Rudy Project Astral Sphere Sunglasses

The Rudy Project Astral Sphere is an evolution of the Italian eyewear brand’s Astral and Astral X sunglasses. The frameless design offers an almost completely unimpaired field of vision, the purple photochromic ImpactX lens works well from shade to full sunlight – and is quick to adapt between the two. They’re also very light and a joy to wear, but as you’d expect from the likes of Rudy Project, they’re not cheap.

Our best cycling sunglasses buyer’s guide rounds up our favourite choices.

> Buy now: Rudy Project Astral Sphere for £183.08 from Glasses Station

The Astral Sphere is made from Rilsan, a sustainable polymer made from castor oil. This renewable resource is grown in Gujarat, India, and is part of Rudy Project’s RideToZero program to minimise its environmental footprint.

Astral Sphere is available in seven frame colour and lens combinations. One of these uses the Polar 3FX polarised lens, with the other six using the ImpactX photochromic lenses. We have the white gloss frame with purple ImpactX lens on test.

The Astral Sphere is not specifically designed for cycling, but according to Rudy Project, is perfect for multiple sports where a wide field of vision is useful.

Lens

The one-piece spherical lens is frameless, with the arms and nose piece attaching directly to it, which is a feature the Astral Sphere has in common with the Astral and Astral X.

As with the Astral, the lens is not interchangeable, and just as when Matt reviewed the Astral, I found that the arms interfered with some helmets. For example, they were fine with my POC Omne Lite helmet, but they interfered with my old Lazer Century lid.

And unlike with some other Rudy glasses, you can’t flex and shape the Astral Sphere’s arms.

The lens itself is the photochromic purple ImpactX, which has a light transmission range of 48-8%. This is perfect on a sunny day, but not quite so well suited to riding under heavy cloud or when things are getting darker. The black photochromic lens offers a 76-17% light transmission, with the red lens 62-13%.

The lens does react to changing light condition really quite quickly, which is particularly noticeable riding off road at this time of year, when you’re moving rapidly in and out of darker wooded areas.

The ImpactX lenses, as you might have guessed from the name, are impact resistant. Or, as Rudy Project puts it, the ‘semi-rigid lenses provide advanced protection from impacts, chemicals, and environmental factors’.

Fit and integration

In combination with a helmet that fits, and provided the non-adjustable arms work with your face, these work really well. They feel very light, and indeed at 25g they’re lighter than a few of the glasses we’ve recently tested that have weighed in at 30g, making this one of the most marginal of marginal gains. But I had no issues with the glasses moving around or sliding down my nose. They just quietly get on with the job in hand, adapting to the light conditions.

The ventilation was very effective, and if they do mist up when you stop, a bit of air flow soon sorts that out when you get going again.

RX insert

One of the attractions of Rudy Project glasses, at least for me, is that they take a prescription insert, effectively allowing you to turn any of its eyewear into prescription glasses. I’ve had a pair of Rudy’s Rydons for years, and while its website suggests the insert isn’t the same, it did seem to fit.

The Astral Sphere’s low weight certainly helps when you fit RX inserts, as they do add weight, to point where they slide down my nose a little too easily.

I usually wear contact lenses to avoid such issues, so that when you stop at the cafe you can take your sunnies off and read menu. That said, the RX inserts do work and I did use them on shorter rides when I couldn’t be bothered to put my contacts in.

Value

There’s no way of getting around the fact that £199 is a lot to pay for a pair of cycling sunnies – but this is on a par for what you’d part with for most premium brands’ products.

The Scicon Aeroscope Sport Performance Sunglasses cost £195, and while you get adjustable arm length, Josh found the frame can sit in your eyeline, and the lens does not adjust to the light level.

Oakley’s Sphaera sunglasses are also a similar price, but like the Scicons they don’t have a photochromic lens.

The 100% Aerocraft glasses are a little cheaper at £174.99, but again they’re not photochromic.

All that said, you don’t have to spend anything like this amount for decent eyewear. We’ve recommended both the £59.99 Van Rysel Cycling Cat 3 Sunglasses RoadR 900 Perf and Galibier’s GrandTour Optics Black – Red Contrast Plasma, which at £56 cost even less.

Conclusion

Rudy Project’s Astral Sphere Sunglasses, with the purple ImpactX lens, work really well in mixed sunny conditions. Their weight and the frameless design means that they’re almost unnoticeable when you’re wearing them, and the option of an RX insert is an added benefit.

But the arms are not shapeable, and so they won’t play well with all helmets, and £199 is not cheap – but if my experience with the Rydon I’ve had for years is anything to go by, they should last a very long time and the lens should be very durable.

Verdict

Frameless design with a superb photochromic that lens makes for great vision – you hardly notice you’re wearing them

> Buy now: Rudy Project Astral Sphere for £183.08 from Glasses Station

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