It seems that Rudy Project forgot to consider their customers when they designed the Rydon Reader. The "reader" area is set at 0.5 inch high by 1.0 inch wide. At half an inch, the reader is set too high for any athletic performance; it actually obscures the athlete's performance field. A cyclist needs to be able to see his/her bike computer and still have eyes on the road; likewise a runner and his/her watch. Thus, the smallest possible functional reading area is what athletes need—just enough to read a map on a cell phone or a menu at the coffee shop on one's morning ride, without making the ride more dangerous in the process.
How does one determine the smallest functional reading area? I used electrical tape to frame it off and settled on 0.25 inch as the optimal height--the reader is there when I need it (about 1% of the time), and pretty much out of the way when I don't (about 99% of the time). Here I’m speaking of the ugly-but-functional custom reader that I had made at a local optometry shop, and which I had hoped to retire in favor of the Rydon Reader. (I actually asked Rudy Project, through a local distributor, if they would make custom lenses to my specifications. They declined.)
In sum: The Rydon Reader really is a reader: It is perfect for reading a book poolside. But a small change—decreasing the “reader” area by half, to 0.25 inch x 0.5 inch—would make them an amazing product for which there is a huge market. As they are, they are nonfunctional for any performance activity except maybe driving a car.
