Julbo Pipeline Sunglass Review

Julbo

Pipelines

$160 (purchase here)

Test Period: 6 months

Field Tester: Scatman

Though large for my face I love these Julbo Pipeline sunglasses.  I should point out it wasn’t love at first sight.  The Pipelines are,  well different.  Once we go to know each other my view changed.  The first time I wore them I put them on at 8:30 am and didn’t take them off until 6 pm.  I never felt like they were digging into the tops of my ears or bridge of my nose.  Throughout the day I was moving from lite areas to shaded areas and they worked great in both.  It wasn’t until I was mountain biking the following weekend where it was quite sunny that I had issues with the lenses being too dark in dense woods.  Even with the Cat. 2-4 rating I found them a little too dark at times.  There was sun breaking through the trees so the transitional lenses might have been having a tough time with the speed in which I was moving through the different levels of light.

I have noticed on longer riders the larger arm pieces do put pressure on the tops of my ears and it can get irritating.  I did not experience this the first time I wore them since I wasn’t on the bike but playing disc golf.  So this is more an issue of my head, and the helmet/glasses combination, than the glasses themselves.

I hadn’t gotten a scratch on them until I dropped them and rode over them while mountain biking.  Scratch resistant lenses are key in my mind.  The fact that it took me riding over these to scratch the lenses tells me a lot.  The frames are quite durable as well.  I’ve dropped the glasses a few times without damage to the frames.   I’ve also held them in my teeth while wiping sweat from my brow and due to the design of the ear piece and having rubber on top, no teeth marks.  Teeth marks on my glasses is equal to someone handing you a pen when you need one and the end is chewed to shit.  One word, Nasty.

The Facts:

• Zebra Antifog
• Yellow-Brown tint
• Cat. 2-4 lenses
• Open temples
• Rubber nose pads
• The Pipeline is offered with four different lens options: Falcon, Octopus, Zebra and Polarized 3.

With a lightweight, sleek design, and breathable, open temples, the Pipeline is ready for action on the road, trail or water. Julbo couples this innovative new frame design with its most technical performance lenses to meet the demands of athletes in any condition.  -Julbo

Pros and Cons: Pros: Great fit, feel, durability and lenses clarity.  You don’t see the frames due to their large size.  Cons: You can see the word “zebra” which is printed on the top left of the left lenses.  I found it distracting at times.  Though they fit in the vents of my helmet, the glasses stick out pretty far which worried me.  They have never fallen off but could easily get snagged by a branch.  In a heavy rain the water pooled on the lower frame and like the word zebra it was distracting.  The water also drop of the upper frame right onto my eye lashes.  So as you can see most of my cons are personal preferences over actual quality issues.