Glasses Wearer

If your helmet is so tight that wearing glasses becomes painful I'd say the helmet is too tight.
Can you get different size internal pads for it as with some
other helmets?

 

I wear glasses and when I get new glasses I always take my helmet to the opticians to try various frames. I currently have Oakley frames and use a NEXX X WED 2 helmet. I have found that slightly tilting the glasses arms upwards so they’re not behind my ears but just above them makes for a much more comfortable fit for a longer period of time.

 

Different helmet makes suit different head shapes - for instance round head, oval head, long oval head. You need to try them on which makes mail order a bit of a gamble.



I've read for example that Schubert suit round heads, Shoei suit oval.... other makes are available!!

 

Hello Mark, welcome to the forum. I am up the road from you in Prestatyn.
I have a Tiger 900GT Aragon, virtually same spec as the Pro. I to wear specs, i am on my third Shoei neotec, being the mk3. I use my same prescription metal glasses for the bike as my new glasses do not fit comfortably. As pegscraper said, your helmet could be to snug. I have a neotec2 here you are welcome to try, it is maroon and size 59-60 L.
Tony

 

I am also a glasses wearer in a Shoei Gt Air 2. As someone previously said, take your helmet with you when getting glasses. We all have different head shapes as my optician told me when he said my glasses had twisted slightly to one side and I said no that's the shape of my head

 

@Mark TGR9 Welcome to the family. I wear the ARAI Quantic. But only wear glasses occasionally but its not a cheap helmet so possibly not what you want but worth trying. I purchased it as when i do wear glasses it stays clear and is a reasonably quite helmet. I do wish you luck.

 

Once you have an idea of head shape I'd do a "best crash helmet for a round/oval/long oval head shape" search.... delete as appropriate! The government Sharp Helmet Safety website might help too.

I'm not aware of manufacturers listing head shape suitability.

 

X-lite 1003 & 1005 have removable foam sections so the glasses go through unhindered.

 

Hello. You need glasses with straight arms.

 

Do your glasses have curved or straight ends behind the ears? I never could get comfortable with curved ends that were hard to insert and put pressure behind my ears (they also tend to be thicker than straight ends). If yours are straight then helmet sizing/brand is the problem as others have mentioned. However, you may want to get straight ends on the sides. The downside is my glasses often fall off when looking down when not wearing the helmet.

 

When choosing a helmet there is no substitute for going to a shop and trying them on. You should be prepared to keep the helmet on for a reasonable length of time to make sure that not is comfortable and also that glasses can be worn.

Buying over the internet is, in my opinion, not an option and also other people's recommendations are of limited value, as people's head shapes are different and what works for one on any one particular bike will not work for someone else.

 

I'm not averse to trying on a helmet locally in a shop to find the best size and fit, then ordering the same on the net if it's a lot cheaper but then I have an intense dislike of being ripped off and finding I could have bought ££ cheaper after the event.
Having said that, my last helmet purchase was from J&S in Doncaster who ordered in a Shoei Neotec in the next size up, as they didn't one have in stock, after trying on the biggest they had which just felt a bit too snug. When it turned out to be within £15 of an online price I walked out with one.
Helmet choice and fitment is much wider now than it used to be 30-40 years ago with top brands offering different shell sizes in addition to replaceable internal padding options.

 

Why not go for a helmet with a built in sun visor?
Personally I'd never pay a premium for a race replica colour scheme these days although I have done years ago with Lawson and Abe replicas.
I'd never buy another black helmet either, way too hot, stuck in traffic in the Sun in a heatwave.
I had a Schuberth prior to my current Shoei Neotec but it wasn't in the same league IMO. One thing I would NEVER EVER do is buy a used helmet, no matter how seldom it's been worn.

 

I bought a separate pair of (prescription) glasses solely for the bike so that I could get easily slotted in legs and also not worry about my good reactolite glasses getting bent or damaged. That plus my drop down sun visor covers all bases.

 

All of us will at some point in life need to resort to some form of assistance with our vision and the immediate move is probably to buy a pair of cheapo off the shelf reading glasses. For me this happened whilst still working, I was 50 at the time.

So I went the specs route initially, laying out hundreds of pounds for readers plus distance jobbies. Total pain in the backside.

SWMBO had been occasionally using contact lenses for a number of years so at my next eye examination I enquired about these and was given a 5 day pack of daily lenses that you just chuck away when you take them out so no sterilisation faff.

So without banging on any further I now use for my general daily wear Multifocal contact lenses, yep, just like the optician has probably already got you to spend loadsa crinkle on in spectacle format, but in contact lens format.

Because the prescription for each of my eyes is pretty close I am able to use the same spec for both eyes, thus avoiding the faff of getting the wrong lens in the wrong eye. These lenses are adequate for 95% of daily activity including driving and riding.

However, if I want 20/20 vision in all but close reading I will use my Toric lenses which are specific to each eye and are weighted to ensure gravity correctly aligns them on your eyeball.

Finally, cost is approx £150 for 90 pairs. Toric are slightly cheaper than Multifocal. And where do I buy them, CostCo. And what make? Your optometrist will probably trial you with Acuvue or Dailies. However I have found Total 1 to be the most comfortable by far, putting them in at 07:00 ish and removing them at 22:00 ish. I have even slept in them and then installed a new set on top of yesterday’s set and the drove down to buy a paper.

So my advice to all you specs wearers is give them a go, it won’t cost you anything. I have found them to be a total game changer. Yes I still need to supplement them with specs for really, really intricate work but that is for minutes not hours and they are so comfortable that you are rarely conscious of wearing them.