I wasn't sure at first, but eventually it hit me. On my last big trip I was spending my nights in a one person tent. Because the number of people a tent is rated for is the number of bodies you can fit in it, barely, there was no additional space inside for much of anything. Essentially everything had to stay in the saddlebags on the bike. At the end of the tent I'd fit one one boot in each corner. Along my side i'd lay my one piece suit in one bunched up line (assuming it wasn't wet). My camelback would go by my head for drinks in the night, and my rolled up clothes would be my pillow.  My helmet would sit on a waterproof bag (to keep moisture from coming up from the ground and into the inner padding) underneath the tent's rain flap. And, that was it. 

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We took a test run this weekend; seeing how the gear works for the big trip in December. It was only three days, but now I'm back, out of the shower, and about to start my morning routine. And, the truth is I feel a bit overwhelmed at the prospect. So much.... internet. 

So much data. So much news. And so little of it actually matters. 

I've already falling back into the mindset of being on the road. Just ride.... grab half way through the day and guess how far you can make it before dark. See if there's a campground nearby ride some more. Try and find as many beautiful things to see and photograph as possible. Repeat. 

I learned a lot on this test run. Not just about riding with my new partner, but about why some things worked so well on the last trip, and failed to on this one. I'll write that all up in another post, but right now. I'm a little afraid to "jack in"... and it's only been three days.

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This desire to ride:
It's in the blood;
An addiction of the soul.

It's not like last time.
I was burnt out,
needing to flee.

Now I have a goal.
Each day I go to work.
But not for the job.
Not for the paycheck.

I work to remove obstacles.
I slice at my bills.
I prep my steed:
Armor,
Bags,
Tools.

Money is just a means to an end.

There are continents out there,
Ones I've never set foot on.
And I'm here...

Dear god what's wrong with us?!
Work. Home.
Work. Home.
Work. Home.
Sleep-in on the weekend.

How do you stand it?
Me?
I'm not really here.
My mind's in Guatemala.

I'm plotting,
scheming,
dreaming,
planning,
working to change my future.

You can't let this sit.
Dreams like this won't wait.
What if...
I wish I'd...
Fuck that.

I will not be that person.

There are continents out there.
A whole universe of people,
sights,
sounds,
and dreams.

This gilded cage of monotony
Can. Not. Contain me.

Streamed images of
artificial lives.
Pre-recorded "excitement",
"entertainment"...

Just to escape reality.
Work. Home.
Work. Home.
Work. Home.

How can you sit still?!
There are continents out there!

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Most westerners aren't aware that Asian folk have a different kind of ear wax. Theirs is dry and flaky, and Q-tips don't work nearly as well for them. In order to clean their ears the Japanese have devised something called a mimikaki (みみかき) which is essentially just a little ear spoon that comes in a variety of shapes and styles in metal and wood.

 

Now, you're probably wondering why I'm talking about mimikaki's on a motorcycle blog. The answer is simple: Q-tips take up space, aren't waterproof, and can't be reused. It's bad enough to be driving down the road with an unitchable ear that's desperately calling out for a Q-tip, but what do you do on a long trip when you've used your last one?

Enter the mimikaki. It may have been designed for Asian ear wax but it works just find with non-asian ear wax too. They take up no space, are waterproof, reusable, and easy to clean. What more could you want?

How about a free one?
You can certainly order one from a site like JBox.com but, you can also make a perfectly usable, and safe, one from a standard office paperclip. Try and find yourself a medium sized one, then bend it like the picture below. You can then gently insert the curved end into the ear canal and proceed to pull the wax out. Obviously you'll need a napkin or something to wipe it off.

Don't worry about the fact that the end of yours is a loop and not a spoon. There are "real" mimikakis out there that are just loops of wire at the end of a handle too. The remainder of mine isn't straightened out on purpose. Because a paperclip mimikai doesn't have a nice handle, leaving the bends in the wire give your hand something to grip onto and use to turn it in your ear to easily get the right angle.

