Warm clothing will make an enjoyable difference in cooler weather. There is a term for being cold on a motorcycle, it's nothing extravagant; it's called motorcycle-cold. It's a cold deep within your bones that takes hours to warm up. Most of the time, on our tours from Vegas to Hoover Dam, layers are good enough. If we are talking about our overnighters, layers may not work. Dressing in to many layers will be hard to drive and uncomfortable. Some of the thermal stuff from a brand called, "Hot Chillys" is good for layering. Hot Chillys has a variety of thermal underwear but we especially like the soft fleece type of of their warmest material, thickest they have! Their thermal top under a leather Jacket with a liner is good enough for a cold winters in Vegas. For example; I drive to the gym everyday at 5am, 7 days a week, year round unless it's bad weather, so, the idea behind dressing revolve around the coldest parts of our day in Las Vegas.

Las Vegas Tour Layering - Winter - Leather Options

Las Vegas Tour Layering - Winter - Cloth Options

• * Winter Suggestions: Armor protective jacket with a thermal top and t-shirt should due it. Levis, thermal underwear, full leather pants or chaps for bottoms and protective thick gloves for winter - like snow gloves. #You can get a large t-shirt and cut a sleeve out of it OR both the sleeves and pull this over your head, tucking the extra material around your neck and up on to your nose and chin - stretched loosely. The helmet goes on last over the top of this. This should keep your ears, and face fairly warm with a full face helmet. The next best thing for winter riding is electric liners under protective clothing.
• Summer Suggestions: Armor protective jacket with a t-shirt underneath, levis with chaps and protective gloves and sunglasses if your helmet has a clear visor. (See Below)
• Helmet: Depending on the temperature, winter I wear a full-face with a smoked visor. Summer, a helmet with a full smoked visor. The Rental helmets are a called and open face helmet.
• Some information on Motorcycle Jackets: Your jacket is the next most important piece of equipment to pay attention to. Why? Because of many vital organs, limbs, elbows, shoulders, back and chest. Your jacket should have some type of protective armor around the back, chest, elbows, shoulders. The jacket I wear has double armor and ventilation ducts. It gives you sense of security as well. It should be one that can go clear up and button around your neck for cold weather.

Vented With Armor	Cruiser Jackets
Heated Liner - LOVE IT	Cruiser Jackets W/Liners
Motorcycle Jackets

 

Try and Get a Jacket With Armor

As you can see, dressing for the occasion with a complete set of Armor is not just a fashion statement. We would ask that our participants of the tours do the same, if possible. It may be the only thing between you and the pavement. If you're renting a bike, you can usually rent the jacket for about $10, it's on a first come first serve basis. Try to get the kind that has ventilation around the body and sleeves, in case it's warm out. Also, check to see if it has armor in the shoulders, elbows, back and around the waste. The strips you see on Ania's jacket reflect light at night. I get a chuckle from friends because of wearing the armor but I'd rather stick closer to the safer side of motorcycling.

• Rain Gear: You can find rain-gear just about anywhere. It's good to get the kind that is meant for riding motorcycles so you can tighten up around your waist, wrist and ankles. At the link there are some that are excellent for the boots and gloves to finish off the plan.
• Ear Plugs: Most people would never think to bring a pair of ear plugs until you've hit the road for a few days and wonder what is happening to your hearing. The wind can be a source of hammering noise.
• Motorcycle Gloves: I keep at least 2 sets with me, warm nice thicky ones and some thinner types that are good for summer with armor.
• Sunglasses: Helmet that come with the motorcycle are open face style. You'll need eye protection, so be it glasses or sun glasses, or goggles you'll need eye protection - it is state law. There are kinds that work with helmets and wind and some that don't. Myself, I wear a full face helmet.

• Rain Gear: Most riders are ALWAYS keeping an eye on the weather. If you suspect or if we email you concerning rain, you can find rain-gear just about anywhere. If it's pouring, that's another matter. It's good to get the kind meant for riding motorcycles so you can tighten up around your waist, wrist and ankles. - We use what is called Frogg Toggs. Frogg Toggs are way cool and work like know ones business, primarily because of three things in our opinion. 1.) It's a close to a small enough package to get it on a bike one way or another. 2.) It's light. 3.) They breath, how and keep the rain out? Don't know but they do. One thought, on a Harley if they touch a hot pipe, it will burn a hole in them. Oh... 4.) They aren't that much, like in the $60 range.
• Ear Plugs: Most people would never think to bring a pair of ear plugs until you've hit the road for a few days and wonder what is happening to your hearing. The wind can be a source of hammering noise.
• Water Bladder: People may not realize just how much water they consume while driving a motorcycle. One way to deal with this is the water bladder, which can be tucked away in a Cruiser Tank Bag.
• Spare Key: Never travel without a spare key somewhere on your person. It will not do you much good if your key gets broke or lost, if it's at home. Ask the rental shop for a spare. If you loose your key, and it happens, then what?
• Motorcycle Gloves: I keep at least 2 sets with me, warm nice thicky ones and some thinner types that are good for summer with armor.
• Sunglasses: Helmet that come with the motorcycle are open face style. You'll need eye protection, so be it glasses or sun glasses, or goggles you'll need eye protection - it is state law. There are kinds that work with helmets and wind and some that don't. Myself, I wear a full face helmet.

