Goggles-Riding in Water and Mud

[Frank]

Most of us wear goggles while riding hare scrambles. Some of us use tear offs, some have a film system, which transfers a film across the lens, while others riders just use plain old goggles, until they are trashed, and then simply toss them to the side of the trail.

I started with just plain old goggles. I never really traveled many miles so they were more than sufficient. I would spend half my time riding and the other half trying to figuring out why I continue to be thrown from the bike.

As I progressed, I started to actually stay on the bike, which in turn, logged more miles. That is when I started using tear offs. I started out by putting a handful of them on to the goggles, going riding, grabbing all of them at the same time and presto, I could see again. This is when I started putting one tear off to the right side, for a last resort, and several more to the left side. By placing the tear offs to the left side, I would be able keep my hand on the throttle while fishing for just one tear off at a time.

I also found that when mud is splattered on to the tear offs and or the lens on a warm day, I will usually leave the mud on them because it will dry relatively quickly and fall off.

My dilemma is, when I encounter a little rain, creek crossings with other riders, or getting water thrown on me, water tends to get between the tear offs and or the lens. This is when everything in my view is the same as looking through a fish bowl. At the last ride, I was picking up water from the river crossing, proceeded to add dust from the trail, which in turn made the goggles difficult to see through. The clarity wasn’t much better after going for a refreshing swim, however, it got a lot better after removing all of the tear offs off.

Since I ask a lot of questions, I will try to limit them to just a few.

Do the film systems help with this problem?

What do the professionals do?

And what has worked, or not worked, for you when you have encounter water or mud?

[WireFryer]

Mark, I ran tearoffs when I started racing dirtbikes back in the bad old days simply because I used them circle track racing.

Roll-off systems where in their infancy back then and noticeably more expensive.

The trick to tearoffs is to place them on the lens one at a time and when placing the next one on the tabs, fold the pull side of the first one over the left-hand tab as you apply the next tearoff.

What this does is insure that you can only yank off one at a time, though when you get 5 or 6 on the goggle it looks like some weird Christmas gift decoration .

I switched to the Smith Rolloff system in the early 90's and have stayed with them ever since. It is very true that with a smooth lens the roll-off film will stick TIGHT if water or mud gets under the film.

Smith Goggles fixed this by altering the lens design incorporating little 'bumps' on the part of the lens the film travels over to allow water to go away/air to get in along with the mandatory 'mud flap' , and it works pretty well in my opinion and is a cheap option when it's crazy dusty.

You'll get about 30-35 clear views per roll of film, and there is a bit of a learning curve to the care and feeding of roll-off goggle systems BUT, doing a quick pull on a cord has saved my dumb As$ more times than I can count... when things got messy

Tim
#713

[tclimber]

Tim is right the little dots really work when you first put them on you would think the dots would mess with you but take it from on who gets motion sickness if a drop of sweat runs down the inside they didnt bother me at all nice to give a pull and be able to see again

[Ed M]

I too have owned a number of smith goggles with the rolloff system and most of the time they work great. I have heard that some people add fishing line between the film and lens to keep the film from sticking to the lens in really wet conditions. The other issue that I have had is if the film has "aged" too much it won't unroll smoothly and sometimes tears. This probably wouldn't be an issue if I rode more.

[swedishfishmx]

Laminated tearoffs, and try to slow down in the creeks...You can loose the 2 seconds from going slow in the creeks, but you will gain more time with clean vision. The laminated tear offs are easy to use and as long as you don't go snorkeling with them you will be fine.

I never could get roll-offs to work all the time.

try: cheaptearoffs.com

[matt.smith]

Laminated tearoffs, and try to slow down in the creeks...You can loose the 2 seconds from going slow in the creeks, but you will gain more time with clean vision. The laminated tear offs are easy to use and as long as you don't go snorkeling with them you will be fine.

I never could get roll-offs to work all the time.

try: cheaptearoffs.com

I'll second the laminated tear offs and slowing in the creeks, oh and I'll add in staying away from anyone offering to pour water on you during a race...

I hate not being able to see. I'm not fast, but if I can't see, I'm down right slow and the fun factor bottoms out. Laminated cost a bit more than the regular tearoffs but the vision improvement is great, as nothing can get between them. They do pull a bit differently so you do have to be more careful since a bad pull could pull the whole stack off at once.

I ran the Scott roll offs for about a year, and when they worked they really were great. My problem was, I started getting into issues where either it would be too muddy/wet for them and the mechanism would fail (somehow one set last the entire Kingman race back in '09 or whenever that was), or the film itself would tear -- usually within the first 15 minutes of the race, leaving me blind and with a 50 foot streamer tailing me. So, that kinda soured my opinion of them.