The Importance of Eye Protection and How to Make the Right Choice
Riding a motorcycle is like freedom on wheels and while you are enjoying being on the open road, it is important to protect your eyes with the proper eye wear. While the majority of riders realize this, if you’re new to the motorcycle world, it may be a bit overwhelming knowing exactly what at choose when it comes to eye wear.
Here is a bit more on the the importance of eye protection and how to make the right choice. There is no right or wrong choice but everyone has different preferences so here are a few guidelines.
Why Choose Eye Protection?
The most important reason for choosing eye protection when riding a bike is that you’ll have a high risk of damaging your eyes without it. Whether it’s a flying piece of gravel, a rock, sand, or any other kind of debris – you don’t want something in your eye while flying down the road on your motorcycle. Not only can it damage your eyes, you can easily lose control of your bike if you find yourself not being able to see due to something in your eye.
The Choices are Many
The good thing is that you have a lot of choices in what you use to protect your eyes. Whether it’s goggles, safety riding glasses or sunglasses, the choice is yours.
What is the Difference?
The difference in choosing sunglasses or goggles is that goggles typically give you coverage that can extend over your prescription glasses and you don’t have to wear a visor or helmet shield necessarily. You also have the benefit that quite a few motorcycle goggles have lens that can be quickly changed to accommodate all types of lighting changes. Some goggles do accommodate prescription eyeglasses so that you are able to wear those while riding.
Sunglasses are a good choice as well. For instance, if you wear prescription glasses, you can choose prescription sunglasses so that you don’t have to worry about not being able to see clearly. You also have the option of transition lenses which adjust to light changes so you are able to see clearly without changing the lenses even in light to dark and dark to light situations.
Finally, riding glasses have a foam insulation that surrounds the eyepieces to keep the wind out of your eyes.
What About Options?
There are so many options available with each type of eye protection. For instance, there are tinting options, UV ray protection, fog-resistant coatings, and scratch-resistant lenses that come as choices with many sunglasses and even some of the higher end goggles and glasses.
Tinting options are a consideration as well. Sunglasses obviously have tinting but many goggles and riding glasses have options as well such as quick-change lenses that snap in and out. A helpful guideline in lens colors and tinting is that yellow works well for fog and overcast conditions, bright and sunny weather is paired well with dark tints and smoky lenses, and nighttime riding works best with clear lenses.
Wind mitigation is another factor to keep in mind unless you wear a full face shield. If not, choose goggles that use a neoprene foam that is not only good at keeping out wind but it won’t lose its form as fast as a cheaper alternative such as a lightweight foam.
There is no single answer on which is the right choice and none of the choices are the wrong one. As long as you protect your eyes the best possible way for your individual needs, you will not only enjoy the ride better but you will be better protected at keeping your eyes free from damage.
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