Tag: helmet

First Ride of 2024

            Saturday morning found us up and out early in an effort to beat the rain.  All week the forecast was for a rainy Saturday, but we had a few hours in the morning to squeeze in our ride before the showers started.  So we headed over at first light and were on the roads before 8:00 AM. 

            Well there was a little delay thanks to me.  Because of the early hour, I decided to wear my Rev’It Factor 4 winter riding pants.  These caused me some issues trying to get the pant leg down over my Daytona boots.  The cuffing issues came after the Daytona boots’ zippers fought me.  But I was finally dressed, geared up, and ready to ride once I got my helmet on.  And yes, the helmet fought me too.

            As I mentioned in my last blog post, I received a beautiful new Arai Isle of Man Tourist Trophy helmet.  It is a full-face helmet, meaning the helmet is one piece with a liftable visor.  The closure is a strap that must be fed between two rings then back through the right ring to secure the helmet (see picture).  I worked the helmet down over my balaclava and went to secure it, but I just could not get the two rings to separate.  After a few minutes of struggle, the thought occurred to me that perhaps I didn’t actually have both rings.  Sure enough, I felt around and discovered that the left ring had wedged up in the padding of the left cheek.  Correcting that, I was quickly able to feed the strap through and back, secure the helmet, and start my ride.

            We only rode half a block before stopping for a squirrel who stopped in the road in front of Bill’s Rocket while pondering its best course of action.  Eventually, it decided to head to the near-side field off the road, and we were able to continue our ride.

            I was a little surprised when Bill turned away from the curvy road.  With the early hour, we were seeing far more people out walking their dogs than cars on the road.  He led us on long stretches of straight roads even circling back around to lead us up the 35-mph road twice.  I found this choice interesting as on our first pass by, we startled two large turkey buzzards snacking on the side of the road.  On our second ride by, the buzzard nearer the road flew up next to Bill, and I saw the large, nearly 6-foot wingspan next to the large Rocket.  I asked Bill about the closeness after the ride, and he said it was about 5 feet away, but from behind it looked closer.

            I realized we weren’t going to do U-turns and slow speed maneuvers due to our early morning grogginess.  So I was completely surprised when Bill headed up to the light at the intersection of our neighborhood road and took us into a new neighborhood.  I say new but it was only new for my riding it on a motorcycle; I had driven the roads many times before.  After the initial surprise, I was further surprised when Bill took us left then right instead of left and left.  Had we gone with the two lefts, we would have made a short square back into my parents’ neighborhood.  But by going left/right, we headed up a main road (35-mph) through two more lights, up another main neighborhood road, before heading back to the intersection and returning to our usual route.

            Technically, this was my first ride in main traffic.  However, since it was such an early hour on a Saturday, there wasn’t much traffic to ride through.  But I am hoping that this ride my open up more roads for future rides.

            I did have a “whoa” moment as we headed back to the garage.  As we turned left onto a street that is crisscrossed with uneven asphalt strips from recent road construction, my rear tire slipped a little, enough for me to feel the whole motorcycle slide sideways.  However, I didn’t panic and grab the brakes but instead rolled off the throttle.  The traction control kicked in and kept the motorcycle from slipping sideways and falling, and I was able to ease the bike upright as I completed the turn.  It was an interesting sensation that occurred in the blink of an eye, but I was happy with my cool-headed reaction.  I’ll have to watch that stretch of the road on future rides though it was probably a random large bit of gravel that got in under the tire.

            Early Saturday morning rides agree with me though with January here, I expect the cold weather will prevent too many more of them for the near future.

Chin strap of motorcycle helmet showing strap through the two rings.

New Helmet for the New Year

            For Christmas Bill surprised me with a new Arai motorcycle helmet (see picture below).   It was not a complete surprise as earlier in the year, we had looked at some Arai helmets.  He did surprise me with the style of helmet, though.  We had looked at a beautiful helmet with a Japanese koi design, but the helmet I received was the 2023 Isle of Man TT helmet edition, and it is wonderful.

