Rudy Project Defender Sunglasses review
Pricey performance shades
GBP £210.00 RRP | USD $225.00 Skip to view deals
Published:
Rudy Project’s Defender is a big glass, with the one-piece shield lens 50mm at its deepest.
The quality of the optics is about the best you’ll find though, with the Impact2 lens’s rapid transition time from clear to smoked.
The clarity is excellent as well and the venting across the brow and the vented arms mean these glasses suffer little from fogging.
The frame design with its boxy shape makes them rigid and tight fitting, so they don’t bounce even on gravel excursions. Combine that with grippy temple tips and an adjustable nose-bridge and these are seriously great performers.
Lens switching is easy too, simply squeeze the nose-bridge and pull back, and the shield lens pops out.
Overall, the Defender’s are some of the best shades we’ve ever tested, but that price tag makes them a serious investment over similar performing shades.
Latest deals
Product Specifications
Product
| Price | br_price, 5, 3, Price, GBP £210.00USD $225.00 |
| Weight | br_weight, 5, 6, Weight, 34.3g, Array, g |
| Brand | br_brand, 5, 10, Brand, Rudy project |
Features
| Features | br_Features, 11, 0, Features, Lens: ImpactX Photochromic 2 Laser black Extras: hard case, soft cleaning bag, cleaning cloth Prescription option: RX Optical insert |
Authors
Warren Rossiter is BikeRadar and Cycling Plus magazine’s senior technical editor for road and gravel. Having been testing bikes for more than 20 years, Warren has an encyclopedic knowledge of road cycling and has been the mastermind behind our Road Bike of the Year test for more than a decade. He’s also a regular presenter on the BikeRadar Podcast and on BikeRadar’s YouTube channel. In his time as a cycling journalist, Warren has written for Mountain Biking UK, What Mountain Bike, Urban Cyclist, Procycling, Cyclingnews, Total Bike, Total Mountain Bike and T3. Over the years, Warren has written about thousands of bikes and tested more than 2,500 – from budget road bikes to five-figure superbikes. He has covered all the major innovations in cycling this century, and reported from launches, trade shows and industry events in Europe, Asia, Australia, North American and Africa. While Warren loves fast road bikes and the latest gravel bikes, he also believes electric bikes are the future of transport. You’ll regularly find him commuting on an ebike and he longs for the day when everyone else follows suit. You will find snaps of Warren’s daily rides on the Instagram account of our sister publication, Cycling Plus (@cyclingplus).
