Got a short ride in yesterday with my new helmet!

I don't even remember the last time I was out on the bike. Sure felt good to be out yesterday evening. The first biker I saw had a huge grin on his face and gave me a big wave. Yep, sure felt good. :-) I was planning to ride to work this morning but didn't. Wind gusts up to 80mph were being forecast for the evening. And as hubby pointed out, those winds tend to knock over parked bikes. And since I'd be the only bike parked, I wouldn't have the bigger bikes to buffet the wind, I decided to drive. Sucks. It is supposed to be 60 today. 40 tomorrow. Snow coming later in the week.

I got a new helmet for Christmas! I got to try it out yesterday so that was cool. I promptly adorned it with a reflective fleur de lis of course. :-)

Grumpy

Not being able to ride this week sure has made me grumpy. It was bitterly cold and snowy and icy at the start of the week. The ice stuck around on some of the roads all week long. The temps today are supposed to be close to 50, plenty warm enough to ride, but the sand and patches of ice here and there have kept my bike in the garage. And it is bumming me out big time. :-(

And the Saints lost in Chicago again.

Not a good week.

Snow and temperatures well below freezing are coming back on Sunday too.

Harrumph.

New accessories! Yay!

New over gloves from Aerostich! Got them from their clearance sale page. They are supposed to be for rainy or cold riding to keep your gloves and hands warm and dry. I haven't had a chance to test them out yet. Our cold weather came with snow and ice so no riding for me. And the warm day yesterday was too warm even for a jacket liner!



My sister-in-law and her hubby gave me this neat helmet liner to keep my visor from fogging up. Also very cool!! And I also haven't had a chance to test it yet. It attaches by velcro to the inside of the helmet. It comes with a sticky backed pad for the inside chin part. But, I discovered that my HJC already has velcro-like stuff built in there! Cool! The sides are attached by velcro to the cheek pads and also held in place by the chin straps that go over the top of them. It seemed to work well when I tried to breathe really hard to fog up the visor in the house. It doesn't work with the modular helmet though. But that's ok. I'm planning to get this new helmet maybe next season.

Earplugs

I finally started wearing earplugs while I ride, mostly on the advice of folks on the Rebel Board. Some one mentioned that a prolonged ride has adverse effects, which makes sense. But, they mentioned that a prolonged ride was over 30 minutes. My commute is that at the least and usually a bit longer, one way. They also talked about being able to hear certain things better with earplugs in, such as emergency vehicles and other cars around you, because the earplugs will block out the high engine noises. I was not convinced that was true until I could test it out for myself, and it was. I've also noticed I can hear other things about the bike now. For example, the spotlight rattle is much more clear! And there is some other little rattle that I haven't figured out yet where it is coming from. (It might be the exhaust down tube or pipe that we'd already listened to but now I can hear it better with the earplugs in.)

I think I'd like to try out some different kinds of earplugs. I've got the cheap disposable ones from Target and hubby has some similar ones from Lowes. But, I wonder if others might be more comfortable and longer lasting.