Ageing eyes and the glasses/contacts conundrum.

Varifocals. It’s what many of us oldies wear all the time !

Varifocal cycle glasses from Optilabs.

I wear just one contact lens. Works a treat. I do the same  in the car too if I am going a long distance and want to see the satnav.

I have one contact lens for distance and one for close up. Works for me.

Varifocals always gave me a headache, so I stick to contacts for daily mid/long vision with reading glasses when I need them.

For the trail / away from home “should I need them” instances I have emergency Thinoptics fold up reading lenses on my key ring, £19 from Amazon

Multifocal contact lenses here.

I couldn't get on with varifocals. I wear contacts for distance vision on the trail and keep a cheap pair of reading glasses in my pocket if I need to look at my phone, fix a puncture or anything else up close.

Varifocals have been my saviour ?

Seriously, have you had a sight test with an Optician and talked it through. Everyone who is short sighted has this problem from 45 or so. Options:
Varifocal/ progressive lenses- only about 5% reject them, the earlier you start wearing (the lower the reading add) the easier they are to get on with.
Contact lenses- mono vision or multi focal.
Bifocal- the ones with the line- I would try as a last resort, but they are simple and work.

Whatever you choose you need to wear them a lot in normal life before you only wear them for riding.
I wouldn’t be ordering them on line, the measurements needed are mm precise. Most high street opticians will guarantee them.
Most Independent opticians will be more expensive but you’ll have a choice of the best lenses and be seen by a Dispensing Optician rather than a trained assistant.

I have two pairs of glasses, one for distance one for close up.

Tried varifocals but did not work for me - could not cope with looking at a monitor and having to move my head to get the bit I wanted to read into focus.

In response to a few points above: I have varifocals for my day to day specs. My riding glasses are just distance corrected as I can always take them off to look at a map or whatever. As I said, the view through the middle of the lens is A1, it's just the glances up the trail lifting just my eyes rather than my head which are the problem.

I acknowledge that I only wear my contacts a couple of times a month, so maybe I'm just not used to making the choice between which eye to prioritise depending on my point of focus.

I use a local optician who have always been great and I'm sure will have useful advice, but as they don't ride I wondered whether there was a magic, moon on a stick option that I ought to be aware of.

I have recently started wearing multifocal contacts as don't get on with glasses when i'm moving around - they are good for me but you need to be prepared for a slight compromise in either distance or close-up.

Go to Specsavers & get a free contact lens trial - they give you 10 days worth of your choice to try & if you need to tinker with the prescription they will supply more as needed. That should give you a chance to work out if they are for you or not.

I've never worn contacts previously (only glasses for reading that were left way too long before changing) but got on with contacts & definately help my riding - I wore them riding on day 2 of my trial period & was sold!

Good luck - don't think others can give you the answer, you need to try a few options to find out what works best for you, but a free contact lens trial is obviously the cheapest trial option & was a good starting place for me.

blokeuptheroad

Full Member

I couldn’t get on with varifocals. I wear contacts for distance vision on the trail and keep a cheap pair of reading glasses in my pocket if I need to look at my phone, fix a puncture or anything else up close

This is basically me.

In reality I've also got very used to doing things by touch and with blurred vision.

Nothing is in focus without contacts or glasses, the joy of getting older

the joy of getting older

Very much this, I fear.

Same as MCTD, one lense for distance (your dominant eye), the other for close up. It's called monovision. Some folk can hack it, some can't. Ask your optician if it's suitable for you.

I'm a couple of weeks into my first pair of varifocals.  I think I'm going to send them back.  The area of focus is too small, it's all well and good saying "move your head around" if you're walking about, but that's a fat lot of use when I'm on the Xbox and half of the screen is blurred.  Reading distance is no better, and arguably worse, than with a pair of £3 readers.  I think the left lens prescription is actually wrong, I cannot get a sharp image at all when reading.

It sounds to me like you want a pair of riding glasses which sit higher on your face, so your focal area is higher and you can look under them for reading.

