Lids and HDs

Thought it was rubbish about HDs and mat black open face lids
I have always had open face starting with pudding with leather sides
over 50 years ago then white like police had many years ago the last
umpteen years mat black (never had a harley)
My son has always extolled the benefits of closed face.
He now has a harley and guess what?

 

I always wore an open face helmet, pudding basin type, obligatory white,
then the jet type Bell helmet, painted matte black
Then one morning, I was about to leave for work, cold as **** windy with a
slight drizzle
Had to go down to the docks area
A friend who had stayed overnight suggested that I borrow his full face just
for the day, to see what it was like
I had found out what I was missing out on
Dry face and not freezing snot dribbles as I rode along.
A salesman came into work a week later and asked if anyone would be
interested in buying this new full face helmet
just out from Japan
called a Shoei
I bought two of them, top dollar for the day...$30 each

 

Yeah, but they're not traditional dress for cruiser riders. And we
all know cruiser riders are the REAL motorcyclists, ergo, if you don't
want to destroy a proud culture, you wear an open face helmet (or none
at all) when riding a cruiser.

Let the wannabe Doohans with their wannabe race bikes and their
wannabe racer attitudes wear fullface helmets. Temporary
Australians, I say...

It's all about attitude. And cruiser riders have it. I ride a
cruiser. I have it. I love picking the Bogong moths from between my
teeth after a ride on qa hot summer's night. Goes with the
territory. All else is woossery.

I love the smell of napalm... It's the smell of...

g,d,r.

=================

Onya bike

Gerry

 

And let the wannabe Easyriders ride cruisers, picking bugs out of the
teeth..or picking their teeth out of the gravel when they face plant
along the road due to the dubious handling, clearance and braking
characteristics of those wannabe cruisers.

To each their own.

 

On 07/12/11 7:34 AM, Diogenes wrote:

Oh dear me.

He's had the bike just over ten minutes, and he's off already!


regards,
CrazyCam

 

Clearly the ironic and self deprecating humour went "woosh", eh?


=================

Onya bike

Gerry

 

In aus.motorcycles on Mon, 11 Jul 2011 16:14:01 -0700 (PDT)

Face it... you choose to ride a motorcycle, you risk serious and
crippling injury.

Arguing about minor shit and saying "that person is clearly stupid cos
they don't wear the protection I think mandatory" is really silly
coming from a motorcycle rider who non-riders know is risking way more
than a bit of gravel rash. And is therefore stupid.

I've come off in an openface, did some teeth in, still wear one.

Same as I still ride a motorcycle despite busting a knee. Same as
Pogo still rides one despite losing a leg.

Those who wear open face lids don't do it because they are too stupid
to realise there is a small chance (and it is small) of facial injury,
they do it because they enjoy it.

Just as we all ride bikes not because we are too stupid to realise the
risk, but because we enjoy it.

And everytime I hear a fullface wearer bag those with openfaces, I
think of the horror expressed on various forums when a certain rider
pulled a major wheelie, was crushed by his bike, and discovered that
fullface chinbars won't withstand the weight of a bike. Horrified
they were. Demanding a change to the Australian standard.

Me, I wondered if he'd have been doing that if he didn't think his
helmet made him invulnerable...

Zebee

 

For the record, I apportion risk, circumstances and time between
wearing an open face and a full face.

The argument (where-in someone wore a full face and now lives with no
head vs someone wore a tea towel and broke a fingernail) could be
extended to wearing no helmet and even wearing no gear (and I do
mean ...no gear .. at all).

I plead guilty to the latter and I'll be writing to every State Roads
Misery Minister and Standards body demanding that black seats be
banned due to the risk of absorbing infra-red energy.

But as for cruisers..no thanks..they give me back aches. I'd imagine
that with Korean cruisers that dogs will actually run the other way
instead of giving chasing.

 

On 07/12/11 12:50 PM, alx wrote:

Sounds fair to me! ;-)

regards,
CrazyCam

 

Your humour detector not functioniong?

And anyway, I think my Hyosung cruiser handles fine, the ground
clearance is 155mm. Leaning clearance is excellent too. And I'm not
sure what you mean by "braking characteristics" but so far I've not
found the bike wanting. Then again, I'm not foolish enough to expect
it to handle like a wannabe race bike and nor do I ride it like a
wannabe racer. Horses for courses...

I suppose you have even harsher criticisms of vintage bikes.

Absolutely.

=================

Onya bike

Gerry

 

LOL. I only have to drop the word Copter Six to get my funny bone
shaking

 

Now THAT is NOT funny...

=================

Onya bike

Gerry

 

I did not really mean to start a discourse on the pros and cons of
different helmets,although the discussion is perfectly healthy, But to
point out the peculiar phenomenon that a harley seems to require mat
black open face

 

I thought about a black open face helmet when I bought my cruiser. Tried
one on, stuck out my chin and imagined hitting the bitumen like that. Then
I took it off and put it back on the shelf.

 

Well if nothing else wearing the full face improves the odds of a broken
neck when crashing

 

And "colours" and "parches" and sawn-off shotties in the "support
vehicle".

=================

Onya bike

Gerry

 

And taking nothing else into consideration, that's about it.

Extrapolating this argument, presumably based on the sole premise that
a lighter helmet carries less momentum than a full face (constructed
of similar materials) would also suggest that wearing an open face
helmet "improves the odds of a broken neck when crashing" over not
wearing any helmet at all.

I'd still go the full face for minimising injuries compared with
wearing an open face.

Unless a bee gets stuck in your helmet, the rider is allergic to bee
stings, etc etc. Now if the rider had have chosen an open faced helmet
then the bee would never have got stuck.

Someone with statistics comparing jockey briefs with boxer shorts in a
crash will probably be along shortly.

 

True...very tawdry and pointless subject matter.

 

On 07/13/11 9:30 AM, Diogenes wrote:

FWIW, I would support motorcyclists being allowed to have sawn-off
shotties as part of their standard kit.

It would bloody quickly make motorbikes more "visible" to car drivers.

regards,
CrazyCam

 

Do you walk around the world wearing a stackhat and a chinguard in case
you fall over? What's protecting your chin? yeah yeah I know.. if you
fall over you will instinctively put your hands out to protect yourself,
so you wear gloves everywhere you have a good chance of protecting your
hands and your thence your chin.. so you wear gloves everywhere, right?
no, probably not, because the probability of falling over is so low..
you probably only actually trip over maybe once a year and you're
prepared to live with the risk that you survive the trip relatively
unscathed, right? Tripping over injuries most often are grazed palms or
broken wrists. If you're prepared to accept the risk of grazed palms,
what do you do to mitigate an injury to your arm/wrist?

Anyway back to open face helmets. I've been riding on the road for 20
years now. In that time I've seen that the proportion of riders who
wear open face helmets seems to have remained pretty constant, and
commonly they are cruiser riders, scooter riders, posties, and old grey
haired blokes on R65 BMWs. Over that time I've also met a variety of
riders who were riding with injuries they had sustained in bike
accidents. Several leg amputees, an arm amputee, people with back
injuries, limps, scars, and just about every rider has a story about the
time they went to hospital... yet I can't recall that I've never met or
heard of anyone with a severe chin injury from an open faced helmet
related incident.

Nev..