Viking Enforcer Motorcycle Jacket by MotorcycleHouse.com
MotorcycleHouse.com has asked me to review one of their jackets, the Viking Cycle Enforcer Jacket. Below is the unboxing and first impressions video. Over the next few weeks I will be wearing the Cycle Enforcer jacket and will provide a full review in the near future.
I just had new motorcycle tires installed. This time I chose to go a different route then my normal Dunlop OEM tires. I bought Pirelli Night Dragons for the Harley Davidson Ultra Limited.
I did a lot of research on the different tires that are available for my motorcycle. I looked at Michelin, Metzeler and other brands motorcycle tire stats, reviews etc. I went with the Night Dragons as it was the only motorcycle tire that seemed to get better reviews in an area that concerned me quite a bit, grip in the wet. As much as I
love riding, it always seems to rain when we go out and a good “wet tire”, all things equal, got my attention.
Now I do have concerns about not using the Dunlop OEM tires. Those motorcycle tires are available at all Harley Davison dealers and would likely be in stock should a worst case scenario occur. While it would not be optimal to run to different brands of tires on the motorcycle, I am sure worse things occur every day.
The wife and I will be leaving soon on a 2,000 mile vacation ride so I am sure we will get to try these motorcycle tires in the wet and dry! I will post a more in-depth review when we return.
First thing—– I looked at your website and if there is a link for a motorcycle rider to report unsafe conditions it sure does not stand out. If you really support motorcycle safety, add a link for us to quickly alert you to conditions that affect us.
NOW my problem —— This past Memorial Day (2016) I was out for a nice morning ride on one of the favorite roads of motorcyclist in the area (MD, WV, VA), Harpers Ferry Road. Always a classic, always a go to road to enjoy the ride, the view and road. NOT SO MUCH NOW!
A very large (10+ miles) of this formally nice, paved road is now covered in GRAVEL. Small, pea sized gravel. While there may be a study somewhere about how putting TONS OF GRAVEL on a paved road will improve conditions it DOES NOT IMPROVE SAFTY FOR MOTORCYCLIST.
Every turn I had to concentrate on my approach to ensure I was in the wheel path with the least amount of gravel. Every oncoming car I had to worry about taking a face full of gravel. Every time I came to a stop I had to slow well ahead and make sure my feet were firmly placed. Harpers Ferry road is (was) supposed to be a great relaxing ride through the Maryland countryside. Instead it became a gruesome exercise on how to torture the safety of motorcyclist. I can only imagine how terrible this road will become in the rain!
Leaving this to nature to resolve will result in no resolution. There is simply too much gravel splayed across this paved surface. The turns, of which there is a lot, will never be completely safe for motorcyclist without mechanical intervention. The Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration must get this road cleaned up before someone is killed!!! I typed that properly … BEFORE SOMEONE IS KILLED!
While I am at it—- The round-about at the intersection of Route 15 and 464 is now unsafe to motorcycles as well. Not nearly as bad Harpers Ferry road but just as unsafe. One of your road crews used tar to seal road cracks, motorcyclist call these “tar snakes”. Tar snakes are mostly just a pain in the backside type of road repair as they are easily ridden over. Not so in a round-about, the slow speed, coupled with the higher lean angle, combined with cross traffic and cars to the left and right this is another area where road conditions will result in an accident. At this particular intersection, the VERY high traffic volume will result in a gruesome accident.
With May nationally recognized, in the US, as Motorcycle Safety Month I thought it might be an interesting idea to look at the future. What are some of the safety features that might be appearing for motorcyclists in the near future?
One place to look is the safety features in the automotive industry. A lot of safety features have already crossed over from cars to high end motorcycles, think ABS, and those features are working their way into becoming standard features in most bikes. So what is the next big safety feature to cross over? It might be one, or all, of these:
Blind Spot Monitoring – Honda, BMW and others are working on migrating the technology to motorcycles. Honda recently requested a patent for a system of camera and millimeter microwave transceivers to help the rider know what is in the blind spot.
Heads Up Displays (HUDS) – Multiple developers are working on this technology. One of the more famous is Skully and their smart helmet. Some of these products are already out there but at higher end price points. In a year or three I expect these costs to go down.
Emergency Accident Notification – Think “On Star” here in North America. BMW has a big push to introduce their “SOS System” which, similar to a car, is made up of multiple sensors and a mobile phone connection. There is also several other products that connect to your phone via a fob or other device, but I think the BMW system is the first one I have seen integrated into the bike itself.
Additionally, I think we can expect more trickle down technology to get to the average person’s price point. As I mentioned above ABS is appearing on more and more motorcycles and in some parts of the world will even be mandatory. So what other safety features or items might make to the point of ubiquity and reasonable cost for motorcycles? How about:
LED lights – Yes they have been around for a while, but they are not yet on a majority of bikes. In a few more years I think all new bikes will come with LED lights. I recently put all LEDs on the back of my bike.
Adaptive headlights – These are the headlights that move a bit to help you see while cornering. BMW, KTM and a few others are experimenting with these lights but I do not think they are coming as original equipment on any motorcycle yet. BUT if you want it now you can buy aftermarket and install adaptive headlights yourself.
Smart helmets – Although they typically include HUD, smart helmets are a lot more. Some offer dynamic noise cancelation, rear facing video, connections to phones, bike to bike communication, etc., etc. You just have to decide how much “connectivity” you want while riding, how much before it become a distraction to you. I like the concept of a smart helmet but I have not yet had the opportunity to test one out.
