The Best Sunglasses for Bikepacking
When you are on your bike, sunglasses are an important part of the kit. They protect your eyes from the sun, the wind, and when bikepacking bugs are a real reason to make sure to keep your eyes protected. The challenge with sunglasses for bikepacking is that when the conditions change it’s easy to break an expensive pair of glasses. Ombraz has a solution in the form of armless glasses.
When conditions change, glasses get stowed. When it comes to a 3-hour road ride across pristine pavement this isn’t much of an issue. Things are a bit different when you talk about sunglasses for bikepacking. Covering rough terrain means it’s easy to lose a pair of glasses hung at the front of a jersey or stowed on the top of a helmet. You’ve got to find a place in your packs to make it work and over the course of a rough and tumble day it’s easy to break the arms off a pair of glasses. Even if the arms don’t break for many glasses the arms scratching the lenses is an issue also.
Stop worrying about breaking your glasses when you’re in the backcountry
What’s the solution? It’s pretty simple really, remove the arms. Ombraz creates glasses with custom woven 100% recycled Japanese nylon cord instead of arms and hinges. Instead of stowing them in your packs you can just let them hang. There’s no chance of losing them. If you do decide to stow them you don’t have to worry about arms or hinges breaking because there aren’t any. It’s one of those beautifully simple designs that just makes sense.
Just creating an armless pair of sunglasses isn’t enough though. Ombraz glasses take a good idea and they execute it well. Let’s not forget, Sunglasses are fashion items too. Ombraz starts with three frame styles. Each one is a modern take on a classic design and once you’ve picked a frame there are 2-3 color options for each. The final option is for the lens. Ombraz offers polarized, non-polarized, clear blue-blocker, glacial and various RX lens options with premium scratch-resistant & anti-smudge coatings.
Being a brand for the adventure minded Ombraz hasn’t forgotten about the environmental effects of the products it creates. Sponsored athlete Sarah Swallow does a good job summarizing it by saying “The fact that Ombraz is a small company that plants 20 mangrove trees for every pair of sunglasses sold sweetens the experience of wearing them.” The Mangrove trees restore degraded landscapes and sequester carbon but the packaging is also 100% compostable with zero plastic.
Ultimately Ombraz is just a small team of dedicated adventurers. The idea came together after repairing a broken pair of glasses with a piece of twine and realizing it was an elegant solution to a lot of problems. They don’t slip down your nose, no matter how much your sweaty helmet is pushing on them. When you do take them off, they are always right around your neck when you need them again and without arms, they aren’t likely to break. Next time you are thinking about sunglasses for bikepacking check out the Ombraz glasses.
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