Sunday 5th February 2006
Two years ago, when I was still persuading myself to buy another bike after 30 years of petrol abstinence, one of the excuses I used was that it would be cheaper than buying a car. It was just an excuse, of course; I needed the bike because I’d got an itch inside to have one. My need was completely unrelated to any of the ‘sensible’ reasons I gave myself, my wife, my friends, my bank manager. Two years down the line, I’ve come to realise that, not only was it just an excuse, it isn’t actually true: modern bikes aren’t a cheap option.
I knew that motorcycling had changed almost out of recognition since I bought my first rusty old BSA thirty years ago, but coming back to it in 2003, I was still startled to discover just how many things you could now spend your money on. I should have been prepared for the wonderful world of mods, expensive maintenance opportunities and money-spinning gimmicks – a shedload of toys from a world of consumer durables – but I wasn’t. The it’s-a-tough-old-world, grin-and-bear-it philosophy of the post-war period had long since disappeared from biking as it had from everything else.
When I started riding in the 1970s you needed a bike, a leather jacket, a pair of Levis, a pair of boots and a bit of savvy, and that was it. The bike test consisted of convincing some bloke with an official look on his face that you could ride round the block without falling off. Most of your maintenance and mod work you did yourself (or found a mate to do it for you.). And that was easy enough then because the engineering technology employed by British bike manufacturers wasn’t much more sophisticated than what you had in the shed at the bottom of your garden.
But all this was 30 years ago and took place in what Kevin, a teenaged neighbour of mine, once innocently referred to as ‘my day.’ Now that got my hackles up. I pointed out to him, rather acerbically, that I wasn’t dead yet and this was still ‘my day’ thank you very much - as much as it was his. In fact, it was probably more ‘my day’ since I and my generation had certainly contributed more to the world we live in than he and his… As I ranted on in this vein, I listened, in mounting distress, to the words tumbling out of my mouth. I sounded like some old buffer stiffed up by a lifetime of resentments and missed opportunities. In fact, I sounded like my father when he was on one of his hobby horses. And this, I realised sadly, pretty much proved Kevin’s point. So, yes, the world of modern biking was unknown to me three years ago. I was a newcomer. I was starting out all over again.
Wide-eyed exposure to the new consumerism might be one way of explaining why I’ve spent a cartload of money on bike bits recently, and a fair bit on the bike itself. Another might be that, despite all my dislike of PR and the world it has created, I’m the perfect consumer: when I need to cheer myself up, I go out and buy something new. Each new, desirable purchase is accompanied by a brief, rosy glow of happiness. The glow persists long enough for me to get the miraculous object home and for about fifteen minutes after. Then it fades and all I have to show for my money is the consumable carcass of a one-time fantasy object. Two days down the line it’s just one more inert and unconsidered thing lying around my house. To renew the experience I have to go out and buy something else. Consumerism is the drug of choice for us poor dupes of twenty-first century marketing – however old we are and whoever’s ‘day’ it is. Bike consumerism is, I discovered, no different to any other. So, here’s my latest list of aquisitions.
One Windstopper balaclava and neck protector
One pair of Daytona Roadstar Goretex winter boots.
One pair of Revit winter gloves
Three other pairs of gloves – all disasterous purchases
One nondescipt pair of inner gloves
One Pinlock Arai visor and insert
One Motrax ‘breatheable’ bike cover
Replacements for various dodgy and broken zips and fasteners on my current gear
One set of Bridgestone 014 tyres
One very expensive Kreiga rucksack
One bike battery.
In my defence, I have to say that some of these purchases, like the Bridgestones, were essential to my continued existence. Some were necessary for my basic comfort and convenience. But several were just whims. Whatever the practical reason for a purchase, I probably spent rather more on it than was absolutely necessary, and ‘need’ was not always my guiding light. My mate, Ron, who is a practical and financially sensible sort of guy, would have had a fit had he known how much some of them cost me.
Take the
Windstopper balaclava and neck protector, for example. The rationale for buying this bit of kit was that I’d mislaid both my neck tubes (along with loads of other stuff since the builders moved in) and eventually, I got fed up riding with a frozen neck while I tried to find them. On the surface, the Windstopper looked like a good bit of kit. The blurb on the packaging explained that the item was made of a material that has no holes in it to let the wind through. That’s sort of impressive and interesting, but on past experience, another cheap neck tube – holes and all - would have done the job just as well.
