Here’s a few things you might not know about the ubiquitous eyewear legend Oakley; the name was inspired by founder James Jannard’s dog “Oakley” and their first product was a motocross grip. I recently got a first hand test drive of their newest lens innovation called Prizm up in Mammoth Mountain, CA at a product testing lab.
For the non scientists out there (myself included) Prizm is a technology where certain colors are blocked from the lens by limiting specific light wavelengths. Oakley’s engineers travelled the world finding the locations for various spots and identified what colors to let through the lens and what to block resulting in a way higher performance lens than a generic one. What this means practically is that you can have a lens like the trail lens which finally solves the age old problem of riding into a shady corner on a downhill mountain-biking trail and losing visibility in the shadows only to get blinded when you are back in the sun.
We tested the lenses across a variety of conditions (road cycling, downhill MTB and fly-fishing) and the different variations were tuned to match the activity and true to form the shadows were lifted on the mountain and the fly and the trout were a lot easier to spot though still hard to catch…
Lungs; exploded.
I perhaps like you, have just been wearing whatever glasses weren’t broken or lost when I go out riding but when you combine the Prizm tech along with the quality and durability Oakley is famous for the result is a legitimately enhanced experience allowing you to focus more on that sketchy section of rock, which seconds after this photo led to a chain de-rail, front brake jam and cracked rib 😉
Shocks…Pegs…Lucky!
Find the right Prizm lens for your sport here.
-Steve Dubbeldam, Wilderness Founder