Ok, please forgive the pun in the headline, sometimes you have to have to take advantage of an open goal. In my quest to not only find the best cycling glasses, but also the best cheap cycling glasses, I came across this package from UK brand Victory Chimp. I’m loathe to call it a single pair of cycling glasses, because as I’ll go into, the Vega Evo is several pairs in one. Usually, consumers expect to get more as they pay more, but in the case of more premium cycling glasses you often actually get less. Modern lenses have become so good that one lens can cover all the conditions that a separate pair of lenses could - usually a sun lens, and an orange high contrast option. Moreover, I’m seeing fewer and fewer glasses that include a clear lens for after-dark riding.
Happily the Vega Evo steps in, at least for those of you residing in the UK. Not only do you get a sun lens, but a photochromic one (one that changes from clear to dark when exposed to sunlight), a clear one, and a polarised one. On top of this you also get an insert into which prescription lenses can be placed, making the Vega a strong contender for the best prescription cycling glasses too.
Having loads of lenses is great, but not if they’re rubbish. I don’t think the Vega is a perfect pair of cycling glasses by any means, but having had (at a guess at this point because I’ve genuinely lost count) around 60 pairs of sunglasses come across my bows, I’m yet to find a pair that offers the same value as these.
Design and aesthetics
The Victory Chimp Vega strikes a similar pose to several big name cycling glasses. It most closely resembles the POC Aspire, a set of glasses I really like, but more rectangular and with more ‘normal’, narrow arms. It shares the same pseudo-frameless design, with the lens sitting within the frame at the edges and the nose, and in front of the lenses at the brow and the bottom edge. The lens, whichever one you opt for, is unvented, and while the POC Aspire has a bit of separation between frame and lens to aid airflow, things are pretty tight here so you can think of these as wholly unvented.
Swapping out the many lenses, incidentally, is rather easy. There are no Rube Goldberg-esque mechanisms as may be found on Oakleys of the past, you’ve just got to sort of push it out. The frames are rather flexible without the lens, and so they pop out very easily, and putting a different set in is a matter of a second or two's work, plus a few more to wipe off the fingerprints.
The arms are really rather long, especially for my small head, and the hinges don’t engage with as much of a satisfying snap as more expensive offerings, but they also don’t feel floppy or poorly made. The inside and underside of the tops of the arms are rubberised, but it’s a different rubber compared to the tacky nosepiece, offering less grip.
Despite coming with a veritable smorgasbord of lenses, there is only one nosepiece included, and if you have a narrow nose bridge as I do it may be a touch too wide.
Performance
For the price, these perform valiantly. I’d be lying if I said they truly mix it with more premium options because they don’t, but functionally they tick all the required boxes. The large lens provides a decent field of view, but like the POC Aspire you are often conscious that you’re looking through a lens rather than having that ‘forget you’re wearing them’ experience.
The lens sits quite far from the face, which does mean that despite them being unvented, they don’t have a tendency to fog up. Enough airflow gets in behind to flush out any stubborn, humid pockets. At the opposite end of the spectrum, they do a solid job of keeping the wind out of your eyeballs on fast descents.
The main sun lens, which is my preferred one for day-to-day use, does a pretty good job of keeping the sun out. It’s the only one of the bunch that has a reflective coating on the outside, a silvery one in this case, and even in very harsh sunlight, it copes well. It has a slightly blue base tint though, against the current received wisdom of pairing an orange or rose base tint with a mirror coating in order to enhance low light contrast, and this is borne out when you head into shade.
That being said, for the price, it’s perfectly good and if you’re regularly riding in changeable weather, or in night and day, then the photochromic lens covers this base well. It reacts pretty swiftly (30 seconds or so) to get from clear to its darkest, and again there is a blue base tint, so it performs similarly but deals with really bright sun a little less well thanks to the lack of a mirror.
Polarised lenses aren’t for me. I don’t see any real benefit for cyclists, and they can also make it hard to spot standing water and sometimes make it hard to see your computer or phone at certain angles, but if you’re fishing then grand, you can take it with you. Even the clear lens is better than most, sporting UV protection, so if you end up surprised by sunlight your eyes are still protected.
I didn’t find them the most secure on my narrow nose and small head - truly a good test for any shades. The nose was grippy but too wide, and no replacement pad was included. The arms, not bolstered by a stiff frame, only gripped gently, and I had to make sure they were contacting skin, and not my hair, or they’d slip down my face.
Value
It’s hard for me to say anything other than these are amazing value. You get more for your money than anything else I’ve come across, and while they aren’t necessarily going to challenge the likes of Oakley, for £50 or so they’re about as good as a starter set of cycling glasses can get.
Verdict
If you live in the UK, and you have in the region of 50 quid to spend on a pair of cycling glasses, then this is probably what you should be spending your money on. All bases are covered thanks to a huge array of lenses, corrective vision needs are taken into account, and you even get a decent hard case. My only caveat is that they aren’t too secure on either small heads or narrow noses.
