bbobeckyj

For me, it would be-

BKS bespoke two piece,

Alt-Berg bespoke boots, one summer and one winter pair,

Held Titan, Warm 'n' Dry and Akira Tex II gloves,

Arai RX7 GP.

I think that might be over £3000, so I don't think it'll happpen any time soon

I once heard that Richa are the best selling brand in England, so they must be ok.

Try looking at Held gloves, prices range from about £20 to £150, and they came second in last year's rider power.

http://www.held-biker-fashion.de/index. ... 1&fs=&lg=e

EDZ or similar, sport shops sell the same stuff on sale often, as do places like Lidl.

I find that anything with full length legs and sleeves is best. It stops the leather or textiles sticking to your skin which makes it worse, and keeps a layer of air between which insulates for maintaining temperature.

I guess I'll be the first with a differing opinion, and say they're not that great.

All the screen does for me is take the air flow away from my lower abdomen. My chest and head still suffer so much that I want to remove it after my biking holiday, and secondly it keeps me at legal speeds

have a look at Held also

http://www.held-biker-fashion.de/index. ... 1&fs=&lg=e

the brand came second in the last rider power survey

The official Honda accessories page for the CBF600

The 2008 is the same model, the only change is a new colour option since I bought it.

I got the same bike from new, I had a Honda oem topbox 45l fitted when I bought it.

It keeps two helmets plus a bit of soft stuff like gloves or whatever stuffed around them. I found that it was more than enough space for commutes to work, or days out with the girlfriend on the back, unless she starts shopping.

I'm planning a summer trip to France etc so I bought a Givi side rack kit with two 42l boxes for the touring side of things. But it did not fit with the oem top box frame. My only complaint with it.

So I ended up buying a Givi to box rack too. I haven't got around to fitting either of the Givi racks yet so I don't know, but I am hoping that the oem top box will fit the Givi rack.

The two links are the cheapest I found for the Racks and basic boxes respectively. The racks are usually cheaper than the boxes.

If you decide to get a top box alone I will almost certainly have a spare oem Honda topbox rack for the CBF600, and maybe the box as well. PM me if you're interested.

I think the visor removal is easier than any other helmet I've seen.

It's the re-insertion I don't like.

They are heavier, the aramid/kevlar is kinda like rough wool, maybe like old army clothing from WW1, a bit scratchy, not too bad though.

You will sweat off the bike in summer, but it's nice & cool on the bike. It's better than leather or textiles.

Armour is bulky, especially the hips, you also need to account for the size of the hip armour as you need to belt up around your waist, not your hips as is normal for normal jeans, if you don't, you''ll have no protection around your hips, but then you may want to drop them to your hips when off the bike so you don't look like your grandad.

Knee armour is ok, a bit nobbly if you look for it.

I've got BIG legs (body builder/power lifter) and never find jeans to fit. With a 34" waist I need to usually get 38-40" jeans, just to get my legs in the holes, and even that's dependant on make

Some makes (Animal for example) fit OK.

Are there any makes that I should look for that have a really loose fit? Obviously if I'm wearing them on a bike they need to fit perfect.

Also, anywhere I can try them on near Salisbury, Southampton, Bournemouth etc?

Thanks

I'm similar to you, I have a pair of 38 inch Hood jeans, they bunch up too much at the waist.

But they do offer custom sizing, and I would consider getting legs cut for a 38 waist with an actual waist size of 34 if I bought another pair, but custom sizes are not returnable, so it's a risk.

I tried on some 36 draggins (the largest the shop had) and I couldn't fit my legs past my knees.

Edit: I just checked the site again, it lists the waist/hip/thigh/hem sizes and the length is your own choice. When I got mine I called them and they offered a custom sizing.

They are not the best looking jeans though.

As above I have a foggy mask, it works well enough if it fits perfectly into your helmet, even then it's not perfect. Pinlock is best, fogcity probably as good but not removable.

Waterproof any satnav (or any small electricals such as mobiles) with the fishermans' trick, use a condom on it.

no it won't, wear a paper bag

as said above, just try as many as you can on, and see which is most comfortable and fits you, then hope the price is right.

You need to cut a hole; take the mirrors off, fit muffs, line up with where the mirrors go, cut a small hole and then re-fit mirrors.

That makes them a bit more permanent than I would like, not so simple as strapping them on/off.

If I tried to take mirrors off I would probably break something.

You'll need to check that they fit your bike, mine didn't, the mirrors are in the way.

So I have a pair similar to the pictures above (Tech 7), that I need to list on eBay at some point to get rid of them.

Presumably you can buy ones with openings for the mirrors.

The foamed polystyrene cushoning goes hard, and loses its compression absorbtion ability when it repeatedly gets wet and dried.

The shell(s) are vunerable to UV light as mentioned above.

I assume the strap would wear through also, but I never had one long enough to find out.

As for how they come to the 5 year number, I have no idea. My insurer told me that the average milage of a biker is 2,500 to 3,000 a year, so if you do more than 12,500 in a year, does that mean you need to replace the lid every year?

contacts are fine for me too.

Foggy mask didn't fit my helmet very well

We used to see how tough old lids were by crushing em in the jaws of the tyre fitting machine. Some lids defeated the machine altogether. It was excellent fun.....

Please rate some helmets or brands for us then...

Tim, Don't know if you are aware M&P/Busters are the same firm I found this out when blagging raffle prizes Busters gave me a cheap disc lock, when I went to M&P they told me they had already given me something at Busters.

I made the mistake of selecting the send me emails when I bought something from M&P, I got emails from about 4 differently named companies every other day, and not all could be removed from the 'remove me from the mailing list' link

Have a mate who says he uses this and it works, but I'm not so sure if

a) it works

b) it's not gonna blank my plate if a police car has lights on behind me

Comments?

Thx

Do it anyway, you can always sue them for false adverstising.

I'm probably going to be going for some kind of naked bike, the Honda CBF600 or possibly a Kawa ER-6

Not into race reps, don't have the experience or the reflexes to be honest.

I have the cbf600 and can reccomend it, the only others I have riden are the sv650 (far too small if you actually have legs attached to your body) and the er6 (still too small but better, annoying forward sloping seat) and my old cbr125 (more spacious and comfortable than the sv650 or the er6).

Reviewers have said that the cbf is boring. I can guess what they are used to which makes them think that a top speed of 135mph and 0-60 in 4s is boring, I guess it just shows what is 'normal' to bikers nowadays.

Sorry, I have no idea how you're gonna spend so little, but I have two suggestions.

1) Hein Gericke do interest free finance/loans on kit, and they currently have a lot of last year's stuff going cheap (very cheap on some). I did this and the girlfreind got better kit than me.

And I don't know if your's is like mine, but she would be p*ss*d as hell if she though that I was going to get her substandard kit, which wouldn't be as safe as my own. Add to that, don't pillions come off worse in accidents?

2) Legs recieve to most injuries when bikers crash. Although I don't want to presume too much, you don't say if she currently has anything to wear for her legs, and I see too many people wearing jeans.

My only off so far was on a corner going about 40mph, inch thick mud and manure left by tractors suprised me and off I went, I slid maybe 3 to 5 meters. I was in Richa textiles and the only part of the road not covered in mud & slurry were the two car tyre tracks.

The trousers wore through to the lining.

If textile is pound for pound more resistant than leather, I never want to see the results of jeans. I also know and see people who always wear leather trousers but often have textile jackets.

I have used these for a couple of years now, you can get them direct http://www.diycustomplugs.co.uk/

I like them, I have also got a set that I fitted a set of in ear speakers to.

I was planning to try and do that, how did you make yours?