Mark Cavendish sports new Oakley glasses

If you were looking closely, you might have spotted Mark Cavendish sporting a new pair of Oakley shades at the Tour de France last year, up until he crashed anyway. He's also been wearing the new eyewear in races this season.

At the end of last week Cavendish snapped the clearest photo we've yet seen of the new eyewear and shared with his Twitter followers. We don’t yet know the name of the new shades, but rumours on the Internet suggest Jawbreaker is the likely name. Whether the new eyewear will replace the RadarLock or simply be a new addition to the range, we don't know.

This was taken about 15 minutes before I cracked on our ride today. #tuscany #savage "@SabatiniFabio: @MarkCavendish pic.twitter.com/SveYGHX0nQ”

— Mark Cavendish (@MarkCavendish) February 20, 2015

The photo handily compares them to the RadarLock, Oakley's current flagship cycling glasses which have been around for a number of years, being worn by teammate Fabio Sabatini. There’s no news from Oakley on the release of the new glasses, but they’re clearly happy with Cavendish tweeting a photo to his 898,000 followers. Or maybe they're not.

The glasses look to take inspiration from the iconic Eyeshade glasses, first worn by Greg LeMond in 1985, and which kicked off the fashion for cycling-specific eyewear, at a time when most weren’t wearing shades in races, other than the occasional aviators. These new shades have a similar shape and size to Eyeshades, and given 2015 marks the 30th anniversary of those glasses being used in the professional peloton, it would be timely to launch the new glasses.

The lens is clearly much larger than the RadarLock with increased coverage over the eyes. And unlike the RadarLock, the new eyewear uses a full frame design, reminiscent of the JawBone. They look to use a hinged device that should allow lenses to be swapped out, just like you can with the RadarLock.

More details when we get them.