First Look: Shimano’s New Technium, Technium L, and Twinspark Biking Sun shades

This time final yr, Shimano introduced their upgraded RIDESCAPE lens expertise for his or her current S-Phyre and Aerolite sun shades. Right now, they’re introducing three biking sunglass fashions with the redesigned Technium and the brand new Technium L and Twinspark, all of which include Shimano’s RIDESCAPE lenses with six “choices which can be tuned for various driving circumstances and terrain varieties”. I used to be fortunate to get my arms on the brand new Technium and Technium L final week, and after a number of rides, I’ve received some first impressions. However first, some particulars about Shimano’s newest additions to their rising lineup of biking sun shades.

RIDESCAPE Lenses

All three new fashions are constructed round Shimano’s RIDESCAPE lenses, a set of six lenses designed particularly for several types of driving and light-weight circumstances. These lenses purpose to cowl all of the bases from path, gravel, and street, to tremendous vivid, daylight, and dim lighting. The entire lenses provide full UV400 safety, have been handled for scratch resistance and water repellency, and are produced from a BPA-free polyamide materials.

• RIDESCAPE ES: Vivid Imaginative and prescient: Further sunny-tuned lenses decrease mild transmittance to protect your eyes from excessive sunshine and blinding street glare. This reduces eye pressure and makes variations within the floor’s texture simpler to see.
• RIDESCAPE HC: Daylight Imaginative and prescient: Daylight-tuned lenses filter out harsh asphalt glare to spice up distinction and sharpen floor particulars. Richer colours and better decision offer you a clearer view of the world for extra assured and cozy day by day driving.
• RIDESCAPE RD: Highway Imaginative and prescient: All-around road-tuned lenses improve sure colours and suppress others to spice up asphalt distinction and visibility. This reduces eye pressure and makes it simpler to identify and react to hazards like potholes and rocks from afar.
• RIDESCAPE GR: Gravel Imaginative and prescient: Gravel-tuned lenses enhance the distinction of a variety of surfaces to spotlight delicate transitions between gravel, dust, and asphalt.
• RIDESCAPE OR: Path Imaginative and prescient: Off-road-tuned lenses scale back glare from solar leaks when driving out and in of the shade and sharpen visible consciousness so you possibly can react extra shortly to varied path surfaces (rocks, soil, sand) and customary obstacles (roots, stumps, gaps).
• RIDESCAPE CL: Darkish Imaginative and prescient: Cloudy-tuned lenses enhance mild transmittance for higher visible efficiency in darkish, cloudy, and moist driving conditions. Anti-reflection coating reduces oncoming headlight glare.

Technium

The brand new Technium sun shades function a full-frame design and a big, one-piece lens. They provide ample protection with cylindrical lenses that I measured at 145mm broad and 55mm tall (together with the body). The lenses have small cut-outs on the higher and decrease corners meant to permit a bit of airflow and scale back the possibilities of fogging. The Technium glasses come along with your alternative of the RIDESCAPE RD, GR, and OR lenses and include a spare clear lens and a storage/lens cleansing bag.

The body is made with 45% Arkema Rilsan® clear G850 Rnew, a bio-based polyamide materials. The arms are dropped barely which helps keep away from interference with prolonged temple protection on some fashionable helmets, and the ideas have textured rubber grippers to assist them keep safe in your head. Moreover, the textured rubber nose-piece is reversible and permits the consumer to shortly and simply modify the nostril bridge match with thicker and thinner sides.

Technium Specs:

• Body Colours: Matte Black, Matte White, Crimson, Smoky Navy, Darkish Olive, Bronze Gold
• Body Materials: 45% Arkema Rilsan clear G850 Rnew bio-based supplies
• Weight: 27.4 grams
• Lens Choices: RIDESCAPE RD, OR, and GR
• Spare Lens: Clear
• MSRP: $100 USD, €99.95

Technium L

The Technium L sun shades are a brand new half-frame mannequin that’s similar to the full-frame Technium, simply with out the decrease portion of the body. The frames are produced from the identical materials and likewise function the reversible nosepiece and textured rubber grippers on the arms. Whereas the one-piece cylindrical lens is roughly the identical measurement, they appear and measure a tad smaller general with out the decrease body. We measured the lens width at 140mm and peak at 52mm (together with the higher body).

The Technium L is a tiny bit lighter at 26 grams and is on the market with the RIDESCAPE RD, OR, and GR lenses, in addition to a Photochromic Grey. Additionally they include a spare clear lens and a storage/lens cleansing bag.

