Categories
Gear Reviews

Oxford Heated Grips Review – Hot Grips For Commuters

Oxford Heated Grips - HotGrips for CommutersNo one likes cold fingers on a motorcycle. It’s uncomfortable, distracting, hinders fine control and can get painful. It’s also all too easy to underestimate the wind chill factor when travelling fast on a bike. It may be a bearable 5°C outside, but on a 60 mph blast, the wind will chill you down to cool -3°C, which will inevitably give you numb fingers after a short while, even with thick gloves.

I’ve written about a number of approaches to tackle the cold hands on a motorbike issue in the past, but here today I have a pair of Oxford Commuter Hot Grips up for review. Intended to replace an old set of failed heated grips on Mary’s Honda, we picked these up as a freebie gift with a Ride magazine subscription last year. Annoyingly they took ages to turn up leaving Mary with cold hands for the first half of the winter, but finally, I fitted these last January and they’ve been tested thoroughly since.

Categories
Gear Reviews

Lomo Waterproof Tank Bag Review

Lomo’s waterproof tank bag is an impressive bit of kit for a company relatively new to this market. It has been designed as a fully waterproof bag utilising a very different approach to construction. Lomo recently entered the motorcycle luggage market, their main business lies in producing wetsuits, drysuits and dry bags for kayaks and canoes. It is this expertise in waterproofing and hardy construction which sees them making a big impact within the motorcycle luggage market.

Categories
Motorcycles

End of the Season – Yeah Whatever!

It’s been a stonker of a summer, Britain was taken over by a huge heat wave followed by almost monsoon rains. Now Autumn is well and truly upon us, the leaves are falling and everyone is all talk of end of season for biking… What’s that all about then?!

Categories
Gear Reviews

Viking Bags Sports Bike Tail Pack Review

Back in the good old days of biking we used to have plenty of space under seats to store bits and bobs. Back then, we also never used to care about riding around with pockets stuffed with keys, tools or other sharp things and we never had mobile phones permanently attached to us and neither did we need to lug around enough security to lock down Fort Knox. These days bikes barely have room for a packet of chewing gum under the seat, yet we find ourselves wanting to take more and more stuff with us, phone, keys, wallet, drink, waterproofs, visors, locks, chains, work cloths, sarnies etc, etc.

top boxes on a sports bike just look a bit naff

You can shove all your gubbins in a rucksack, but that can be uncomfortably bulky and will become even more uncomfortable if you come off. You can fit some expensive hard luggage, however big panniers make filtering tricky, and top boxes on a sports bike just look a bit naff and can cause some front end instability. This is where a tail pack comes in, a little bag that clips onto your pillion seat behind you. Exactly what Californian firm Viking Bags have provided for review here, their sport bike tail bag in contrast to their usual luggage aimed at cruiser bikes.

Categories
Gear Reviews

Alpinestars SMX S vs S-MX 6 Waterproof Boots Compared

Alpinestars SMX-S

For a number of years, I have stuck with the Alpinestars SMX range of boots, starting with the 4’s, then 5’s, then 6’s, the race-orientated Plus version and now I’m onto the SMX S waterproof boots. With so many slight variations, it’s tough to work out how they differ and when shopping around who indeed is selling which cheapest. Here I’m going to go through the key differences between the current S-MX 6 and SMX S boots.

Categories
Gear Reviews

Hideout Leathers Hi-Pro Textile Trousers Review

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.

Categories
Motorcycles

DirtQuake 2018 at Essex Arena

If you’ve never heard of DirtQuake before – Oh boy, you have been missing out! DirtQuake is essentially flat track oval dirt racing, but with a big slab of tongue in cheek fun and open entry to any crazy enough. This year’s event was hosted at the Essex Arena, a stone throw from Lakeside retail hell and M25 traffic hell, but dead handy for us all London folk. The Essex Arena normally hosts all kinds of Speedway and banger racing, so was perfect for DirtQuake.

Racing was split into a number of classes:

  • Ladies
  • Street Tracker
  • Chopper
  • Scooter
  • Inappropriate Road Bike
  • DTRA Super Hooligans
Vincent Rapide
Vincent Rapide!

The last DTRA class were all experienced pros, with serious skills, serious bikes (mainly Indian FTR’s and Ducati Scrambler 1100’s) and were extremely rapid. In contrast, the first five classes had a random mixed bag of contenders from novices to celebs like Guy Martin and Jenny Tinmouth, and many in fancy dress to boot! They featured an even more eclectic collection of bikes, from brand new Husqvarna Vitpilen and Ducati Scramblers, stripped down sports bikes (an R1), random street bikes, the odd adventure bike (a Super Ténéré), right through to classics like a RD350 and a Vincent Rapide! 

Categories
Motorcycles

Llangollen Motorcycle Festival 2018 Report

Last weekend I popped by Llangollen Motorcycle Festival up in North Wales. Having not attended before and staying with family nearby, it seemed like a good day out plan. Situated on the Royal International Pavilion ground in Llangollen (pronounced Lan-gof-len), a short walk from the town centre, the event saw thousands of bikers descend to check out bikes and attractions on show.

LLanBikeFest 2018 - Triumph Speed Triple R low
Triumph Speed Triple R low

In the pavilion there were hundreds of classic and famous bikes on show, from famous race bikes to old Brit bikes from times past. Celebs John McGuinness, John Reynolds and Steve Platter gave talks and Q&A sessions, with some interesting opinions from McGuinness with regards to Honda! Outside, there were many stalls to pick Motorcycle gear, new bikes to check out from Triumph, Indian and Suzuki – who were offering test rides for visitors. It was interesting to see the new Triumph Street Triple R low in the flesh – very few seem to be available at dealers for test rides. Something Mary and other shorter female friends are tempted by; my daughter at 5′ tall could pretty much flat foot on it. 

Categories
Gear Reviews

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!

Categories
Riding

Best San Francisco Motorcycle Routes in the Bay Area

San Francisco motorcycle rental - Harley Davidson Road King
Rented Harley Davidson Road King

Over the past few years, I’ve made a number of trips to the Bay Area, hiring a number of bikes from San Francisco motorcycle rental firms and explored many great routes and locations. Here I have rounded up a list of the best San Francisco motorcycle roads I’ve enjoyed ready for you to download and check out if you’re in the area.

  1. Half Moon Bay to Santa Cruz
  2. Palo Alto to Soquel (Santa Cruz)
  3. San Jose to Fremont (the long way around)
  4. San Francisco to Port Costa
  5. San Francisco’s best Tourist Spots
  6. San Fran, Yosemite, Lake Tahoe Loop

These routes are all hosted on MyRouteApp, a great app for planning and sharing routes from which you can download the routes in many different formats. Or export them directly to your SatNav via the MyRouteApp Windows or Mac connector app.