Having climbed for nearly 17 years, in addition to 23 years of guitar playing, my neck is just wrecked from excessive wear and tear. The biggest culprit from the climbing side of things is most definitely not the climbing, it’s the belaying. If i spend a day belaying at the crag these days my neck will be sore for the next two days. Soon i started to worry whether climbing was something i could actually continue doing into my late 30’s and beyond.
In stepped my wife, bearing the gift of some CU belay glasses. Since then, belaying has become infinitely more tolerable and pain free. A couple years have passed and now i’m testing a brand new pair of belay glasses by Y&Y. I still swear by belay glasses, for both indoor and outdoor climbing, but there are a few things that make Y&Y belay glasses stand out amongst the competition. They are now my primary set. They also have the added benefit of making you look like a mad clockwork scientist at your local climbing crag.
Mad Clockwork Crag Scientist
Having used these for almost 3 weeks now, mainly here at the BRC and Rifle Mountain Park, they’ve held up well. The construction seems solid and they didn’t skimp on materials. They’re made from stainless steel and high transparency prisms. The arms are strongly resistant to deformation with their ‘memory alloy bows’ which have a high capacity to remember their original shape.
The nose pads are significantly bigger and more comfortable than my previous glasses. This might be a head size thing however, as my wife prefers the older glasses. She felt that the ‘one size fits all’ was a bit far reaching, but she was still able to use them. However, let it be noted that she can also easily fit into childrens sunglasses.
The second big plus were the hinges. At first i thought these might just be an added piece that could break, but they fold up so much nicer than the CU’s. It was always a huge frustration packing away my CU’s, especially into their awkward little box case that they never quite fit into. Which brings us to the best part of this product: the case.
I absolutely love keeping my glasses case clipped to my harness. If i leave them around my neck, lenses tend to get scratched. The velcro tab is great too, i prefer to use that to open and close during my climbing session and then use the zipper when the climbing day is over.
All in all, these are solid, well built belay glasses, but this simple case is probably the best little design feature out of all the belay glasses on the market today.