Desire: Oakley Flight Jacket
Looking out the window right now at the grey skies looming large over London, the irony of writing about sunglasses isn’t lost. Checks phone. Clicks Met Office app and there’s a sun icon over the weekend. Looks like a couple of days of riding in shades rather than misted up clear lenses.
Hold that thought. It’s annoying, and pretty dangerous when lenses fog up. Oakley claims to have cured this ill with the new Flight Jacket. It all comes down to the new Advancer nose bridge. With a flip of the switch the wearer can add more ventilation. A demister if you like.
The switch works by pushing the lens away from the face, which allows the air to flow all the way around and cool its surface. Handy when the field of vision is hampered by the microclimate occurring right before your eyes. Literally.
There’s a joke at the midweek 10-mile time trial. “I know my position is good when I can’t see”. This referring to the aerodynamic gain of keeping a low head, which, without meaning to state the blindingly obvious, has its problems.
It happens when the top of the sunglasses creep into the field of vision. Oakley spotted this and has gone for an open edge brow design on this new model. Oakley even went to the extent of wind tunnel testing the Flight Jacket. Well, why not? They haven’t said how many watts they save however. Our guess? Not very many.
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Being able to manage misted up lenses easily is a feet of ingenuity. And having a browless design does improve the wearer’s view of the road ahead when they’ve got their head down. Maybe that’s the aerodynamic gain from the Flight Jacket? Regardless, they look great, so who cares?
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