VSP Active

Renee M. is a member of VSP's Corporate Marketing & Brand Management team.

When it comes to riding my bike, I usually opt for contact lenses to meet my visual correction needs. I choose contacts because they enable me to wear sunglasses that I would be hard-pressed to find in an RX-able version.

However, whether wearing contacts or glasses for visual correction on the bike, I recently learned through a good friend’s bad decision why it’s always smart to bring back-up “eyes.” Much like getting a flat 30 miles from home and discovering that you don’t have the tools to fix it (like a spare tube, patch kit, or a tire pump), reducing your visual acuity due to a lost contact or lens can not only put a damper on your ride, it can also be dangerous.

I say that because this past weekend a friend of mine was out on a 60-mile training ride in the sticks (i.e. a place with little to no cell phone reception) when she got hit in the face by a rock kicked up from a passing delivery truck. Thankfully, she was wearing sunglasses which took most of the abuse. Unfortunately, they were prescription sunglasses and, in her haste to get on the road that morning, she forgot to stow her spare eyeglasses.

In what I’ll call “a momentary lapse of otherwise good judgment,” my friend decided to try riding back to her car, despite having only one usable lens to look through. But if there’s anything more difficult than steering a bike with one “good” eye, it’s doing it on a single lane road with moderate traffic and no shoulder.

Stubborn as my friend is, she finally decided walking her bike was better than becoming a hood ornament. So she thumbed a ride back to her car where, thankfully, she had an old pair of eyeglasses in the glove box.

Lesson learned: even though I wear contact lenses while riding, I pack a little lens kit (complete with a tiny bottle of eye re-wetting drops to combat dryness and new contacts) and a spare pair of glasses with me.

For more on what to wear to get the most out of your bike ride, check out this video: http://www.ehow.com/video_2361735_weather-conditions-bike-riding.html

And for more info on how to prevent sports-related eye injuries, check out VSP’s Eyecare Discovery Center: http://www.vsp.com/discovery/articles/astronauts-wear-it-why.jsp?topic=eye_safety