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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

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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.

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