Technium L Specs:

• Body Colours: Matte Black, Matte White, Crimson, Smoky Navy, Darkish Olive, Bronze Gold
• Body Materials: 45% Arkema Rilsan clear G850 Rnew bio-based supplies
• Weight: 26 grams
• Lens Choices: RIDESCAPE RD, OR, GR, and Photochromic Grey
• Spare Lens: Clear
• MSRP: $100 USD, €99.95

Twinspark

The brand new Twinspark is Shimano’s value-oriented providing that’s a half-frame design paired with the RIDESCAPE HC Daylight Imaginative and prescient lens. Shimano didn’t present a lot data or footage of the Twinspark mannequin, however we’re speculating that it’s primarily only a extra budget-friendly model of the Technium L as they don’t specify the body materials, give lens choices, or embrace a transparent lens. Regardless, it looks as if a strong worth with the RIDESCAPE HC lens and a retail value of simply $65 USD.

Twinspark Specs:

• Body Colours: Black, White, Deep Crimson, Smoky Navy
• Weight: 25.3 grams
• Lens: RIDESCAPE HC
• MSRP: $65 USD, €54.95

First Impressions: Driving within the Technium and Technium L

Due to some unusually delicate winter circumstances right here within the mountains of northern California, I’ve had the possibility to check out each the Technium and the Technium L glasses, and to date, I’ve been impressed by each their consolation and the standard of the RIDESCAPE lens optics.

Unboxing

Each the Technium and Technium L are available in a small cardboard field with a folding magnetic lid. Whereas I actually admire a fancier zippered laborious case, I might see this field being helpful for journey or long-term storage. Inside, the glasses are available in a microfiber storage/lens cleansing bag that has a devoted sleeve for storing the spare clear lens.

Match and Protection

I’m a giant fan of enormous protection sun shades and I admire the dimensions of each the Technium and Technium L. They each present glorious protection with out fully dominating my face the way in which some bigger sun shades can. Shimano appears to have the candy spot when it comes to curvature, for me anyway, the place the glasses sit shut sufficient to my face to dam the solar at excessive angles and maintain birt or mud from flinging into my eyeballs with out making any contact with my cheeks or forehead. Moreover, the higher a part of the lens extends excessive sufficient that I can’t actually see the higher body after I’m down within the drops on the gravel bike or driving steep terrain on singletrack trails.

I admire the dropped arm design as I’ve skilled some helmet and sunglass mixtures that haven’t been perfect attributable to them making contact whereas driving. The lowered arms keep away from that state of affairs totally. The arms are additionally a well-considered size that doesn’t prolong too far again behind the ears, and I had no points with them conflicting with both the helmet shell or the retention system on the three totally different helmets I attempted them with. The match changes are restricted to the reversible nosepiece, however it’s fast and simple to flip round and it makes a noticeable change to the match on the bridge of your nostril. I discovered the textured rubber of the nosepiece to be fairly comfy, and together with the rubber on the arms, it stored the glasses very steady on my face always.

Lens Efficiency

I had the chance to attempt two totally different lenses for the reason that Technium and Technium L got here with the RIDESCAPE OR (Path) and RIDESCAPE GR (Gravel) lenses, respectively. Fortunately, I used to be in a position to go on each gravel and path rides previously week to see how they carried out within the circumstances for which they had been designed.

The total-frame Technium glasses got here with the RIDESCAPE OR lens that’s meant for off-road/path use. Shimano doesn’t specify a VLT (seen mild transmission) proportion for any of the lenses, but it surely’s undoubtedly on the lighter/brighter finish of the spectrum. If I needed to guess, I’d say it’s in all probability proper within the ballpark of 35 – 40% VLT. They’ve a rosy tint and are very nice to look by with tremendous sharp and distortion-free optics. They appear to spice up distinction fairly properly and carry out nice in combined lighting circumstances, like these skilled on forested trails whereas mountain biking. I are inclined to gravitate towards lenses that aren’t too darkish, and I’ve all the time been a fan of a rose tint for driving out and in of shadows, so I actually loved the OR lens.

The Technium L glasses I examined got here with Shimano’s RIDESCAPE GR lens that’s been tuned for gravel driving. The GR lens is sort of a bit darker than the OR lens (finest guess round 20 – 25% VLT), and it has a greenish/gray tint that has extra of a cooling impact. I took them out for a combined floor gravel/street experience and located them to work very properly for that utility. Once more, the lenses had been tremendous sharp and distortion-free whereas doing a superb job of decreasing glare and muting the harshness of the low-angle January solar. They have a tendency to mute colours a bit as properly, however the distinction was glorious and I might see each little bit of floor texture on each paved and gravel roads.

Parting Ideas

I’ve solely spent a bit of time driving within the new Shimano Technium and Technium L sun shades to date, however my preliminary impression is that they’re actually good. They match me properly, present ample protection for my delicate eyes, are steady in use, and have high quality optics that rival one of the best within the enterprise. And, whereas $100 isn’t precisely “low cost”, it’s tremendous aggressive and relatively fairly inexpensive within the context of premium biking sun shades, lots of which value greater than double that value. I’ll be spending considerably extra time driving in each fashions this winter and spring to see how they stack up in opposition to the finest biking sun shades in the marketplace in the long run.

Extra data at bike.shimano.com