We all know the biking mantras ‘dress for the slide, not the ride’ and ‘all the gear all of the time’. Whatever the weather, we really should be wearing all of our protective gear, you just don’t know when you’ll need it. In the winter, the issue is wearing enough gear to stay warm, whereas in the summer the issue is staying cool enough. So, when I received an email from new start up Chill Ride about their new invention of a motorcycle vest that both cools and heats, I was most interested.
Author: Arthur
Seasoned London commuter, doing my best to stay rubber side down and never stop moving forward.
Sadly these days, as a motorcycle owner you can’t afford to ignore the huge motorbike theft crime wave and thus the plethora of security devices that can help protect your pride and joy. If you’ve read my motorcycle security guide, you’ll know that using multiple security items in conjunction can offer the best overall protection. Physical locks can help prevent theft but are often easily beaten with a battery-powered angle grinder. This is where a tracker can come into play, by helping you recover your bike.
Thieves will often hide a stolen bike in a quiet side alley for a day or two to see if it has a tracker and someone comes to recover it. This is your window for recovery before it’s completely lost. Otherwise, a tracker can provide location info of a lockup you can relay to the Police to investigate. Whereupon they’ll often find many stolen bikes as well as yours and hopefully enough evidence to charge the culprits.
Monimoto manufactures a unique tracker that requires no wired connection to your motorbike, has a very attractive price and low monthly subscription cost. So when I was sent a review sample of their Monimoto MM5 motorcycle tracker to test out, I was very intrigued to find out if it lives up to promises.
Watch my view review or read the detailed write up below.
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Big Milestone, 400 YouTube Subs
Just hit 400 YouTube subscribers!
A huge thank you for all your support, it’s been quite the journey. Having started this as a hobby and seeing it grow and develop. There’s been so much positive and constructive feedback, I couldn’t have done it without you all.
I’ve always found the video creation side tougher due to the time commitment needed for editing. However, fear not, more video content is on its way very soon now. Watch this space!
You can find the Beginner Biker Adventures YouTube channel here.
There’s nothing quite like getting lost on a motorbike to clear your mind and find yourself. But other days you really just need to get from A to B without hassle or stress. Maybe you need to be somewhere for work, maybe you’re off to a social rendezvous or maybe you’re leading your crew on a ride. For this, you really need a satnav, but motorcycle satnav’s aren’t cheap. However, you’ve got a decent phone in your pocket with loads of GPS apps on hand, so why not use that? For this, you’ll need something like this Shapeheart phone mount for motorbike.
The folks behind the Shapeheart asked me to review their new motorcycle phone mount, which promises to be a good budget contender, but is it the best motorcycle phone mount for the money? Read on to find out more.
The weather is picking up (mostly), restrictions have eased and we’ve all been getting out on the bikes again, trying to make up for time lost in lockdown. Things are definitely looking like they’re on the up and some normality is returning. I’ve managed to get out over the last few weekends, shorter ride outs around Essex and Kent; I’ve led an ELAM ride, socially distanced and in sub-groups of 6; and caught up with riding buddies again.
My age was called out on the vaccine Bingo and I’ve now got myself the first dose of the Oxford Astra Zeneca vaccine. My wife had both doses of the Pfizer vaccine a couple of months ago as she works in the NHS. All very reassuring and with so many getting vaccinated, it does raise hopes for a summer of biking, touring, commuting and life as we remember. Obviously, no trips abroad are on the cards, not even any work excursions to the US I can tie in with a motorcycle rental. However, plans are underway for some exploration of Scotland, both to get away on bikes and to scout out potential relocation areas.
When I recently swapped to a GoPro Hero 9 camera after using Drift cameras for years I was pretty disappointed by the GoPro motorcycle helmet mount options. Out of the box, your only option is a sticky pad to plonk the camera on top of your helmet. Fine if you don’t mind looking like a telly tubby and having a huge air brake dragging your head back.
Alternatives either bolt the GoPro sticking out at the side of your helmet or near the chin. Both often using some convoluted sequence of brackets off a sticky pad on the side. All because the GoPro’s do not have a rotatable lens or a side mounting like the Drift cameras, so must be mounted upright from a mounting on the base. The problem with all these scaffolding brackets is a) you need to buy them separately b) they add extra weight to your lid and c) too many can introduce a source of wobble screwing up your footage. That’s when I came across the Motoradds GoPro Motorcycle Helmet Mount chin bracket which appeared to be a far better solution.
→ Buy the Motoradds GoPro helmet chin mount from Amazon
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Post Lockdown Ride Out
29th March: Stage 2 easing of lockdown restrictions – ride out time! Yeah, baby, we’re back in action.
We’ve spent days leading up giving the bikes a thorough clean and POWDERS check. Oil, lube, grease, cleaning fluids, sprays and air all slavishly applied. After so long parked up and with so much anticipation leading up to this first post-lockdown ride out, we didn’t want any niggles spoiling plans.
On the day, everything lined up with celestial gravitas; a workday clear of client meetings I could book off, an unusually warm spell of weather and Mary’s birthday. This was going to be a perfect ride out.
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Spring Cleaning
Life in the Beginner Biker Adventures family has been very quiet, with only essential local travel allowed, there’s not a lot of motorcycle action occurring. I’m still stuck working from home, kids are back at school and Mary’s is still between nursing jobs with her new position taking stupidly long to start – you’d think there wasn’t a shortage of nurses in the NHS!
The bikes still need regular TLC to keep them in good shape. Keeping batteries charged, periodic running of fuel through the engines and keeping on top of any surface corrosion from the bikes being parked outside.
Bigger spring clean plans are underway on the house however, full-on declutter in progress, shabby paintwork is being repainted and other preliminaries prior to selling up. It’s surprising how much clutter you collect, needless spares from bikes, computer kit, DIY projects and other assorted junk. Even more surprising is how much some of it sells for on eBay and other marketplaces!
Now that restrictions gave eased from the 29th, we’ll be back out the bikes whenever we can.
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Lockdown III and Future Planning
Like many of you, there’s been very little riding happing here at Beginner Biker Adventures, lockdown blues combined with the winter’s miserable weather and dark nights have scuppered any chance of motorcycling therapy.
Our Christmas and New Year break a quiet family affair, just Mary, myself and the kids. No visits from extended Grandparents or family and all festivities rescheduled due to Mary working in ICU on the Christmas Eve and Day. No bother really, every day blends into the next at the moment. Beyond that, there’s just been the usual monotony of working from home, homeschooling the kids and the craziness Mary’s been dealing with in the hospital ICU. The commute may have kept her riding, but the A406 North Circular is hardly a fun ride and the only daylight ride was after a night shift.
Again like many, such times cooped up at home have made us reevaluate priorities and question the future and where/how we want to live. From the obvious things like decluttering and renovating our immediate living conditions to the longer-term things of where we want to be in years to come. Mary’s now completed her nurse retraining (after a diversion into Law and academia for the last 10+ years) and is now looking for fresh nursing positions. My daughter’s chosen her GCSE options and is already thinking ahead to University! Family meetings were held and plans were formed – primarily a house sale and potential migration from London to Scotland.
With not a lot of riding occurring right now, I’ve been busy on my video editing suite digging through hours of past footage from my daily riding in and around London and have now finished the second episode in my filtering tips series. In this video, I discuss gaps and junctions, what you need to look out for and how to filter in a smarter and safer manner.
Much is common sense, but you may still learn something new. Nonetheless, I hope you find this video interesting and useful. Do comment with your thoughts and other filtering experiences you’ve had.
If you missed the first episode in this series of filtering tips, you can find it here.