Total Motorcycle Community Forums

I'm renovating the house and thinking of making a closet specifically for, uh, toys (motorcycling, bicycling, and scuba gear). Is storing gear (especially protective gear like helmets) in the garage harmful in any way?

Is your garage free of mice and pests?

Extreme temps might mess with your helmet's foam, but don't quote me on that. Otherwise like jstark said, if it's free of mice and pests and such, you should be golden.

I don't think the low temps will mess with the helmets, I wear an MX lid when sledding and have crash tested it at -30. Didn't hurt me none, 'cept for the constant stream of drool and the one lazy eye..... but there are many reasons that could be the cause of that......

The only thing I would want to be sure of (other than the mice and bugs) is that your garage doesn't generate condensation or get just plain damp.

If you keep everything clean the only problem will be when it's cool in the garage. You glasses, helmet face shield, etc, will fog up quickly if they are cool/cold when you put them on. I've been keeping my gear in the garage for years with no problems.

I used to keep all my gear in the garage... someone I know who also did was riding and a spider slid from the upper part of her helmet and bit her so close to her eye that she dang near lost it (both when she freaked out, and later when everything swelled up and got infected...)

Now my stuff goes into the house, because just the idea of something hiding in my lid creeps me out in a major way.

Thumper, you do know that critters can get inside your house too?

We seem to have far fewer creepy crawly things inside... I think the cats eat the ones than manage to get in. I hope. LOL

Folks probably saw the news features about the "stinkbug invasion" here on the East Coast in the late summer/fall. Well, I keep my stuff in the garage, and failed to effectively inspect my helmet before putting it on. A stinkbug showed up inside my face shield as I was heading out of the neighborhood. YIKES!! Fortunately I was going slowly enough that it was easy to flip up the face shield and eject it.

>>As for whether or not it is okay to store your helmet in the garage. That depends on how wildly the temperature fluctuates in there, mostly how hot does it get? Heat is the worst enemy of the protective crash layer (polystyene foam). The rest of your stuff should be fine.

P