Tested: Ryders Eyewear Thorn glasses with anti-fog

As a life-long four-eyes, I know fogged up glasses. Enter a house after spending time in the winter air: instant fog followed by some difficulty finding a coat hanger. On the bike, I’ve had moisture build up on regular prescription glasses and sunglasses I wear after I put in contacts. I remember struggling with steamed-up lenses one cyclocross practice. The organizer asked me what was troubling me.

“Every time I stop, my glasses fog right up,” I said.

“Well, don’t stop then,” came his helpful advice.

This past March, Ryders Eyewear launched their new anti-fog lens collection. I got my hands on two pairs of Thorn models in February. It’s not often that I get equipment that I willfully try to make fail. Anti-fog? Whatever. I could get them to steam up.

One of my first tests was in some miserable weather. I got on my bike in the midst of a cold rainy afternoon. Every stop at a stoplight should have brought on the fog. Then, with a regular pair of glasses, I’d have to ride a bit looking over the tops of the frame to sort-of see the road ahead until the fog cleared. Well, I didn’t have to look over the top of the frame. They worked. No fog up.

Michael Sammut, marketing and communications co-ordinator at Ryders, told me how the anti-fog feature works. “Unlike other anti-fog glasses, Ryders anti-fog technology is embedded into the mass of the lens, as opposed to being a coating that’s simply added on after the lens is made,” he said. “It’s permanent and washable.” The anti-fog part is only on the inside of the lenses. The outside, the part that gets hit by rain, is hydrophobic: it repeals water and dirt. On that rainy ride of mine, the lenses did a excellent job of shedding water. I don’t think I wiped them once.

Another test for the glasses was at an early season road race. My category had the pleasure of starting at 8:30 a.m. The drive to the race was through fog as well as my warmup before the event. I had the Thorn glasses with yellow lenses on, which darken colours without affecting contrast in low-light conditions. During the warmup, the lenses got lined with moisture and I had to stop my parking-lot laps. I couldn’t see. That water buildup, however, wasn’t the glasses failing to perform properly. They were working just fine. That buildup was my fault.

Sammut had told me that the anti-fog feature works by drawing the moisture in. There is a limit to how much water the lenses can hold. I hadn’t wiped down the lenses in a while, so they had become saturated. They couldn’t draw in any more moisture. The fix was simple. I cleaned the glasses with a soft cloth. Clarity restored. During the race, as the light conditions changed—the sun actually came out—the tint on the photochromic lenses adjusted accordingly. The glasses definitely performed better than I did in the race.