- Gill Freedom sports glasses
- £44.99
Gill possibly isn’t the first name you’d think of when looking for some bike eyewear, but its Freedom glasses have quite a lot to offer. Almost-straight ear stems make them easy to put on or take off and have a suitably grippy coating to make sure that they don’t come off until you’re ready. The lens shape is well thought out, with reassuringly small gaps around the edges, at least on most of our tester’s faces. Usefully, you get three sets of lenses in the package – the grey ones you see here, plus yellow for lower light conditions (or, in the UK, most of the time) and clear for even lower light conditions, otherwise known as darkness. As contact lens wearers, we’re big fans of clear lenses – we like to have something between our contacts and the trail, and it’s not always bright enough even for yellow or orange lenses. All the lenses offer 100% UV protection.
Swapping lenses is a simple matter of popping one pair out and popping another in. You get a pair of microfibre bags to keep currently-unused lenses in and a neoprene pouch to keep them and the glasses themselves in. The pouch has loops on the back so you could, if you wanted, thread it onto a hydration pack strap or something. You don’t get a bag to put the glasses in on their own or clean them with, though, which is perhaps a bit of an oversight.
In use they’re unobtrusive. They’re light, although they’re not as feathery as more costly rivals. Optical clarity appears to be perfectly acceptable. And you get a choice of frame colour – blue, grey or black.
Positives: Reasonable looks, lens options, choice of colours
Negatives: A little pricier than some similar offerings
Verdict: These are perfectly competent and decent-looking specs, although they don’t offer much more than some significantly cheaper options. Then again, they don’t offer much less than some significantly more expensive ones…
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