Windburned eyes??

Sean Sullivan

I was finally able to get outside to ride the last 2 days (live in the great north).  Of course, they were the camp week rides that some are doing today.  I have a visor on my helmet but after 5+ hours riding Thursday my eyes were sore and red.  Yesterday I had another 5+ hours and they are still bothering me, i switched to sunglasses for awhile without improvement and then went to sunglass + visor, which was better, but the damage was done, and it still hurt when there was a wind surge.  Obviously it is from riding, and all I can think of is windburn.  anyone else ever had this?  any solution?  it sucks!

i do have contacts, btw, and switched to a new pair after Thursday's ride.

Al Truscott

I ride with a giro stubby aero helmet with visor or Smith Pivlock wraparound sunglasses. I too ride with contacts, and often in cooler temps, defined as 30s-50s. Based on that experience, here are my observations. My eyes tear up much more with the visor than with the sunglasses, telling me more air is getting around the visor than the sunglasses to irritate my eyes.

What probably happened to you is ... Either the lenses themselves scratched your cornea (the transparent skin which covers the eye) or the wind dried out the contacts, leading to corneal abraision. Once that happens, the damage is done and will take 24-72 hours to heal by growing new skin cells. Nothing you do during that time, like switching to sunglasses or new lenses will make a difference.

My conclusion, the visor probbly is the issue. Luckily, there are rumors aero helmet visors provide LESS aero benefit than sunglasses ( someone here may have a reference for that?), so your solution may be: be sure to ride with relatively new lenses, and with sunglasses, not visor.