Boris gave me the good news on Saturday over a beer. \u201cThe Goggleman guys want us to evaluate one of their prescription lens rigs\u201d, he told me. \u201cI told them I wear contact lenses, so you will be doing it. I need five hundred words.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI am not qualified to write about sunglasses\u201d, I complained. \u201cWhat do I write? \u2018Put on glasses. Didn\u2019t get eye cancer\u2019?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGood start\u201d, said Boris. \u201cFour hundred and ninety three words to go. And you are as qualified as any other blind bastard.\u201d<\/p>\n
So I sent my prescription to Goggleman. I chose something from their catalogue. Their rep David said they can do wrap-around prescription lenses. I didn\u2019t know that was even possible. David said it wasn\u2019t, but they did it anyway. I chose some Ugly Fish frames that wrapped around.<\/p>\n
They arrived after a couple of weeks. They come in a zip-up case with an attachment that lets you clip it to your belt. I put them on and they fitted well and the view was clear, even at the periphery.<\/p>\n
The next day I took them to work. I put them on while wearing my commuting helmet, and the arms hit the back of the gap where your ears go in the helmet, which made the glasses sit too far forward and too low on my nose.\u00a0 It felt a bit weird. It took me four days to work out that you can bend the arm tips in and they fit perfectly in any helmet.<\/p>\n
The sales manager said \u201cNew shades, Al?\u201d as I was walking out of the car park, and I said \u201cYes\u201d and he said \u201cYou look like a serial killer\u201d, and nodded approvingly.<\/p>\n
I went for a ride with Bly the next Friday. I wore the glasses under the Shark helmet I use for longer rides. They fitted just as well. My peripheral vision was just as clear. The world had a smoke coloured tint which seemed very Australian. We went up the Pacific Highway past Newcastle, and rode the Wootten Way, and went to the motorcycle museum at Nabiac. Bly borrowed my smartphone and took a photo of me wearing the Goggleman glasses outside the museum.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t use this photo on the BIKE ME! web site\u201d, I told him when I saw it on the phone. \u201cThere are women in the readership. They will be fizzing like salted slugs if they see this, and will probably perform indecent acts or have an attack of the vapours. I will not be responsible for this, so I will take a still life of them later.\u201d<\/p>\n
We rode over to Gloucester on the delightful Wallanbah Road and the Bucketts Way and had lunch at the Avon Valley Inn at Gloucester. I sat on the front verandah in Goggleman\u2019s glasses and sipped my beer and chatted to Bly while waiting for my beef salad. There was a faint fizzing sound from the street.<\/p>\n
We had lunch and headed home via Dungog and the Wollombi bends. It got dark half way. I left the sunglasses on anyway.<\/p>\n
I got home around 1800. I seemed to not have eye cancer. I walked in the front door and the girl-child said \u201cHi Dad. New shades?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re not shades\u201d, I told her. \u201cThey\u2019re nightmare vision goggles.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCool\u201d she said. \u201cCan I try them on?\u201d<\/p>\n
I gave them to her. She put them on and looked around. \u201cEverything looks exactly the same\u201d, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know\u201d, I said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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