Unlike a purchased one it doesn't matter if you loose it. Just find another clean paperclip and make yourself a new one. Throw a few paperclips in your bike's kit and you'll have some potentially useful pieces of stiff wire too.

Safety note: Just like Q-tips, care must be taken, because shoving anything too far down your ear canal can be painful and / or damaging.

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In WebBikeWorld's review of the HJC IS-16 helmet they pondered why there was Velcro on the inside of the chin-bar. A commenter suggested that maybe it was for a Respro Foggy. Curious as to what one was I Googled their site and was amazed at the simple brilliance of it. There is nothing fancy here. It's just one of those head-slappingly obvious ideas that makes you wonder why no-one else has been making these.

Summary: Good, cheap, anti-fog device that really works.

If you live in New England or anywhere else it gets chilly you're more than familiar with the problem of fogged visors. A pinlock system is great, but it requires getting a fancy visor which isn't available for most helmets, or a do-it-yourself kit that involves drilling a couple holes into your visor for the pins. Not fun and particularly sucky if you're like me, and find yourself either getting a big scratch on your visor, or having enough bugs and dirt and dust pinging off of your visor that the micro-scratches built up and you end up needing to replace it every year. Your other alternatives are Fogtech anti-fog liquid, Cat Crap anti-fog wax, pre-treated visors (which may or may not be available for your helmet), electrically heated visors (probably not available), and now, the Foggy.

Personally I think the idea of having to treat my visor with liquid, or wax and then remembering not to touch the inside is lame, and annoying because how much would it suck to pull up to your first stop-light and realize that you needed to redo the coating? Electric would work but that's another cable to run and more power to suck from a bike that probably wasn't designed to have the spare juice to run all your electric heating widgets.

But the Foggy... That's an idea I can get behind. Stick it in your helmet in the fall, take it out as summer starts rolling around. The end. The principle is simple. All the hot moist air coming out of your nose and mouth gets redirected away from your visor, and thus never has a chance to fog it up. The end.

It comes in a variety of colors and is held in with hook-and-loop (Velcro(TM)) that attaches to your chin-bar and your cheek pads. It also has a plastic arch that goes over the nose to keep it fitted to your face.  There's just one little catch. While it has 3 male hook-and-loop pads it only comes with an matching adhesive-backed female hook-and-loop pad for the chin. There's a sticker on the back of that that says "the side pieces of the Foggy(R) mask should be sandwiched between the helmet cheek pads and the chin strap." Sounds workable, except for the fact that the side pads come across your face at about the same level as your cheekbones which is slightly above where the chin straps emerge from the padding on most full-faced motorcycle helmets. In other words, following the instructions is essentially impossible. Fortunately I noticed the "Approved for..." list of helmets on the package and I happened to own one of the brands listed (HJC) so, I set down my Scorpion, picked up the HJC and said "Oh hey, there's Velcro on the chin-bar!" The side pieces still couldn't fit under the chin straps but it turns out that the fabric that HJC uses is fuzzy enough that the hook-and-loop on the Foggy can attach to it. "How cool." It's not an incredible attachment on the sides, but I'm not worried about it falling out, especially with the real hook-and-loop in the chin-bar.  The Velcro on the Foggy's side pieces doesn't even remotely want to stick to the lining of my Scorpion.

So, I stuck it in, put on the helmet and started adjusting it to make a good fit across my nose and cheeks. Now, before we go any farther I should point out that I've got a typically skinny British nose. It's not teeny but it's by no means large. A fairly average white-person nose. But the plastic bridge on the Foggy is is skinnier than my nose. I assume the idea is that it should gently clamp on to it to keep moist air from escaping up beside your nose. The problem is that if I put it up on the bony bridge of my nose it squeezes itself up and off a bit. If I put it below the bony bridge then it's squeezing my nostrils, but it seems to be adjustable. So, before you insert it gently spread the arms apart and hold them there until you have a slightly wider bridge. It took a couple minutes but I eventually I found that It would sit comfortably just below the bony bridge of my nose.