Airbags – A few years ago Honda came out with airbags for their Goldwing. I really have not heard much about bike mounted airbags since. But airbags embedded in jackets has started to take hold in the market place. First introduced for racing, you can now buy, for a bunch of money, for normal street riding.
Traction Control – Or launch control, or one of several other names. This is on a lot of higher end sport bikes now and some large touring bikes. It would be a safe bet that in a few years it will be extremely widespread and maybe even mandated.
Automatic tire pressure gauge – Harley Davidson, BMW, Honda and others all have these built into their higher end bikes. So there is no reason to think that we will not see them on a lot more bikes in the future.
Cornering ABS – Smarter ABS, a system that knows you are in a turn and adjusts the braking to maximize its impact without affecting your turn.
Smart Helmets/HUD Adaptive Headlights
BMW HUDS JW Speaker Adaptive Headlight
Intelligent Cranium Airbags
“Baby got back” and I cannot lie that it fits the Ultra Limited and I want to try to get drivers to see my motorcycle’s rear end. OK.. that is Ultra Bad.
In the age of distracted driving I want folks to have a better chance at seeing me when I am stopped, breaking, or slowing. So I looked around for a device that would cause my rear lights to flash when the breaks are applied. There are more than a few of these devices for nearly any motorcycle on the market but I went with the Custom Dynamics Magic Brake Light Flasher.
I will admit that my section of the Custom Dynamic product was influenced by my earlier purchase of their LED Turn Signals . That product was easy to install and has worked well.
The installation of the break light flasher was easier than I expected. Once the seat was off and you can see the Tour Pak wiring it was almost a no brainer. Once the device was installed we had to choose the flash pattern. It comes with 10 patterns of varying complexity. The video shows you all the patterns, and while it might be less than evident on the video the lights are quite bright. We went with the “Blaster X Consistent” pattern.
When I showed our upgrade to my daughter, as she pulled into the driveway, she stated “that’s distracting”. I took that as a job well done!
Now it is hard to review whether or not this is a good safety product, if I never get rear ended did the flasher help or did I just get lucky. But I can review it on ease of installation and my subjective thoughts. This product does what it says it is going to do, it was easy to install, and I think it is going to help draw attention (thank you daughter). Based on that I am giving the Custom Dynamics HD LED Tour Pak GEN2 Magic Brake Light Flasher for Harley Davidson Motorcycles 5 out of 5 stars.
***This is a repost from the last Check Your Helmet Month..with a few new pictures***
So what does that mean to you and me, the average motorcycle rider?
While your helmet might look clean and shiny it does not mean that it not ready for replacement. Worse yet, a single drop to the ground might be enough to cause you to consider replacement, according to the manufactures.
Here are some industry guidelines regarding your helmet:
Now it is your head so you need to make the decision, but you should at least check out your lid to make sure there are no major issues.
You can also go to HelmetCheck.Org to get some additional information.
I wrote a guest post for Pillioness.com on some rules for riding with passengers.
Check it out to see if you are following some of the more common sense ideas. There might be some things in the article you might not have thought about.
Debbie and I attended the largest Motorcycle Show and Expo in the mid-Atlantic region a few weeks ago. Held at the Maryland State Fairground, I think there were more folks at this year’s expo than attended in 2015.
As has been in past years Harley Davidson of Baltimore took the premier spot on the floor, directly inside the entrance. As we walked through the Harley display it looked like they were even selling one or at least were in serious negotiations. Just behind the HD exhibition were the Indian and BMW Motorrad displays. Turning to the right and moving like salmon swimming upstream is the accessories and product section.
There were all the normal stuff like jackets, vests, chaps and biker themed jewelry. One vendor caught my eye was producing, on site, LED signs… we might be ordering one or two of those as gifts. At the end of the road contestants for the Miss Timonium title were “showing their talents” to the crowd. Debbie was not too impressed, I tried to not let on I was watching, LOL!
Similar to last year the Expo was including adventure traveling companies & vendors along with guest speakers. Debbie and I stopped and listened to the “2 Ride the World” discussion. Their 13 year, 400,000 mile, around the world story compressed into a 30 minute confab was very entertaining, and left the audience wanting more. Highly recommend you check out their story! I am looking forward to a book or even a movie!
The organizers also had, similar to the adventure traveling section, an area where vendors were showing off their new stuff on stage. We stopped to find out what Sena was releasing in the New Year. Turns out they are going to release their own “smart” helmet with active noise cancellation and full integration of their product line. If you are invested in the Sena products you should check out this new helmet when it arrives, cost will be about $500US.
My highlight of the day occurred at the KTM display. As we were walking buy Debbie remarked that KTM was the bike that Ryan Dungy of Supercross rode (a 450) and that she wanted to see what that bike looked like in person. She walked up to the salesman and asked if they had one at the show, they didn’t but a minute later she was climbing on a KTM 350 of similar size. I almost laughed when the guy looked at me with a “how does she know all this Supercorss stuff” look on his face.
The bikes on display for show were all very nice and some were just plain spectacular. The custom “muscle bagger” by Sick Sledz took best in show! I have a couple pictures of it just below.
We spent about four hours looking at all the stuff on the floor before heading home. I hope this year’s event was a success for the vendors and show participants. Debbie and I had a good time and plan on going back in 2017.
I JUST WANT 2 RIDE!! 