After almost 3 months of waiting, my custom made Hideout Leathers Hi-Pro trousers were ready for pickup. Since the summer heatwave came to an abrupt end with many recent bouts of heavy showers, I’ve been eagerly awaiting them.
Category: Gear Reviews
Reviews of motorcycle clothing, accessories, equipment and other gadgets.
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EZ-Go Helmet Carry Strap Review
Picture the scene, there you are parked up in town to do a spot of shopping, juggling your helmet as you try to carry shopping and find your wallet to pay for stuff. If only you had a third hand or somewhere to put your helmet. You don’t fancy leaving a few hundred quids’ worth of lid hanging on the bike, especially with action cam and intercom gadgets attached, and you may not have a huge top box to dump it in(or it may be full of other stuff). This is where the EZ-Go helmet strap comes in as an idea you can’t believe you didn’t think of.
In essence, the EZ-Go is a simple padded strap with helmet ratchet clips on each end. You just slot the two ends into the two halves of your helmet’s ratchet strap, then carry it over your shoulder. A two-second job, that frees up your hands whilst you’re out and about. Genius!
Last month I started the process of getting some bespoke made to measure Hi Pro textile trousers from Hideout Leathers. This week they were ready for a trial fitting, where I could try on an early first cut to test for size and see what further tweaks are required.
Right, let’s set the scene: small hands, permanently cold fingers, and a bank account that laughs in my face every time I even think about heated gloves. Sound familiar? Yeah. So instead of living that luxury life, I’ve been running the Dainese Clutch Evo D-Dry gloves with heated grips—and honestly, it’s been a pretty solid working-class solution.
Picked these up about 18 months ago at the Excel Bike Show (dangerous place for the wallet, that), and they’ve been through everything the British weather can throw at a rider. I’m talking proper conditions—snow, sideways rain, biting wind, the odd “why am I even out in this?” kind of day. And through all of it, these gloves have held their own.
As a glasses wearer, I’ve always struggled with my glasses fogging up/ steaming up on cold days. Whereas as my visor stays clear through the use of a Pinlock, there is no obvious solution for glasses, just a multitude of products to squirt on that claim to stop all misting up. But do they really work? In the name of science, I conducted a mini-experiment to compare some popular products to ascertain which were most effective. These best solutions here should also be equally useful to stop visor steaming up too.
The Experiment
I used a number of old pairs of glasses, which I first cleaned and then applied the various products as per their directions. As a control, one pair was left untreated. I then placed the glasses in the fridge to cool to 5℃, to mimic a ride on a cool winter’s day. First I took the glasses out into the kitchen with a humidity reading of 55%, to see how the lenses misted up (or not). Secondly, I repeated by taking the glasses from the fridge to the hot shower room with a humidity reading of 60% to test a more extreme scenario.
Alright, gather round—you’re about to hear the least sexy Christmas wish list you’ve ever encountered. Some people want lace, silk, and a bit of “ooh la la” under the tree. Me? I looked my partner dead in the eye and said, “Get me more EDZ Merino wool base layers or don’t bother.” Romance isn’t dead, it just smells faintly of engine oil and practicality.
Now, before you start judging, let me explain. I picked up my first set of EDZ Merino wool base layers—a long-sleeved top and matching leggings—at the Excel Bike Show last February. There was a cheeky little discount on, which softened the blow because let’s not pretend otherwise: merino wool ain’t cheap. But listen, I’ve been living in these things ever since, and I mean that in the most committed, borderline concerning way.
Commuting daily into the city I normally have a huge top box to carry my huge security chain, work clothes and lunchbox. The top box is very practical on workdays, but total overkill when on a weekend blast where something more discrete would be preferable. Kriega is a quality brand I’ve heard many great recommendations of, so it was the default choice when I picked up this US-5 DryBag tail pack from Infinity Motorcycles in Holborn for £50. It is the smallest tail pack Kriega does at just 5 litres and not cheap, but I’m hoping its quality will make it good value.
The US-5 tail pack claims to be completely waterproof and fastens to the rear of your bike onto the pillion seat, however, it can also be strapped to larger Kriega bags and luggage to gain more capacity. Fours straps are provided to hook around the frame under your seat, which then pokes out to attach the tail pack too. Otherwise, a specific strap to bolt onto your bike is also provided. Two further straps then thread through the bag and simply clip onto the other straps attached to your bike. On my Fazer, the four default straps made for a simple install, all sorted in 5 mins. Then the bag itself can be attached or detached with minimal fuss.
I tend to have a love-hate relationship with bus lanes; when you can use them, they’re great for filtering past long queues of traffic, but with so many not open to bikes or only active at random times, it can be a pain to work out when you can take advantage of them. Especially so when you’re riding an older bike with no clock! This is exactly the problem with the Honda CBF500. Not wanting to get caught out with a bus lane fine, we bought this Oxford analog clock.
You’ve probably seen and heard countless other reviews of this Drift Stealth 2 camera raving about its specs etc, so in this review, I’m going to focus on how it shapes up long term, as someone who uses it on a daily basis. I originally bought this camera back in November 2015, to replace my old Road Hawk RIDE camera, initially tempted by the higher def 1080p support and longer battery life yet still in a fairly compact package.
One of a biker’s biggest bug bears when bombing around the countryside is the constant splatter of bugs. Midges, flies, wasps, mozzers and other bugs, all just want to commit suicide on your shiny new visor. Visibility soon sucks, and when you make the mistake of trying to wipe that big bug mess from between your eyes, you inevitably spread a huge smear of insect entrails hindering vision even more… If you’re the sort to prepare, you may have a rag and some squirty stuff under your seat for when you finally take a break, otherwise you just grin and bear riding most of the day with naff visibility.
This is where Visorcat comes in. A crafty gadget that straps to your left glove, sporting a soft sponge and rubber squeegee to let you clean your visor on the go. Sorted! Well, the lovely people at Visorcat sent in one for review, so read on to find out my verdict on whether it shapes up to be gadget or gimmick.