Vegas Valley Motorcycle Tours reserves the right to make modifications to the tour at any time.

December 23, 2007

March 25, 2008

Nevertheless, I now have a large bag full of stuff - Not all useless.

I just took off my helmet to show you guys some of this stuff...

Face Mask - Neoprene - Great for helmets with an open face - Ebay - $8 - Hey you never know, I may want to rob a bank someday, if so, I have a slew of face mask.

I love this Mask but with a full face helmet never get a chance to wear it.

Helps when you have a face only a Mother could love, like me.

Here it is with a leather du-rag on top of it. The Darth Vader look.... phew.

Full Leather Face Mask - $9 - RockinUp Leather - If it was blistering cold you might wear something like this going down the highway, which I got too experience. You can't breath from the nostril area as it's just to small. On the positive side of this thing, Not one drop of air can get inside the helmet with this thing coming out of the bottom, including air you need to breath ;). I was soooo happy to have this on a 600 mile ride where the night weather was mid thirties.

Du-Rag - Everyone that drives a bike has one of these - Why? I don't know. I guess if your hair is a real mess like mine at the moment, it's good to hide the helmet hair. Of course, if you live in an area where you don't have to wear a helmet it would be cool.

For some reason, I can't get myself to wear one of these in public to often...

Du-Rag - $9 - eBay

Jacket from Tour Master, just showed up in the mail as the UPS guy was kicking down the door today. Ania and I both got one for the upcoming summer tours, as they are starting to creep in on us and the leather is just to hot. The Draft Jacket from Tour master has some REALLY nice aspects to it such as armored elbows, shoulders and back area. The back zipper connects to the pants and to my surprise will zip right up to my Fieldsheer pants. I purchased the Fieldsheer pants because of the great price and thought, "Oh well" they just won't match-up with the jacket, but hey, they do! We've been using this jacket for a year now and don't one complaint, other than I wish mine had the red on it

I looked around for quite a bit before I decided on a summer jacket this year and pants, both which came from Motorcycle Superstore. I have to admit just about everything I've been purchasing lately comes from this store. When I order the stuff, it's here within days. If I need to exchange, they aren't like Amazon where I have to fuss around with sellers who don't care about there customers. Recently, we purchased our BlueAnt communication devices for helmets and from Amazon's seller (WatsonElectronics) Watson Electronics is close to the worst company I've ever done business with on the Internet. What a nightmare. One of the devices has a defective volume control switch and this company would never write us back. After repeated attempts, we had to get Amazon on their case to get any kind of results. Finally, they wrote back and gave us 14 days, an RMA with all kinds of hoops to get the thing exchanged, just 3 days prior to a tour. Great... That would have meant we wouldn't have communication for the trip, so we opted to keep them, we had no choice, we kept our broken product.

Moral of the story, bad service on the Internet gets old and it seems that it's getting worse...

I bring this up because of all the problems I've had numerous problems with orders from eBay, RockinUp Leather, LeatherUp, Amazon and others. We do a ton of business on the Internet. LeatherUp is a great place for (CHEAP) bozo-fitting jackets made in India, not much for customer service. We needed a refund on a product, we got it back when they got good & ready. While I'm venting on the subject, it's interesting how some companies handle there review system too, if you have ANYTHING to say negative about any of the products they sell, they don't publish the review. Every single review is about some awesome product, what a joke and tissue of lies. Amazon is good with the review segment of sales though, they will publish the reviews and not mess with them. I even had a problem with that at Motorcycle Superstore, so I wrote them a letter about it. eBay though, eBay had the WORST review system in the world. They've now made some changes.

In our case at Amazon, the product is great but had a problem and the seller compounded the whole thing with horrible service and wasting $240 in products.

I say all of this I guess because doing business with Motorcycle Superstore is GREAT. It's always a good experience, every time I order. Actually, I start filling up my cart then come back in a few days and put some other things in and continue to do so until I place the order.

Tour Master Jacket - Motorcycle Superstore

Neck Wrap - Fleece - eBay - $9

Head Band - Fleece - eBay - Came with a Neck Warmer

Motorcycle Gloves - Thicky Ski Glove

Motorcycle Gloves - Armor Coated - Enough Room For A Liner

Motorcycle Superstore has a lot of great stuff for riding...

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