The Vuelta a España finished yesterday and saw Kaden Groves take a dramatic sprint victory in Madrid after a furious late breakaway attempt. The final Grand Tour of the year saw three weeks of hard racing culminate in Sepp Kuss taking a popular and hard-fought win, which wasn’t without a little drama along the way.
We featured a host of Vuelta tech earlier this month in our tech gallery where we covered in particular Ineos Grenadiers £1000 hubs and a new lightweight Bianchi model.
We have also spotted race winner Sepp Kuss wearing what looks to be an eye-catching new version of the Oakley Encoder sunglasses. The shades in question look to feature the same arm design as the current Encoders but with a striking new large vented lens.
This particular lens option isn’t currently listed on the Oakley website which leads us to think it’s a new or prototype model being used. The far larger vent could be there to help promote extra airflow, something which would probably have been welcome given the amount of slower speed climbing in this year’s Tour of Spain.
The Oakley Encoder sunglasses took the best overall spot in our best cycling sunglasses buyers guide after intensive testing. The Encoders themselves are a one-piece, lightweight design which means the lenses can’t be swapped but there are, as is usually the case with Oakley, a myriad of different lens versions available.
A Vented Strike option for the Encoder model has been available for a while now and features six smaller top vents. The unknown models being worn appear to take this to a new level with a large opening or vent in the top part of the lens and an additional thin section of lens above this.
Remco Evenepoel appeared to be wearing a black and blue pair of sunglasses for podium duties but seemed to stick to Sutro Lite Sweep models during the racing. Kuss meanwhile was sporting a pair with black arms and red lenses to match his red leaders jersey during the later stages of the race.
We will update this story if we receive more information on the new models.
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