BigGee
Senior Member
- Location
- North East London
I have worn glasses since I was a child and use them for work, driving, reading, computers, pretty much everything in fact other than cycling!
It has been ever more apparent over the past few years, especially since I started to do the FNRttC, that I probably should do. While I can just about manage still to ride in a staight line, road signs can be a bit of a mistery at times and I was definitely aware that I was missing the full visual experience. I have always been a bit reluctant to wear my regular glasses on a bike, considering them a bit too expensive and vulnerable but recently that logic has become a bit of a thin line.
Anyway I thought I had found the answer when I heard about Optilabs on this forum. The body of opinion seemed to guage that they were a quality product and gave good customer service. From what I could see on their website, that seemed to be confirmed. So I visited my regular optician, where I was due an eye test, nothing had changed and then headed down to croydon with prescription in hand. There was also £20 off if you followed them on twitter which I also took advantage of. I chose my frames and waited for them to arrive in the post.
About a week later they duely did and I tried them out. Now I had been pre-warned by other posters that the wrap around style, especially if you have astigmatic eyes as I have, can take a bit of getting used to, they did not seem right, but I persevered, including doing the FNRttC to Southwold, but when I got back it was clear that they were still not right. So I contacted Optilabs and they suggested bringing them back for them to have a look at.
I took them back and they checked them over, they seemed to be okay and matched the prescription, one eye seemed to be causing the problem. They were very helpful and eventually said that they would re-make the lenses using a dfferent type of lense and a slightly different gradient on the varifocal. That seemed very reasonable and so I left them to it and awaited a phone call, which took another week or so.
I went back down to Croydon again to try them and again they were very off. This casused more head scratching from all of us.They asked me if the prescription had changed from my previous glasses and I said no and I showed them to them, both glasses should have been the same prescription, so it was a mistery why i could see out of one and not the other.
The optician there took my glasses off and measured them and the misery cleared up. Boots had put my right axis measurement as 13 on the prescription (thats the measure of the astigmatism), where he measured the gkasses as being 113! A phone call to Boots and a trial measure on his part soon confirmed that.
Now this fault was entirely down to Boots, but without prompting and without charging, Optilabs offerred to make me another set of glasses with the correct prescription, making it three pairs in total. I now have these and they are great. I have had no problems with the wrap around (and I have quite bad astigmatism) and both the transitions and the varifocal all work just great.
So that strikes me as being customer service of the highest quality. As well as having a great product, they also go the extra mile (or in my case a few miles) for their customers. I would have no hesitation in recommending them to anyone on the forum looking for a pair of glasses for cycling.
Boots to their credit also put their hand up and admitted they had cocked up (at the end of the day we can all make a mistake) and gave me a £50 voucher to make up for my various journey's down to Croydon. So all in all a reasonably satisfying story all round!
It has been ever more apparent over the past few years, especially since I started to do the FNRttC, that I probably should do. While I can just about manage still to ride in a staight line, road signs can be a bit of a mistery at times and I was definitely aware that I was missing the full visual experience. I have always been a bit reluctant to wear my regular glasses on a bike, considering them a bit too expensive and vulnerable but recently that logic has become a bit of a thin line.
Anyway I thought I had found the answer when I heard about Optilabs on this forum. The body of opinion seemed to guage that they were a quality product and gave good customer service. From what I could see on their website, that seemed to be confirmed. So I visited my regular optician, where I was due an eye test, nothing had changed and then headed down to croydon with prescription in hand. There was also £20 off if you followed them on twitter which I also took advantage of. I chose my frames and waited for them to arrive in the post.
About a week later they duely did and I tried them out. Now I had been pre-warned by other posters that the wrap around style, especially if you have astigmatic eyes as I have, can take a bit of getting used to, they did not seem right, but I persevered, including doing the FNRttC to Southwold, but when I got back it was clear that they were still not right. So I contacted Optilabs and they suggested bringing them back for them to have a look at.
I took them back and they checked them over, they seemed to be okay and matched the prescription, one eye seemed to be causing the problem. They were very helpful and eventually said that they would re-make the lenses using a dfferent type of lense and a slightly different gradient on the varifocal. That seemed very reasonable and so I left them to it and awaited a phone call, which took another week or so.
I went back down to Croydon again to try them and again they were very off. This casused more head scratching from all of us.They asked me if the prescription had changed from my previous glasses and I said no and I showed them to them, both glasses should have been the same prescription, so it was a mistery why i could see out of one and not the other.
The optician there took my glasses off and measured them and the misery cleared up. Boots had put my right axis measurement as 13 on the prescription (thats the measure of the astigmatism), where he measured the gkasses as being 113! A phone call to Boots and a trial measure on his part soon confirmed that.
Now this fault was entirely down to Boots, but without prompting and without charging, Optilabs offerred to make me another set of glasses with the correct prescription, making it three pairs in total. I now have these and they are great. I have had no problems with the wrap around (and I have quite bad astigmatism) and both the transitions and the varifocal all work just great.
So that strikes me as being customer service of the highest quality. As well as having a great product, they also go the extra mile (or in my case a few miles) for their customers. I would have no hesitation in recommending them to anyone on the forum looking for a pair of glasses for cycling.
Boots to their credit also put their hand up and admitted they had cocked up (at the end of the day we can all make a mistake) and gave me a £50 voucher to make up for my various journey's down to Croydon. So all in all a reasonably satisfying story all round!