            Last Christmas I gave Bill the 2022 Isle of Man TT helmet, a gorgeous gold, red, and black helmet with the triskelion from the flag on it.  My helmet also has the triskelion on it, but is brighter with the neon yellow, bright red, and white and black checkered flag in the back.  The TT stands for the Tourist Trophy motorcycle race, the deadliest motorcycle race there is.  Riders race through the roads of the Isle of Man, even in the rain, so they are about the toughest motorcycle riders there are.  And while we admire their courage and craziness, it isn’t the type of riding we aspire to, especially me.

            I happily wore my new helmet on my much more sedate ride through the neighborhoods.  It had some differences from my Schuberth helmet.  For one thing the Arai is an all-in-one helmet not modular.  This means that the bottom chin guard portion doesn’t open making for a tighter fit over my head.  The fit is also snugger as I can feel the cushioning pushing into my cheeks.  But the most complicated difference is the chin strap.  On the Schuberth the strap connected via a plastic fitting that had ridges to hold the connector in place.  The Arai has the more traditional helmet chin strap using two rings.  When I tried the helmet on at Christmas, I was surprised at how easily I could slip the right strap through the two rings and then split the rings and slip the strap back through the right ring.  Fully geared up in my Schott’s leather jacket and my Helite safety vest, it was much more of a challenge to affix the chin strap.  It was also a challenge to undo the strap after the ride, but with some patient effort, I was able to do both.

            We were supposed to have a cool, sunny day for our ride, but there were massive clouds moving in a strong wind.  As I mounted the R Nine T (both bikes started with no problem, thank goodness), I spotted an osprey high in the sky.  No rude, possibly drunk drivers were encountered, but there were an oddly high number of people moving in and out of driveways or doing odd turnarounds in the street.  Since it was Saturday and not New Year’s Eve, I could only figure that the odd traffic was due to college bowl games.  Happy to know Ole Miss won.

            There was another issue with the new helmet—new helmet smell.  The fabric was off-gassing, and when I was in the garage and waiting to start the ride, it was off-putting, and I knew I would have a difficult ride if I had to endure the smell throughout.  However, with the wind generated by the ride, the odor was blown away, and I was fine.

            We spent extra time going through cul de sacs and working on tight turns.  Last week I realized I needed to focus more on using my legs to help balance me during turns, so I worked on using my legs as counterweights during my turns.  How this works is when I am turning to the left, I apply pressure with my right leg; this side is easier because the rear brake is on the right side, so I am used to applying pressure on the right side.  When I turn to the right side, I apply pressure on the left side which is more of a challenge.

            I especially made sure to work on my legs as counterweights when I was practicing in the gravel lot of the historic house.  My turns went really well and I had no dabs.  While I ride in the gravel lot, Bill parks next door in one of the church lots and watches.  When I’ve finished my gravel lot ride, I head over to his lot to rejoin him.  Today, as I rode into the church lot, I spotted a bald eagle in the air above the historic house.  Bill hadn’t spotted it and was riding off, but I stopped and pointed up to the sky causing the R Nine T to stall as I hadn’t taken the time to shift into neutral.  I didn’t care; watching a beautiful, large bald eagle soaring into the sky is worth a stalled bike.  Bill saw me and circled back around to watch the majestic bird with me.  We continued our ride with huge grins on our faces.

            During the ride, I got to 0 on the footless stop and saw Bill throwing both legs out as he tried to get the Rocket down to 0.  He later told me he got the speedometer down to 1 and had thrown his legs out just in case.  My no look turns went nearly perfectly during today’s ride.  But I also learned that there is a downside to pre-loading the front brake—cold fingers.  It was cool enough for me to have the heated grips on low.  But my two fingers are out on the front brake and not on the heated grip.  It was uncomfortably cold, but I’m hoping when we get to actual winter temperatures for our rides, that the higher setting on the heated grip will be enough to help warm up my two fingers on the brake.

            We are entering January, so the cold weather is coming.  But I don’t mind, just don’t let it rain or snow as that would prevent us from riding.  I am looking forward to even more rides in 2024, and I wish you all a very happy New Year!  Thank you for reading.

Arai motorcycle helmet in yellow, white, black, and red.