Ask your optician if it’s suitable for you.

That's what I have at the moment. It's certainly better than what I had before where I couldn't see anything closer than the end of my arm!

I wore multipoint varifocal lenses for some time, then went back to contacts, they were just easier to get on with and I could carry a pair of cheap reading glasses with me for any closeup work. I could also wear ordinary sunglasses which was cheaper. Ultimately I required cataract surgery in both eyes, I requested that both eyes be fixed for distance vision, but the reality is I only need glasses for very close-up purposes, I can actually read a book if the text isn’t too small. Having had to wear glasses from my very early twenties, having clear vision fifty-odd years on is bloody wonderful!

The area of focus is too small

Don't know what lenses you bought and what price they were but the more you spend the larger the areas can be.

Can see it here --> https://www.visionexpress.com/glasses/lenses/varifocal-lens-option

Contacts for distance and sports sunglasses with a reading bi-focal bit. There was a thread on here about them, and they work a treat as in most of the lens is neutral so no distortion looking through the top edge, and the reading bit is fine for bike fixing and reading the Garmin/cafe menu.

My method was to put contacts in and go to Boots (other chemists are available) and try different strengths with my arms out in front holding some shampoo with tiny writing at Garmin distance until I found the right power.

And no I can't find the email to do a link - sorry.

Re varifocals cheap lenses give you a G-string area of clarity and better ones give you a big ole pair of harvest festivals optical clarity wise.

My first pair were from Specsavers - disastrous. Years later tried Boots - good straight away.

Same here. I did stick with different lenses for a while but gradually my old age need for reading glasses became too strong. I know just use the contacts to see distance and carry Poundland readers in my back pocket. How often do you really need to look at a screen? If you are following a route you can usually remember the next junction or two and why the hell would you be wanting to read a phone screen anyway whilst out on the bike?  Should you really need to you can stop and put the readers on.

I had to adopt varifocals for EDW two years ago. I went with the best lenses available for the largest viewing area and I don’t regret it. For riding though I either wear single vision glasses and remove them if I need to read something or one contact in my weakest eye. I wouldn’t do that for driving though as I’m pretty sure both eyes need to be corrected.

I find my multifocals are CRAP if you're using more than one display screen, as the bit that clears vision means I have to keep moving my head to look through the right bit.

My optician got me some computer / reading glasses which are single vision and quite a trip when I swap multi to single then walk around!!!

The area of focus is too small

Don’t know what lenses you bought and what price they were but the more you spend the larger the areas can be.

My first ones were the basic cheapies and were pretty marginal, but i was mostly working from home, so one monitor, not much driving, really became obvious when i went back to work, three monitors.
Now have the better lenses and can give both monitors (and colleagues) side eye without them going out of focus.

Short of adopting a much more upright position, has anyone experienced something similar and found a good solution?

Single vision lenses and bigger font on your GPS?

For all those complaining about the narrow area of focus on varifocals - speak to your optician. I went to varifocals the last time I changed specs, having used single vision for over 40 years. Game changer for me. Mrs NBT had swapped over ahead of me, and been fine, then hated her second set for the reasons mentioned above, to the point she didn't wear them. The difference was she had gone to a different optician who use a different lens maker. For her third set we went back to the first optician and once again, all was great.

To me, it sounds like a poor prescription. I'd be complaining to the optician saying "this is not good enough". If they don't offer different options of lenses (maybe even a different lens from the same maker) then get your money back and try varifocals from someone else. You only get one set of eyes, and you use them quite a lot, treat them to some good stuff and spend some money rather than saving a few quid by using cheap stuff so you can afford nice set of forks / new phone / whatever

I could swear I put something into this thread last night, but anyway...

I wear varifocals all day every day and spend all working day using two monitors, it all works fine. I went for the middling 'size of area of view' option, and they were from a local optician, if I remember rightly I took them back to get the prescription tweaked as the various focally bits weren't quite in the correct place for one eye. They just sorted it though, no problems.