The main point is, it’s only my neck that gets cold on the bike, not my head. My head is fine, even in the coldest British weather. So, I didn’t need a holeless balaclava, or any kind of balaclava to keep warm. I got mesmerised into buying one by a well-meaning friend who over a period of several weeks enthused so effectively about it that, listening to him, I began to believe I needed one myself. Then, one afternoon, while I browsing round a bike accessory shop looking for something to cheer me up, I bought one without a second thought.
Buddhists are great students of the human mind. They’ve been observing it intensely for over 2,500 years and have a profound understanding of the way it works. They will tell you that if you want to get someone to believe something, you must repeat it to him frequently with emotional content and it won’t be long before he will regard it not only as true but as self-evident as breathing. This clearly worked on me. (
***** Brief Rant warning ***** 
Unfortunately, politicians and PR firms have also caught on to this simple human fact and are now very effectively manipulating the process whereby the commercial/political interests of powerful minorities are rapidly converted into everybody’s common sense. )
One pair of Daytona Roadstar Goretex winter boots. Now these little jobbies set me back £200. That ’s a lot of money to spend on a pair of boots, and my inner bank manager was very not-happy about the idea. I agonised for weeks about the pros and cons of making this purchase until the issues got so complicated in my mind that eventually I had to resolve the problem by walking into the shop one day and laying down the cash.
On the positive side, they are brilliant boots. I had a pair of Daytona Roadstars once before. They were comfortable on the bike and off it, my feet never get painfully cold in them, even in the coldest weather, and they were waterproof (once, in a downpour, the rainwater ran into them off my leathers and I rode home with several pints of water sloshing around my feet, but that was my fault for wearing the boots loose over my trousers.)
The Roadstars have Velcro vents at the back which are adjustable to fit any size and shape of calf or trouser leg. They’re a cool-looking piece of kit. And when the soles begin to wear, Daytona will repair them for you (at a price). So potentially they could last for years – that is, if you don’t crash in them first. That’s how I said goodbye to my last pair. They took a hell of a bashing when I hit the tarmac and they did a good job of saving my feet and ankles.
The new pair is proving every bit as good as the old ones (which is reassuring as my memory is sadly defective these days.). They are making me wonder how my toes managed not to get frostbite and fall off in my Sidi Vertebras (vertebrae?), which I wore for the early part of the winter. So, for anyone with cash to spare the Roadstars are a good buy. Magazines reviews rarely include Daytona stuff. I’m not sure why. But I reckon it’d be hard to find something to beat the Roadstar for warmth, comfort or waterproofing. Cost is something else, I guess.
One pair of Revit winter gloves.
These weren’t cheap (£65) but as it turned out, they were well worth every penny. My old Dainese ‘racing’ gloves (even more expensive) gave up the ghost during the summer. The wrist straps snapped. I tried to glue the ends back together but I couldn’t get a strong enough bond. I bought a winter pair (Schoeller Hipora), which I picked up for a tenner at the BMF Tail-Ender. I found them on a stall in the auto-jumble area. They were comfortable and warm and had enough feel but were not very safe. They slipped easily off my hands no-matter how tight I pulled the strap. I eventually replaced them with two more pairs which I bought at the NEC bike show: a winter pair (Lewis Stormguard) and a summer pair (‘Dynamic’) for the coming year. They were also dirt cheap and, as it turned out, nasty. The so-called winter gloves were more apt to let the weather in than keep it out. The summer ones felt great when I tried them on at the show but began to feel tight across the palm almost as soon as I got on the bike. People always say that new leather stretches over time. Well, maybe, but it’s never happened in my universe. It’ll soften up and mould itself to you better, but it doesn’t stretch. So, these were two semi-useless purchases. I guess that’s the chance you take when you buy on sight.
(BTW has anyone noticed how bizarre product names are getting these days? Several weeks ago I was in one of the supermarket superstores and witnessed the ‘Dominator’ doormat. I kid you not.)
I hit glove crunch time a little before Christmas. The remains of a heavy overnight frost still lay on the ground as I set out for a day’s riding and the air whipped through the vents in my lid like icy daggers. By the time I’d ridden ten miles my hands were so cold and painful that tears were squeezing out the corners of my eyes. I diverted, dropped in on a local dealer and asked the salesman for the warmest pair in the shop. He recommended the Revits. I had to buy something or abandon my day’s riding – and I wasn’t going to do that! The Revits looked good, had lots of feel and had been recommended in a ‘Ride’ test (Oh! What a sucker! Consume! Consume!). The young salesman told me quietly that if they weren’t any good, I should bring them back after Christmas and say they were presents that didn’t fit. (He’s either an extremely canny salesman, or he’ll quickly lose his job.) I took a risk and shelled out the cash.
