How to clean and take care of your cycling glasses

Just like bicycles and cycling clothes, glasses also need care, cleaning and maintenance. It is essential to know how to protect them, where to put them when we take them off and, above all, how to safely and properly clean them. Let’s not forget that apart from being a basic accessory to complete our cycling look, their main role is to protect our eyes from the sun, wind, water, dust, dirt and insects. Follow these tips to take proper care of them:

Keep your cycling glasses well protected

Whenever possible, keep them in their case, as that is where they are safest. This way you will avoid scratching them with other objects or damaging them in a fall. 

The pouch is also very handy as it helps prevent scratches or impacts from minor falls, but there is a limit to how much protection it can provide, as it is not as hard as the case.

Do not leave them lying around in the car or don’t just drop them wherever as soon as you get home since you run the risk of sitting on them or accidentally dropping them when you move other things.

The case is the best option for traveling, but there are also a couple of tricks to help you save space in your suitcase or backpack. One is putting them inside your cycling shoes (although not all models of cycling glasses fit in a shoe); the other, more universal, is using your helmet and putting the glasses inside, in their case or microfiber pouch. If the helmet protects our head, it will also protect the glasses.

Where do I put my glasses when I need to take them off while cycling?

Cycling glasses should stay where they naturally belong, i.e. on our face, protecting our eyes, but there are times when, for various reasons, we have to take them off. In such a case, we can put them in the front or rear vents of the helmet (they usually fit better upside down but it depends on the helmet).  

If you have an aero helmet and you can’t put the glasses in the vents, you can wear them as if you had eyes in the back of your neck. Another option is to hang them on the back of your jersey’s neck. We do not recommend putting them on the front part because they can easily fall off.

Wet cleaning

All you need is lukewarm water, around 35 ºC, and clean hands. Place the glasses under the tap and let the water remove all the dirt. Do not use dishwasher or detergent because they contain solvents and chemicals to remove grease and can damage the lenses. You can use a neutral, fragrance-free soap, but we do not recommend it; firstly, because a good splash of water is enough, and secondly, because you may think that your hand soap is safe to use when it actually is not. Precautionary principle.

Once all the dirt has been washed off the lenses, pre-dry the lenses to make sure they are clean or else some dirt might be left on the lenses and scratch them. Then shake off as much excess water as you can. You can also tap the lenses gently against your body, holding them by a temple.

Use the microfiber pouch or cloth to dry the glasses, but make sure they are clean. Do not use kitchen paper, toilet paper, cotton cloths, etc. because these fabrics may contain hard fibers that can damage the glasses. You can use the cold setting on a hair dryer, but don’t even think of exposing the lenses to heat.

The dirt on the outside is clearly visible but the slots in the frame where the lenses are clipped in can also be full of dirt and salt from sweat, so it is a good idea to take the lenses off, clean and dry the slots and put them back on every so often.

If the frame, rubber bands on temples and nose pad are very dirty, remove the lenses before washing them with soap and water. Put them back into place when you are done. The best drying method is using the cold setting on a hair dryer.

Although there are many liquid cleaners that come in small bottles and can be applied in different ways, do not use them without having washed the glasses under running water first to remove excess dirt.

Dry cleaning

We’ve just washed our glasses and we’ve already messed them up with our fingers, leaving fingerprints all over the lenses. It has happened to all of us. To remove the fingerprints, we can use a microfiber pouch or cloth, making sure it’s clean. If gentle rubbing does not remove the stain, breathe on the lens and wipe it again. This is the most classic and also the most effective technique.

How to prevent fogging?

The vast majority of cycling glasses come with a thin coating to prevent the fogging that clouds our vision, but even so, every cyclist has experienced this problem when stopping or riding slowly, especially in winter or when the temperatures are low. It is similar to what happens to car windows. This occurs because the heat emitted by our face causes a contrast in temperature, turning the moisture in the air into mist. What do we do in the car? We turn on the ventilation system to blow a stream of air onto the window. What can we do on the bike? We should buy a pair of glasses with anti-fog ventilation ports such as the DrySky system found in all of Siroko’s cycling glasses. Such ventilation ports are designed to let the hot air escape through them, preventing foggy lenses. On the other hand, the fogging disappears as soon as we start pedaling again, pick up speed or move the glasses slightly away from our eyes.

If you search online or ask around among cyclists, you will find a lot of tricks that supposedly solve the fogging problem: dishwasher, soap, shaving foam, vinegar and even your own saliva. We don’t recommend any of them. Firstly, because we would contradict ourselves, having told you before that you should not use these products to wash your lenses. And secondly, because we have tried them all on some very old glasses that fog up easily and none of the tricks worked. 

A good ventilation of the lens is more important than any homemade trick. In any case, you can easily find special anti-fogging products designed to avoid damaging the lens and to restore the thin anti-fogging coating we were talking about before.

Speaking of tricks, one of them involves using toothpaste to fix a scratched lens. Don’t even bother trying, we’ve already done it for you. It doesn’t work. Given all those incredible uses of toothpaste, I don’t know in which aisle of the supermarket to look for it anymore – cleaning supplies or personal care?