Stick on bifocal lenses

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Dadam

Senior Member
Location
SW Leeds
Prompted by not being able to read my Garmin and recommendations on that thread I've been investigating varifocal/bifocal prescription wraparound sport sunglasses.

I've been looking at Optilabs and others, and had a chat with Specsavers and Costco optical. The latter said they don't do any kind of wraparounds with prescription lenses but Specsavers do supply some from Hilco. At the moment Optilabs are leading, and I'll be going for transitions drivewear or standard brown photochromic

Anyway, on a whim and as a bifocal proof of concept I bought a pair of these to stick on the single vision prescription inserts I have in my Rockbros cheapie cycling sunglasses. Seem to work really well at a third of the price of the water adhesive ones. I trimmed them to the right size and shape to fill roughly the bottom third of the single vision lenses on my inserts. It wasn't easy to decide on the right positioning. I had to sit astride the bike with the Garmin in place to check the position, very difficult to do this while holding fiddly little lenses in place! Technically they are removable but the blurb recommends leaving them once stuck. They seem to be self adhesive but don't have any peel off backing. This must be why a lot of people on the reviews say they fall off; too easy to get greasy fingermarks all over them and the lenses before you stick them. Once trimmed, I thoroughly cleaned them and the insert lenses with alcohol wipes and stuck in place firmly and they have been adhering well, several hours riding so far, in quite hot sweaty conditions last Saturday. As with a phone screen protector they get the odd air bubble if there's a tiny speck of dust or lint so be aware of this. You don't notice these when wearing them though. At £11.99 (now seem to have gone up a bit) they were well worth it. Not meant to be a permanent solution, but as long as they stay stuck they will work well enough for now and continue to be a good backup pair.

I added half a dioptre to my reading prescription to cover Garmin range better and got the 1.5. For my prescription this is more the "intermediate" range for using computer monitors (I have single vision VDU glasses for work). Cycle computer range is roughly between VDU and reading range so ideally it would have been 1.75 but they weren't available. I think 1.5 was the right choice as the Garmin is clear and I can still see distance reasonably well, so peripheral vision is fine in the bifocal part and I can see cars in my bar end mirror.
 
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Dogtrousers

Kilometre nibbler
I used these successfully on some cheap sunspecs ...about 10 years ago. Sadly they seem to have stopped working so well these days. Can't understand why :whistle:
 

Bonefish Blues

Banging donk
Location
52 Festive Road
Been doing this for donks on my fishing sunnies in conjunction with contact lenses. Works just fine for my use, (and allows multiple lenses to be used, as well as being much cheaper than prescription glasses...and then your prescription changes!)
 

Sharky

Guru
Location
Kent
I use specsavers fot my normal glasses. One year I bought a pair of wraparound prescription sunglasses. But they had thick frames and for cycling, not really suitable as I had to lift my head up too much to avoid the frame blocking my view.
 

Mike_P

Guru
Location
Harrogate
Tried some sick ons but my lenses were too curved for them so after trying to cut them down to a size that might work they ended up in the bin.
 
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