Products Round Up
With news of new bikes slowing down to nought but a dribble, and being still a few weeks away from the rumour mill spinning up to full tilt, let’s delve once more into the product market. The biking product landscape is an ever changing, morphing and updated landscape, from the smallest tool, to the latest lid or enough quality luggage to fit more than one kitchen sink into. There’s always something new, or handy, or hopeless, for us to gawk at and either dismiss or desire as we see fit. Here are some of the latest to be revealed.
Arai ‘Nicky’ Reset RX-7V
£789.99
The loss of Nicky Hayden a few years ago hit the entire racing world hard – Nicky was one of the real good guys, after all. He was also synonymous with helmet manufacturer Arai throughout his career, and there have been many versions of his lid available over the seasons. This one was worn during his MotoGP career while on testing duties, and now you can have one, too. You don’t have to have been in biking long to know that Arai is one of the leading helmet creators, the prices alone will tell you that much, their history and quality of product will do the rest. As far as Arai goes, it doesn’t get much better than their RX-7V, either, with just a full race option (RX-7V Race FIM) and the staggeringly expensive full carbon RX-7V RC (£2,799.99!) ahead of it in the pricing range. It’s a beautiful bit of kit, with excellent ventilation, a VAS Max Vision wide aperture visor, a removable/washable antibacterial lining and emergency release system for the fully removable and replaceable interior lining such as cheek pads and so on. It comes in sizes XS- XL, and there are plenty of other colour variations available if the Nicky reset isn’t your thing. But it is, right? C’mon, guys, it’s Nicky!
LS2 All Terrain Gloves
£40.99
LS2 don’t just make decent, well priced helmets – they also produce several items of clothing to compliment their bonce buckets, too. The latest to grace our eyes are for one’s hands, in the form of their All Terrain Glove. During the hot summer months… wait… during those four or five glorious minutes in 2021 thus far when we’ve had actual decent weather, not everyone wants to wear full-on biking mittens. This especially applies to the more casual biker or the off-road/adventure type rider, where looks and excellent finger ventilation, respectively, score high on the desirability scale. The new ATG has both covered pretty well, with the right amount of ventilation mixed with a hardy build quality and sporting just enough TPU protection and leather reinforcement in the right areas to make you feel safe. A flexible textile, Lycra, Neoprene and goat-skin ensemble is used to fashion them, with touch-screen friendly finger pads and Velcro wrist adjustment wrapping things up. Coming in both male and female versions (Sizes S to 2XL / XS to L), there are four colour options top choose from, and all at the same temptingly low price, too.
Desert Fox Mini Compressor
£49
The truth is that for the most part, you never really know you need something until you actually need it. What one carries with them on a bike usually builds over many years via specific experiences so, for example, this very scribe always has at the bare minimum somewhere in his backpack – spare basics pants/socks/t-shirt, a disposable lighter, small 1-litre fuel flask, puncture repair kit, multi-tool pen knife type thing, tape, thin waterproofs and cable ties. Gosh, cable ties, the amount of times they’ve come in handy is remarkable – never be without! This natty little compressor unit, the Desert Fox, is energy drink can small and could be damn handy especially on a trip abroad or out into the wilds– so long as you have access to a 12v DC socket. It can run flat out for up to eight minutes, to a maximum capacity of 8 Bar and can allegedly inflate, for example, the rear tyre of a BMW R1200 GS in around 90-seconds. It’s not expensive either, so it’s up to you whether or not you don’t mind the time it takes manually pumping something up (if you even have a pump to hand…) versus dropping a pound shy of fifty notes on something that can shift air a lot faster than you can. Could be a real life saver!
#StaySafe, #StayAlert, #StayPositive and keep washing those hands (yes, it’s still important!).