My hands do get cold in them if I am riding a long time in this weather, but what should I expect? My fingers don’t get to the point of being painful or feel as though they are about to fall off, which is what I would expect from most leather gloves. In fact, they are very good. The only problem with the Revits is that the gauntlet part is clearly meant to go under jacket sleeves and, except when its pouring with rain, I like wearing them over. If I try to fasten them over my winter jacket the Velcro pads only just meet – and I don’t have very big wrists. When I get round to it I’ll have to glue an additional piece of Velcro to them – I repeat, ‘when I get round to it’.
One pair of inner gloves. Not much to say about these. I think they help a bit, but only a bit. I didn’t expect them to do much. They were dirt cheap and more an act of desperation than a considered hope at a time when I was wearing the misnamed ‘Stormguards’
One Pinlock Arai visor and insert. This is another great buy. I’d not heard of the Pinlock system until recently. It’s a kind of double glazing for visors and it works. No more misting up inside the helmet even on the coldest dampest mornings. It’s similar to the Fog City insert except that it’s not stuck permanently to the visor so you only need one, no matter how many visors you use.
To fit the clear insert, you have to buy a visor that has two plastic pins moulded into it (like those you sometimes get for tearoffs). Or you can get a conventional visor drilled and the pins inserted by a stockist. The visor is flattened out and the insert is fixed between the two pins. The torsion in the curved visor then keeps the insert in place and maintains the seal between the two. The pins lie on the edges of your normal range of vision. But the rim of the insert remains visible at the upper and lower edges. It irritated me to begin with. I kept thinking that the visor was open. But now I don’t notice it at all.
One Motrax (Dupont) ‘Tyvek’ Breathable bike cover. The cover is ‘water resistant to a water column of 2.20cm'. Its seams are sewn with ‘a special thread that expands in humid conditions.’ All sounds highly tecchie and space age, doesn’t it? So it must be good (??). An important question might be - will expandable thread help keep my bike rusting up? Still, it might be useful to have some handy if I ever get gagged and bound and thrown into a damp cellar by a gang of opportunitst kidnappers.
I don’t have a garage so my bikes have to stand outside in all weathers. One of my bike covers recently went missing. I’ve no idea where. Maybe the pixies got it. It will maybe turn up sometime when the builders leave and some sort of order re-establishes itself in my life - or it may not. In the meantime I need something to keep the SV dry.
Trouble is, if I come home in the rain and park up the SV for the night, I have to put it away wet. This ‘Tyvek’ breatheable cover is supposed to ‘dry’ off a wet bike by wicking away moisture. I find this hard to believe, but the cover was only a tenner (£10) more than my last one, so I thought I would give it a go. I’ve only used it a couple of times so far and can’t say I’ve noticed much of a difference.
Various mended zips etc. I’ve had a Dainese Goretex Cordura suit and a Hein Gericke ‘Tricky’ two-piece leather suit for the last two years. I like both of them. They’ve given some good wear. The Dainese has a detachable padded lining in both the jacket and trousers, which keep me very warm in the winter. It’s also comfortable to wear. It is supposed to be fully rainproof. I’m not sure about the ‘fully’, but it is pretty good. The jacket does let some water in a really heavy, persistent downpour, but the trousers have always kept me dry. The Hein Gericke leather suit is very comfortable. It survived my tumble on the SV650 last year with only minor scuffs and a tear in the corrugated panel above one knee – always a weak point, so I understand. I got the panel repaired and it is as good as new.
As a kid I remember reading a poem about a ‘One Hoss Shay.’ The ‘shay’ was a carriage built sturdily to last for a hundred years and a day. And for a hundred years it gave daily service and never needed a single repair. But the day after its centenary year, it suddenly disintegrated into a pile of dust. My riding gear seems to have been built along the same principles, though two years perfect running was all I got out of it. I feel short changed. After that, in the space of four weeks, two zips have gone on the Dainese suit, and four (!) on the Hein Gericke. A fastener also went on the Hein Gericke jacket, as did the neck strap.
The Velcro on the neck strap had been weakening for some time. When it finally went there were some interesting and dramatic consequences. Without it there was nothing to stop wind blast forcing open the front zip on the jacket. The first time it happened I just felt a bit uncommonly chilly. When I checked the jacket in the mirror it was wide open. Trying to ride down the motorway in windy weather with one hand on the bars and the other (gloved, of course) repeatedly trying to find the zip toggle and then tug up the zip was a scary experience I didn’t want to repeat too often. When it happened a second time, I decided I had to do something about it..