Once I'd stuck it in the helmet and adjusted its placement to make a good seal on my face. I stuck my helmet outside in the 16 deg. F weather to chill for a bit. The bikes are not in riding shape this winter, but I wanted to give it a decent test. I went out, put on the helmet, inserted my glasses so I could actually see anything, and started breathing. And... nothing happened. So I breathed some more. Nothing happened. So, I breathed some more.... I breathed big heavy breaths out my nose. I breathed big heavy breaths out my mouth. Eventually, I noticed that if I looked closely the top half of my visor was slightly foggy when I was breathing out of my mouth. I started paying more attention and noticed that I could feel some of the air from my mouth escaping up between the foggy and my face, but only barely. And I'm sure that if I adjusted it I could get rid of most of that.

But, maybe it wasn't the Foggy. Maybe it was a flawed test. I took off the helmet. I took out the foggy. I put the helmet back on. I put my glasses back on. I breathed in. I breathed out through my mouth, and was suddenly blind. My glasses were totally opaque with fog. I lowered my glasses, closed the visor again, and yup, it was nearly opaque with fog. As I was standing still with no wind neither really felt like de-fogging, but eventually they did. And yup, they fogged up when I breathed through my nose too. Not nearly as badly, but enough to remember why I bought the foggy in the first place, and enough to remind me that it really sucks to have to breath exclusively through your nose while riding.

[Update] There's only one quality of the Foggy that I found annoying. If you've made a good seal with it against your cheeks then the portions of it that were against your cheeks will rub against your orbital cavity on the way off. It's not a particularly bad thing, but anything rubbing, even gently, that close to your eyes is a little unnerving.

So, would I recommend the Foggy?
Hell yes. But, unless you have one of the Approved Helmets listed below you may need to go to your local sewing store and buy a little bit of adhesive backed Velcro for the cheek pads. They're £13.99 plus shipping from Respro, which ends up being roughly the same price you'd pay from KneeDraggers, except the money's going straight to the manufacturer who has a pretty cool line of products, and, I think, deserves to be supported. Of course, it'll take a wee bit longer to get to you from the UK. On the other hand, KneeDraggers.com said "Distributor does not provide live stock data" and "This item usually ships in 1-3 days" which usually translates to "we think it'll go out soon but we may not actually have any".  

Overall I give the Foggy a 4 out of 5. It's great but not absolutely perfect, and I was pretty irked by Respro leaving out the matching velcro for the cheek pads. That was just cheap corner cutting that will leave the product effectively unusable in many helmets without you running to the store to buy more velcro.

The foggy is "Approved for" Shoei, Arai, Dainese, Shark, FM, AGV, Bell, OGK, Roof, and HJC helmets.

[Update] Real World Test!

I went for a half-hour ride in 25 deg. F weather with a bunch of stoplights and the Foggy performed admirably. My glasses did get slightly fogged a couple times, but that could have also just been body heat coming off my face. As far as I can tell visor didn't fog up at all and I never needed to futz with opening it every time I came to a stop. I'd totally recommend it, but like any anti-fog thing, it's going to work better if your helmet does a good job of sucking your hot, moist breath out. The cheap HJC i tested it with didn't, especially not with the Polar Buff I was wearing around my neck to keep the cold wind off it. For the Foggy to really work well though you've got to make a good seal against your cheeks and that makes taking your helmet off fairly annoying because of how you have to grab the foggy to keep it from pressing into your orbital cavity. But, it was very comfortable while riding and the benefits totally outweigh the annoyance when you have to take it off. 

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The laws of long distance motorcycle packing

1. The amount of crap you "need" always be slightly greater than the size of your bags.
2. You don't need 75% of the crap you were planning on bringing. 
3. You will not bring thing you actually need.
4. The contingencies you've packed for are the lest likely to arise.
   

