If you’re not lucky enough to have a warm dry garage, then you have a choice of leaving your bike to face the elements or you use a cover like this. I managed to blag this Oxford Aquatex cover in a recent competition from Helmet City, but it’s readily available for about £20.
Lidl recently ran one of their Motorcycle accessory weeks, which featured some rock bottom priced rain covers. Since the lining on my old R&G cover was disintegrating and leaving a cloud of white fluff over the bike each morning, I thought I’d give them a go.
We also needed a cover for Mary’s ZZR400, so at just £9 each, we managed to buy two for less than the price of the R&G cover or a basic Oxford cover. But were they cheap and cheerful or do you really get what you pay for? Read on…
Quick heads up: Lidl are doing cheap motorcycle rain covers from the 3rd October this week. They look quite basic, but are dirt cheap at just £9. At a fifth of the price of an Oxford one and with a 3 year warranty, I’m sure you’ll get your moneys worth. I’ll certainly be grabbing a couple, so watch this space for a review.
Also this week, Lidl are doing base layers and cheap hi-vis waistcoats. Previous base layers from Lidl proved very effective last winter, so I can definitely recommend them. At just £2 for the hi-vis, I’m dubious as to how they will stand up to high speed riding. Still worth a quick look though.
Unfortunately, I don’t have the luxury of a garage or shed to store my motorbike, I have to park the bike on our driveway, open to the elements. There are no two ways about it, a bike will never last as well stored on the drive like this. But a decent rain cover can mitigate this somewhat.
But which cover? It seems you spend anything from a tenner to nigh on a monkey for a top-notch cover. But what is really worth it?
I was looking for something durable, waterproof (duh!), not going to melt on the exhaust and easy to put on and take off. Going through the reviews, the general verdict was an Oxford Stormtex or R&G Racing Superbike cover, which come in at £40 and £60 respectively. The Oxford cover has the edge in the heatproof stakes but costs more. However, R&G has an outlet store on eBay, where I managed to pick this cover for a measly £25! No contest.
Edit: The cover is a little tight-fitting, particularly so since adding the Givi top box rack, which juts out a bit at the back. As to heat from the exhaust, I’ve never had a problem, by the time I’ve chained up the bike and removed the top box, the can is plenty cool to pop cover over the top.
