Quality sport sunglasses are a must-have for any serious cyclist. We didn’t realise how much we would come to love our glasses before we started our trip but now that we’ve been on the road a while, we wouldn’t consider cycling without them. Next to the bikes, they’re right up there with our most treasured possessions.

The last thing you want is a bug to come hurtling towards your face while you’re descending from a hill. It’s not a pretty outcome for you or the insect. Having sunglasses on doesn’t help the bug much but it does stop you from crashing because you got a fly in your eye.

Sunglasses also keep out all kinds of dirt, dust and let’s not forget the most important thing - sunlight and UV rays, which damage your eyes over time if you leave them unprotected. On a very bright day, it’s just plain difficult to concentrate on the road for any period without sunglasses.

UK-based Optilabs is a good company to consider for both prescription and non-prescription sunglasses. They offer a cheaper alternative to the big brands like Oakley and Rudy Project, while still quickly turning out a high quality product and offering excellent customer service in our experience. See Optilabs cycling frames.

Purchasing the glasses from Optilabs is easy. Everything is done online so all you need to do is enter your prescription details. At first this was a bit concerning since we’ve always purchased glasses directly from the optician but Optilabs are the only online company we found with a full money-back guarantee. If you get the glasses and don’t like them, it’s no problem to return them within the first week.

What to look for? Get a pair of sunglasses that are made for sport. You want them to wrap around your face to stop road grit from getting in your eyes and sunlight from harming your vision. Sport sunglasses are built for more durability and a snug fit that allows the glasses to stay put, even on bumpy roads.

If your eyes are less than perfect, you’ll want prescription sunglasses. These take one of two forms. You can get glasses with a non-prescription outside lens and a prescription insert that sits just behind the exterior lens. These are sometimes cheaper and you can get several lens so you can change the tint of the shades. You can also remove the prescription lens altogether if you want to wear contacts. But some people report problems with fogging in wet weather.

The other option, and the one we prefer, is a single prescription lens. This tends to be more expensive because of the difficulty in manufacturing a curved lens to fit the sport sunglass frame but the quality of the glass is very high.

Since we almost never cycle near dusk, we rarely have to stop and change our glasses before we get to our accommodation. This does mean your normal glasses will get juggled around in your panniers so purchase a good case to avoid getting scratches.