BikerThomas.com

I chose my helmet last year, it’s a Shark Evoline. It was quite hard to get hold of one and you had to pre-order them several months in advance, but I’m sure it’s going to be easier to find one this year. The main advantage of this helmet is that it’s both a half-helmet and a full-helmet; what I mean about that is that you can unhook the chin-guard and move it to the back of your helmet and the helmet will still be balanced. This is great when riding on warm summer days in the city and when you get back on the highway it’s easy to convert the helmet back to a full-helmet in a matter of a second. The Evoline is actually one of the few helmets that can be ridden legally with the chin guard in the up position. The only thing that I’m missing is integrated bluetooth inter-com but that can always be added on by using third-party accessories. Make sure to also check out 1200 Sport Blog’s review of this helmet.

Official website: www.shark-evoline.com

About a year ago I bought myself a Garmin GPS for my motorcycle. It’s one of those things that you buy and then wonder how you could ever live without one. On my trip in northern Europe last summer I didn’t bring a single map! I didn’t need one! You load the latest updated maps onto an SD-card and pop it straight into the GPS and voila you’re ready to take on an entire continent with detailed road maps and thousands of POIs (Point of Interest, like petrol stations etc).

There are a few choices when it comes to GPS-systems designed for motorcycles, but the two to notice are the Garmin Zumo and TomTom Rider. I did alot of research before I decided to buy the Garmin Zumo 500 Deluxe Europe. Pretty much all reviews online end up in favour of the Garmin Zumo. A years ago it was priced at approx. US$430 in France, add cost of shipping to Norway and taxes etc. and it totalled $540 in todays exchange rates.  It’s more expensive than the TomTom Rider but also heaps better.

The Zumo 500 sports scratch-resistant and water-resistant display so that you don’t have to worry about gravel or rain. The display is a comfortable 3,5″, the perfect size really. The battery lasts for a good few hours but I’d hate to go empty in the middle of Germany or something so I had my super-awesome mechanic hook it up to the extra power cables hidden inside the headlight.

You can hook it up to any bluetooth headset if you want to listen to audio directions, I find that quite annoying so I don’t bother to, but I recommend a helmet with bluetooth integrated into the helmet itself if you want to use this feature, that way you don’t have to have cables everywhere. The Zumo also lets you play MP3 files straight from the SD-card and through your bluetooth set, now that’s kinda cool! I haven’t tried this yet, but I’ll let you know if it’s any good when I have. Apparently you can also make hands-free mobile calls with this thing, but seriously, who talks on the phone while riding a motorcycle? That’s just wrong!

I highly recommend this GPS, it’s the best one out there, it has a ton more features and you can read all about them on Tom McQuiggan’s review and also check out Garmin’s product information about the new Zumo 550.

Solar Powered Digital Tire Pressure Gauge

I ordered a solar powered digital tire pressure gauge a couple of weeks ago from Hong Kong… It doesn’t need batteries and has a built-in tool to measure tire-depth and a fancy red flashlight(!). Since I work with computers all day I simply love gadgets, so combining this with tools for my motorcycle is especially fun. It set me back a measly $8,14 (free shipping from the other side of the world…). It has a nice little LED display and measures tire pressure in PSI, Kpa, Bar and Kg/cm2.

Having the right tire pressure can save you for quite a bit of petrol and can also extend the life of your tires.

The manual for the VN900 Classic recommends 28PSI on the front wheel and 32PSI on the rear wheel but motorcycle legends on the Kawasaki Motorcycle Forum recommends 38PSI/40PSI or even 40PSI/40PSI. I can’t really recommend any of these until I’ve tried myself. Since my bike is still in the garage waiting for warmer weather and have been so since October, my values are way too low at 23/25 front/rear so I’m gonna have to jack those up to at least what the manual says before I hit the road.

By the way, I don’t really trust cheap plastic gadgets imported from China so I’ll check my tire pressure gauge against a professional one the next time I get a service on my bike just to see how accurate mine is. I’ll keep you updated on this.

If you want one for yourself, go here: http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.2623

It’s been 9 months since I registered this domain name so I guess it’s time to start blogging! I should probably introduce myself, I’m Thomas (I guess you already figured that one out, eh?) I’m a happy owner of a Kawasaki VN900 Classic. It’s my first bike and I bought it in 2007 and have had two absolutely awesome summers riding it. I live in Norway so the motorcycle season is quite short compared to alot of other countries but you can still ride comfortably from April through October. In the winter months the bike is stored in a warm and cozy garage just itching to get back on the road. Last summer I rode my bike to Denmark, Germany and Holland, I’ll post some of the best photos on this blog later. Don’t hesitate to contact me or comment on my posts or correcting me on technical details along the way or if you have a blog that you want featured on my blogroll. Also, if you already own a Vulcan or are interested in Kawasaki motorcycles, you should head over to the Kawasaki Motorcycle Forum, it’s the best forum out there.