TriEye View Sport Revo Max

Being able to see behind you is useful. But having a mirror on your bars or – heaven forfend! – the side of your helmet is a bit dorky. The TriEye View Sport Revo Max glasses incorporate a small mirror in one (or both) sides of the lens that allows you to quickly check behind you when you're riding. It works pretty well, a lot of the time, and it's built into a pair of shades that'd be decent value even without the mirror tech.

If you're not so bothered about the mirror, check out our guide to the best cycling sunglasses for more options.

> Buy now: TriEye View Sport Revo Max glasses for £86 from TriEye

First off, the glasses themselves. They're an open-frame design using a TR90 thermoplastic frame with a fully adjustable rubber bridge and rubber inserts on the arms. The lens is polycarbonate, offers full UV400 protection and is available in three finishes. I tested the red one, which TriEye claims 'enhances your vision and makes your surroundings look vibrant and dynamic'.

And it's good. It's not quite an Oakley Prizm lens but it does a good job in full sun, and is versatile enough to work into fading light. The clarity is very good, and it copes pretty well with mixed light and shade, for example moving in and out of tree cover on a sunny day.

Basically it's a thumbs-up for the glasses: if I were reviewing them without the mirror, I'd be saying that they're good. They're comfortable and they offer good coverage and protection. You even get a decent hard case and a microfibre soft case thrown in.

Mirror

Built into the right-hand lens (you can have it on either side, or even on both sides) is the mirror. This is the third iteration of TriEye's mirror after launching with a successful kickstarter campaign in 2018.

It's about 22mm by 18mm at its deepest (it tapers towards the edge of the lens) and it sits in a smoked plastic housing that's attached to the lens and stands proud of it by about 15mm. It's on an articulated joint, which means you can adjust the angle within the housing to suit your riding position.

Getting the right position for the mirror is trial and error; you need it to be facing slightly away from you (so you're not just looking at the side of your face) and then you have to tilt your head slightly to get a view of what's coming up behind you.

When TriEye says that you can 'see what's behind you without taking your eyes off the road ahead', I'd say that's not entirely true; you still need to move your head and concentrate on the mirror, and if you do that you're not looking ahead. But it's a much more minor movement than a standard look behind, and that means you're less likely to deviate from your line.

I was reasonably impressed with the mirror, and the view it gives you. Certainly there's a learning curve, and it takes a few rides to get to grips with the movements you need to make to get a rear view, but once you've dialled in the muscle memory it's a useful tool, and much quicker than making a full check over your shoulder. It's easy to check where your ride buddies are, or have a quick check for traffic before you move out for a right turn.

The image in the mirror is very clear, and because it's attached to your head it's also very steady; one of the issues with bike-mounted mirrors is that the image can be jumpy as the bike hits lumps and bumps in the road, and that's not an issue here.

Limitations

The mirror system has its limitations. For one thing the optimal position of the mirror is very dependent on your riding position. If you spend the majority of your time in one position then that's fine; I tend to move a lot from the drops to the hoods during a ride, and you can either have a mirror position that works okay but not perfectly for both, or is really good for one position and not so great for the other.

The gradient of the road, and where it sits behind you (curving away to the left or the right, for example) also affects the movement you need to make to get a clear view.

On the plus side, the advantage over a static mirror on your bike is that you are able to get a rear view in most situations, even if sometimes it takes a little longer to get it dialled in. The more aggressive your position, the more you're going to be seeing your shoulders and not the road behind you, so if you have a very aggressive racing position on the bike, or you're using time trial extensions, it will become harder to get a clear view.

I was worried that the mirror would be intrusive in my frontal view, but I didn't find that to be the case. Obviously it's there and blocking part of your field of view, but I never found it to be an issue when I was on a ride. The mirror has been slimmed down from the first iteration of the glasses to be less intrusive, and I think TriEye has got it just about right with this version. The mirror is big enough to be useful and small enough to not be in the way.

When I was out riding with the TriEye glasses I found I used the mirror a fair bit, but not exclusively. There were times when the particular combination of my riding position and the topography of the road meant I couldn't get a clear view, and I still found that when I thought it really mattered I'd be looking over my shoulder to double check.

When taking the glasses off, or stowing them in your helmet, you need to be careful not to knock the mirror out of whack, and to get it positioned correctly again you really need to be in position on the bike, so it's easier when you're moving and harder at the side of the road. But the bottom line is that the mirror does add something, and it's built into a pair of riding glasses that are very good, so even if you go out for a ride and don't use it at all you're not going to feel like your specs are a compromise.

Value and conclusion

Overall, the TriEye View Sport Revo Max glasses get an ever-so-slightly-cautious thumbs-up from me. The mirror does enough to be a useful addition, and it's built into a pair of glasses that are comfortable, with good optics.

At £87 they're decent value too: we've recently reviewed glasses from the likes of Magicshine and Galibier that offer great performance for less than £50, but you'd hardly call the TriEyes expensive given the extra mirror tech you're getting built in.

The only other 'see behind you' glasses we've reviewed thus far are the Hindsight Edge Sports which are more than twice as much and didn't fare that well, although I'm currently reviewing the next generation of those sunnies, so look out for that review soon.

Verdict

Good riding glasses with a built-in mirror that can be useful