1. The smaller your bags are, the less crap you'll "need".
2. You only need a quarter of the space you thought you needed.
   
3. You won't be surprised when you discover you don't have it that thing you really need.
   
4. Packing for the worst helps to ensure it won't happen.
   

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So, the universe gave me a bunch of hints that the Symba was not the right scoot for the job. It's a great scoot, but it's only got a 100cc engine which, as much as I wish otherwise, probably won't be up to the task of the hills, and mountains, the Scooter Cannonball Run will present me with. At least, not up to handling them at more than a snail's pace, which I could deal with if I was riding all on my own, but I'm not. The SCR is definitely a bunch of individuals out to beat each other, but at the same time, it's about sharing the adventure. And, I fear that on the Symba I'd be getting in so late I'd miss out on half the fun, and all the camaraderie. The sharing of the days events with a bunch of like-minded folks.

So, after trying to convince me the Symba was a bad choice, the universe then proceeded to give me hints that I should get a Stella, then it offered up one for $2k at the same time I happened to have $2k. Ok, some bills are going to have to wait a couple weeks, but... I'm now the proud, and somewhat confused owner of a Genuine Stella with a Sito+ pipe. This may be a profoundly bad idea, but who am I to argue with the universe?

Why might it be a profoundly bad idea? Well, unlike the Symba, the Stella is not known for reliability. In fact, people have attempted the SCR on 25+ year old Vespas, but no-one has dared on a Stella. Which is kind of odd considering a Stella is really a 25+ year old Vespa that just happened to be manufactured recently. Then again, the Vespas didn't fare too well either.

Maybe this wasn't such a good idea.

Damn you universe!

But god she's pretty, and orange. Why don't they make more orange bikes?

Maybe when I sell the Ninja and the Metropolitan in the spring I'll get a Symba with the money and see which one is best. The problem with that idea is that the storage solutions are radically different for each. With the Symba you'd have to do saddlebags or panniers. The Stella's kind of a wide-load though and adding any extra width would be a bad idea. So you've got to store stuff in front of the seat and behind your legs. Also, you can't put anything on the seat because it's one long unit that lifts from the back and you need to be able to lift it to fill the gas tank and add two-stroke oil.

Technically the Symba isn't known for reliability either, since it's only been around for a couple years. But, it's really just a new model of the Honda Super Cub made by the same company that made them for Honda for 20+ years, and those had a reputation as being nigh-indestructible, and the people who have had Symbas have been reporting that they seem to be living up to their predecessor's reputation. Maybe a nigh-indestructible vehicle that climbs mountains like a snail is better than a nigh-destructible one with a bit more power. Arrgh!

Honestly, I wish I didn't have this lingering doubt. While the potential for breaking down does add a level of "interesting" difficulty to the adventure, I don't really want to deal with a break-down in the US. Especially not a catastrophic one. Breaking down here is boring. Breaking down in Botswana.... that would be an adventure (please don't let me break down in Botswana). Great.... now I have to go find Botswana on a map. Huh... I thought it was farther north. Anyway. A catastrophic breakdown (like the engine seizing) would just be expensive and time consuming.

If someone were willing to sponsor this grand adventure, from Boston to Vancouver to Portland ME it would make the decision much easier. What's that? You'll offer a scoot and free repairs along the way? In exchange for photos of your wonderful scooter in front of scenic mountains and wooded passes across America and Canada, and blogging about how awesome it is along the way? Where do I sign up?

I've got some ideas for sponsorship, I've just never tried to get it before, so I'm not quite sure about the proper way to go about it.

....
P.S. I'm looking for a mountain you can drive to the top of that's within a day's drive of Boston. Anything tall that isn't Mt. Washington because they don't allow two wheeled vehicles (even bicycles) up that road. Preferably something around 5,000 feet high. And, no, I don't intend to attempt it now in the middle of winter. I just need somewhere to test the climbing ability and altitude handling of the fully-loaded scoot come spring.

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