100% S3 Glasses review: as much coverage as goggles (nearly)

These 100% S3 glasses looked like they might just give goggle-like coverage, but without the overheating issues goggles give if you want to wear eye protection for an entire ride.

I got these 100% S3 glasses in to test as I wanted something with a colourless lens option for muddy winter rides. I also wanted good coverage to keep the muck out of my eyes, since wearing contact lenses means even the tiniest speck of dust can cause major irritation. If I lose a lens on a ride, I’m left with screwed up depth perception and a distinctly dizzy feeling, so it’s a very undesirable outcome.

• Brand: 100%
• Product: S3
• From: freewheel.co.uk
• Price: £169.99
• Tested: by Hannah for 1 year

My 100% S3 glasses came with a colourless lens and a HiPER Coral lens. The colourless lens doesn’t have the hydrophobic and oleophobic properties of the higher priced lenses – they’re just scratch resistant – but the optical clarity is still excellent, with no distortion or warping like you can get with cheap safety glasses.

There is a somewhat dizzying array of lens options, and little by way of information about what each colour is actually supposed to do – or if it’s just a fashion statement. It would be nice if the 100% website gave a simple explanation of all that, but hey, it doesn’t. The different lens options make a substantial difference to the price, so pick and choose carefully according to what you need.

In the absence of a helpful breakdown on the 100% site, UK Distributers Madison/Freewheel gave us this handy crib sheet of what features are available for each lens option:

Whatever you choose, you get a substantial protective case that’s big enough to hold your glasses plus up to two spare lenses. It’s good to have the safe storage, but the case is a little too bulky for my liking – it takes up a lot of room in your luggage, and is certainly too big for out on the trail.

Swapping between lenses is quite easy once you’ve got your head around yanking on the plastic. It feels wrong to be pulling at your glasses, but that’s what you need to do. You pull the lens off the main frame, plus pull the lower frame piece off the lens. Then, push and clip your other lens back into place. It’s fiddly enough that you’ll want one bare and ungloved hand for sure, but there’s a pleasing lack of titchy small parts to lose. There is an alternative sized rubbery nose pad piece should you need it to get a good fit, and I’ve found that it stays well attached to the lower frame piece.

The frame is somewhere between a full and half frame, with a partial lower frame that wraps around the lower nose-side corners. They’re less in your face than the 100% Speedcrafts, which have a raised brow section along the top, but like the Speedcrafts they have vents along the bottom. Unlike the 100% S2 frames, the frame doesn’t wrap the whole way around the lenses, but it doesn’t leave the lens edge wholly exposed either. True half frame glasses give me the heebie-jeebies – I can’t shake the idea that they’re going to slice into my cheeks – so I like this design. It gives a good range of visibility without a distracting frame edge in the periphery of your vision, with the (possibly imaginary) slicing potential of a half frame.

The lower frame section doesn’t fully encase the lower inners of the frame – there are two vents there. The glasses don’t sit tight against my cheeks, so whether these vents are really doing anything, or whether there’s just plenty of ventilation in any event, I can’t really say. However, I have found these to be nicely resistant to steaming up, even when racing on a hot day in a full face helmet. Yes, glasses and a full face helmet… I just haven’t found a comfortable combination of goggles and helmet yet – I don’t like how the elastic of the goggles feels in conjunction with a helmet – something always seems to be pulling something, or jiggling around in an uncomfortable fashion. But these S3s have sat comfortably within a full face helmet while also providing almost as much coverage as goggles.

I’ve found that the legs have played nicely with my helmets. There’s no adjustment in the legs, but the rubbery elements and shaping seem to keep the glasses in place without slipping or pulling on my hair. Although the glasses give loads of coverage, I’ve not had trouble fitting them with different helmets. I think this might be partly due to the way the lenses flare outwards slightly, giving broad coverage without having wide-set legs or frame.

I’ve used the clear lens the most, and it’s been a real boost to winter and night riding to have a truly colourless lens. To my eye, the pinky lens has a tendency to make the browns of our local moorland blend together, so I’m not sold on the colour. However, it does give eyes a welcome rest on those brighter but not sunny days, and isn’t so dark that you can’t see where you’re going when you go beneath the tree canopy. I reckon there’s something to the hydrophobic and oleophobic claims of the HiPer lens too – it definitely seems to shed muddy spatters better than the basic clear lens.

Overall

These are a useful addition to my autumn/winter/spring riding wardrobe. They’re comfortable and they fit with a range of helmets and riding conditions. They’re a bit obviously ‘cycling’ for my taste to wear to the beach or into town, but with the addition of a photochromic lens for bright summer duties they’d have all my ride needs covered. I just wish it was a bit easier to figure out which lens might suit me best. Maybe 100% can put a bit of work in to their website and make things as clear as the lenses are to look through.

Post-script:

Literally as I was finalising the words for this review, there was a knock at the door: a courier. They held in their hands a rather sad looking parcel that seemed to have been eaten in transit. We looked inside the ripped package: ‘Oh no, there’s nothing in there, it must have dropped out, it’ll have to go back’. But hang on… no! It’s there: a photochromic lens, invisible in its packaging until it just started to darken as I ripped the envelope wider and the sun came out. So, I can confirm that the photochromic lens does go completely colourless in the dark! The tech specs say it allows 89% visible light transmission at max, and 24% and minimum. Fingers crossed that’s my year round eyewear sorted!

Review Info

Hannah Dobson

Managing Editor

I came to Singletrack having decided there must be more to life than meetings. I like all bikes, but especially unusual ones. More than bikes, I like what bikes do. I think that they link people and places; that cycling creates a connection between us and our environment; bikes create communities; deliver freedom; bring joy; and improve fitness. They're environmentally friendly and create friendly environments. I try to write about all these things in the hope that others might discover the joy of bikes too.

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