replace your cycling glasses if your prescription changes - which could be a real possibility while you are young and your eyes are still developing. You may even be able to afford additional lens options with the money you've saved.

I asked former double junior national cyclocross champion Gav Hardwicke for his insights. He said he’d always start a race with non-prescription cycling glasses over his contacts to shield them from dirt. "If you get  dirt in your eye it’s really tricky to clear it without getting it under the lens [which can risk eye abrasion or infection], or accidentally popping the contact lens out of your eye - neither of which is ideal for not crashing into things." Of course the advantage to contacts is that if you do have to remove your glasses because they steam up, you aren’t left blind as a bat like you would be if they were prescription glasses. And this is also an advantage pre-race if you don't want to wear your cycling glasses every minute of the time. However, Gav did also offer a warning: "Be sure that you don't need to fiddle with your contacts again once you've applied any sports balm or muscle rub using your fingers."

Ordinary glasses

You could of course opt to wear your everyday glasses. Some people do. The obvious advantage is that it doesn’t require any extra outlay. However, you do risk breaking them in a crash, whereas cycling glasses are often made to stand up to you taking a quick lie down in the dirt. Having ridden in daywear glasses, I would say the biggest issue is that they simply aren’t in the right place once you’ve got your hands on the bars and raised your head to look at what’s ahead of you. Your eyes end up looking through the top part of the lens - or even above the lens entirely - which generally means that the effective prescription isn’t quite the same, especially if you have an astigmatism. They also don’t wrap around your face so when you look over your shoulder to see where the competition is, it’s blurred. Furthermore, they aren’t sized to fit over your helmet straps like cycling glasses are, so they can be fiddly to take on and off.

Prescription cycling glasses

This is what I use, so in some senses I’m biased - but remember, contacts aren’t an option for me. I’ll give you the downsides first. They can be seriously expensive. For a top brand you will be talking hundreds of pounds for a single pair of lenses, so if you want multiple tints it can be eye-watering - no pun intended. The last time my prescription changed it cost me £1k to get Oakleys in 3 tints.

However, for me, the upsides outweigh the downsides by a HUGE amount. When I made the switch from wearing ordinary glasses to prescription cycling glasses, it was an epiphany. I can hardly stress enough what a massive difference it made to my riding. I could ride faster simply because I could see clearly what was coming and so could respond to it faster. And although it is a very expensive option, I've only had two pairs of cycling glasses in the last 10 years so I do still view it as cost-effective, given the amount that I use them. Also, with some designs like mine, you can buy accessory kits to change the colourscheme should you change teams.

My experience has been with Oakleys. These have the significant advantage that they can make a curved prescription lens, so that whatever direction you are looking in, you don't experience any distortion due to the changing distance between your eye and the lens. This is great for racing or riding in traffic, where you want to look to the side and behind you. However, there is a limit to how extreme your prescription can be. (When I last bought Oakleys a few years ago the lower limit was -3.0, I don’t know about for + prescriptions.) This is because as the lens curves around your face, to keep the prescription correct, the lens gets thicker. So to do a really high prescription, the lens would get ridiculously thick at the sides and wouldn’t be practical. Obviously you could choose cycling glasses that don't have much of a wraparound - or alternatively, other manufacturers offer choices where you can have a prescription lens inserted behind an ordinary lens. This doesn't offer peripheral vision, but it is cheaper than buying multiple prescription lenses in a number of tints.

Summary

	Costs	Prescriptions	Pros	Cons
Nothing	None	None	None	Your performance is sub-optimal
Ordinary glasses	Nothing extra	All	You can see to a reasonable degree	Limited field of view, especially peripherally, and not manufactured for extreme use. Riding position can cause neck aches.
Contact lenses	Modest additional expense	Most	You can see all the time in all directions, and you'll save money on cycling glasses.	Risk of dirt behind the lens; possible to lose a lens mid race.
Prescription cycling glasses	Somewhat to very expensive	Moderate to wide range, depending on lens style. Suitable for people who can't wear contacts.	All round vision with curved prescriptions; unlikely to lose them unless you crash hard.	Can't see if you take them off; if you don't have a wraparound prescription your peripheral vision will be limited.

Take home message

Correct your vision when riding. Really. It's one of the single biggest improvements I ever made on the bike. And check out our piece on lenses and how to care for them.

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