I’ve had the zips mended and the Velcro on the neck strap replaced with a couple of press studs. The new press studs are fun. To fasten them, I have to exert what feels like a pressure of about four cwt per square inch on them while pulling them together. I’ve been late for meetings twice in the last couple of weeks as a result of trying to get these little buggers to snap shut. I also have sore fingers and increasingly painful finger joints.
I noticed the other day that the pattern is continuing: the catch at the top of the Tricky trousers is now coming loose. I’ll probably get that replaced with a pull strap. I’ll let you know if the ligaments in my elbow survive.
I bought the Tricky suit partly because ‘Ride’ magazine gave it a ‘best buy’ commendation. But I remember noting at the time that the said the zips and toggles were reported as being weak, and thinking that this was probably just a one-off in the review kit.
The
Bridgestones were necessary. The old ones were badly squared off, even though they still had a legal amount of treat on them. I had the 014s fitted this time. I had 010s before and they were brilliant. They ran for 13,000 miles (!) and until the last few weeks they gave good grip, especially in wet weather. I’ve done about 300 miles on the 014s now, and my impression is that they are great in the dry but don’t seem to be quite so good as the old 010s when there is water on the roads. But maybe that is unfair. The roads are very sticky at the moment with all the salt that is being put down on them. I’m told that local councils are mixing the salt with all sorts of things, including molasses(!), this year to make it stick to the road.
One Kreiga rucksack The rucksack was an indulgence. I wanted something better than the old battered item that I’ve been using for the last fifteen years. But £90 is still a lot of money to pay for a rucksack. The blurb in the accompanying glossy booklet has tried its best to sooth my by congratulates me for my discernment and good sense in buying a top quality item – the first rucksack specifically designed for bikers (My suspicious mind wonders whether that means it is already old technology). But being very bullish about this, I’m very pleased with it. It doesn’t have loose straps, like my old sack, which fly up in the wind turbulence and smack the back of my lid. It is waterproof (though it doesn’t say how many centimetres of a water column it is resistant to). It is comfortable and sturdy (it’s made of Cordura), has a back protector and a system of straps, which keep in close to the body but dispenses with a waist strap.
However, having said all that, this is a consumer item: something I bought because I liked the look and feel of it.
And it appears I’m not the only biker who is seduced by the look of a thing. I bought the rucksack last week at the MCN bike show at Alexandra Palace in North London. ‘Ally Pally’ ia only about 30 miles from where I live. Half way round the North Circular while I was on the way to the show, a young guy in a plain black lid and riding a standard CBR600 pulled up behind me and asked if I knew the way. I said I was going there, and he tagged along behind. His name was Sam.
Sam and I bumped into each other again in one of the aisles some time later. He was in an agony of indecision. He had come to buy a lid and had put his money on a rather sober looking job that was in keeping with the rest of his gear and his personality, and asked the stallholder to keep it for him. But Sam clearly had a rather more flashy inner life than he was letting on about, because it soon became apparent that he was secretly trusting after a sexy looking Shoei helmet, with triple T’ai Chi designs on it in sparkly pale blue paintwork. It was really a very nice lid, but you would need to be something of an extrovert to live up to it.
Sam was worried about the ribbing he’d get from his mates if he bought it. But the truth was, he was clearly begging me to persuade him to buy it. That felt oh, so familiar. So, how could I resist? Sam had chosen his man well. I gave him a sales pitch that Saatchi and Saatchi would have been proud of. (Who am I to thwart the strivings of a butterfly trying painfully to emerge from its cocoon). I did the job well. Sam bought the sexy lid and left the show a very happy man.
The next morning the texted me to say that he’d worn it most of the evening and only just resisted having it beside his bed at night.
So much for my list. But I'm a sucker for lists just as I am for consumables. There are lots of other lists I could make. Here's two:
Things I think I might seriously consider buying in the future.
One Scottoiler for the SV
One tinted visor
One waterproof winter jacket that will fit over my leathers.
A couple of pairs of thermal socks
A good quality back protector
A centrestand
Things I could go silly over but probably have enough sense to resist:
A pair of mirrors with dark blue backs to go with my dark blue screen and cans.
A pair of dark blue rearsets
A proper customised paintjob on the SV
A (silver/dark blue?) cowl for the pillion
Two sets of small indicators, (neater than the standard items)
I'd better stop there. Just writing the list is beginning to persuade me that I need these things.