For riding I use cheapy varifocals from Goggles4U. I'd used single vision riding glasses and sunglassess up to that point (which didn't really work great for reading/GPS/maps or repairs) but took a punt on the Goggles4U ones as they were £40. They're fine, and I now have a clear pair and a tinted pair. They're not as good as my every day pair, but they don't need to be, and if I drop them, scratch them or crush them in bag (been there, done that) they're inexpensive to replace

Varifocal cycle glasses from Optilabs.

IME, you may a lot of money for very average glasses.

blokeuptheroad

I wear contacts for distance vision on the trail and keep a cheap pair of reading glasses in my pocket if I need to look at my phone, fix a puncture or anything else up close

this is what i do on the motorbike.

for cycling i wear varifocals or prescription sunglasses.

i think you have to give varifocals at least a week to adapt

similar time to adapt to single contact lens? i might try that

For work-from-home screen starers with big / multi monitors who regularly use varifocals when out and about, do yourself and your neck a favour and get work to pay for some ‘video display unit’ single visions for when you’re at your desk. You can thank me later.

on varifocals, it took me month or more to get used to mine. Stick with it for longer than a week.

Don’t know what lenses you bought and what price they were but the more you spend the larger the areas can be.

Specsavers "SuperDigital."

Varifocal glasses for day to day. Distance only contact lenses for riding. I accept that reading the gps is a bit blurry but I know most of the routes anyway in the peaks.  I would rather prioritise seeng the trial well.

I'm a varifocal user all day every day as well. I've had lenses from RX Sports and www.reglaze-glasses-direct.com and they've both been great. Work fine for 2 monitors at home and 3 in the office.

When I'm riding though I just use a pair of distance lenses that I had put into a set of sunglasses frames. They're an old prescription as I had them done a few years ago but they still work fine for seeing down the trail.

The options of varifocals at www.reglaze-glasses-direct.com is good, they have a bout 6 different options at different prices for width of vision and computer work or driving, and they'll put them in pretty much any frame you already have. Good for if you want to have sports style glasses for riding.

It get's wore, wait until you have a stigmatism as well !

I have two kinds of contacts. Monthly disposables. These are varifocal & stigmatism corrected. Generally work great until you are tired. I wear these for normal day rides.

I have daily disposables that I use for bikepacking trips as I can afford to trash a pair of them but don't want to loose my monthlies on the bothy floor. But these are not varifocal.

No dailies are made that are varifocal & stigmatism corrected for my rather severe prescription. So these have one eye slightly tweaked for near vision. Not enough to blur too much the distance stuff & the brain does a great job to compensate. But it does allow me to read the phone & how much water to put in my meal puch in the bothy at night. If that fails I ask Pete to read it !

I've used Reglaze Glasses Direct in the past, and back when they were called Ciliary Blue. Always pretty good, I was just drawn by the much cheapness of Goggles4U

Got a pair of multifocal which are fairly good, but... Awful if your PC setup has more than one screen, as just turning your head doesn't put your eyes looking through the right part of the lense. I got my optomotetrist to build up some "computer and reading" glasses which are single vision but a little enhanced to make reading at various angles actually pretty good.

Asda opticians don't charge extra for varifocal on all except their £15 specs.

@IHN - I've seen you mention them a few times, so I'm definitely going to check them out next time I need some.

I've got a contact lens prescription that means my dominate eye is 'set' for longer viewing and my other eye has a script for close up stuff. To begin with it was all a bit blurry but over time my brain just compensates, and now I seem to have pretty good distance and close vision in 'both' eyes. I've also got an astigmatism. The downside is that to correct all those things the lenses are pretty fragile. so I end up splitting more than I used to. Small price to pay IMO

@nickc How often are you wearing your lenses? I have the same set up but wonder whether wearing them so infrequently means I'm not used to the switching required.

I've never split a lens in 30 years of wearing, both dailies or monthlies. And mine do all that yours do @nickc. What are you doing to them!?

I wear lenses pretty well every day.