‘H-D Forums’ Asks: What About Riding Glasses?

By Cameron Vanderhorst - January 21, 2020

There’s more to protecting your eyes on the road than just picking a cool style.

As motorcyclists, we use a lot of specialized equipment. Riding pants, riding boots, riding jackets, and riding gloves make up the suit of armor we (hopefully) put on each time we swing a leg over the saddle.

It stands to reason that we should probably use specialized eyewear as well. Of course visibility is important, but safety is, too. “Crashworthiness” is not something we think about often when it comes to eyewear, but maybe we should.

Then again, we haven’t seen “riding glasses” advertised before in the motorcycle accessory catalog. However, a few of our members have had the same thought, and they started some really useful threads on the H-D Forums chat boards, like this one asking about the best riding glasses, and this one about motorcycle glasses/goggles, this one requesting suggestions on good riding glasses, this one about the best RX glasses for riding, and this one discussing riding eyewear.

One member is not so concerned about his eyewear when he’s wearing a full-face helmet. But when he’s wearing a half-helmet, he’s not so sure his regular eyeglasses will cut it. He started a thread to ask our member for advice. He also advises that, since he’s nearsighted, contact lenses won’t help much.

Several folks chime in with suggestions for different brands. TracerBullet swears by his Oakley prescription glasses. Most Oakleys are a composite wrap-around style with polycarbonate lenses. That offers good coverage and protection, and they are less of a liability in accidents than traditional eyeglasses.

Spartanden suggests Liberty brand eyewear. Like the Oakleys, they are a wrap-around style, but they also have transitional lenses. During the day, they work great as riding sunglasses. At night, they make for ideal riding eyeglasses.

Nuc has opted for the Wiley X Peak brand. They offer the same wraparound style with transitional lenses as the brands we have already mentioned.

If wrap-around glasses aren’t for you, make sure you get frames that have some degree of flexibility. Also, make sure that the legs of the glasses are double-hinged, so that they can swing both toward and away from your face. Getting in a motorcycle accident is bad enough — you don’t need your glasses hurting your face and eyes as well.

Probably the best advice in the thread comes from Aitch, who recommends LASIK eye surgery. He says he had the procedure performed a couple of years ago, and he wishes that he would have done it sooner. As he points out, the prices are getting lower and lower, too.

Photos: Safety Gear Pro