twas a dark & cloudy morn

Good morning everyone, it is 8:05 a.m. on a cold grey morning here in the hinterlands of Hartsville, South Cackalacky. The temperature is just above freezing (mid 30s) with the occasional light spitting of sleet & rain. I just got back from a motorcycle ride and have a report for you. Everyone knows the best way to keep your motorcycles carburetors clean and ready to go is to ride the damn thing all year round whenever possible. I am not as hard core as I used to be but even in the bleak midwinter I try to keep it on the road enough to keep it running. Besides when the engine is sucking in really dense cold air it seems to scream at me with a whole new level of ferocity that makes me want to twist the throttle harder & harder, damn the frostbite to fingers it feels gooood!

Where I live the winters are generally mild and most of the time the midday temperatures range from 40-60 degrees Fahrenheit But to take advantage of the afternoon temps on my commute home I sometimes have to leave the house while the thermometer hovers around the freezing mark and the frost is thick on the ground. and most of the time this means I have to ride with my face shield up because it fogs up so much. So picture this, a 30 mile commute, in 30 degree weather, with your face shield up and old Jack Frost gnawing on your nose like a puppy on an expensive pair of handmade leather shoes. Even I am not enough of a masochist to say I enjoy this.

This story starts off innocently enough last week at the International Motorcycle Show in Charlotte when I heard this natural born snake oil salesman calling out offering to clean my glasses for me. He did the little routine where he cleaned one lens and put them on a humidifier to show how great the stuff was at preventing fogging. Normally I ignore these people but all of these cold mornings have affected my brain so I decided to listen to him and actually purchase a kit to try.

The Blaze Antifog cleaner kit with microfiber cloth with my glasses & helmet.

To be totally honest my glasses have never actually fogged up during my morning commute. The helmet I use is an HJC CL-Max modular helmet that I have owned for several years now. I have been very happy with it so far, but I did cheap out & get the plain Jane face shield with no tinting or antifog properties.

Following the manufacture’s instructions which can be found here

I cleaned my glasses first

Then did the exterior of the helmet with the spray. In the past I have always used Pro Honda Spray Cleaner on my helmets. It definitely is the best thing I have ever found for dried bug removal and is safe on polycarbonate plastics unlike most household glass cleaner. But it has no antifog capacity at all and is actually meant to be uses as a cleaner/detailer product for your bike not your lid.

The Blaze spray worked really well for cleaning the optics, but it took a little more work to scrub away the dried on bugs than I am used to.

removed face shield for thorough cleaning

After all of my lenses were nice & shiny I put it all back together to wait for morning.

Then today I got up nice and early put on my riding gear, went out to the barn and coaxed the Minimum Ninja into life. While walking to the shop I was able to fog the shield by deliberately blowing air upward toward it. Not perfect but hey normally time I step out the back door on a cold morning it is completely fogged over.

a little foggy but not bad

Riding out the long dirt road that I live on to get to the nearest asphalt I was able to leave the shield closed and was not blinded by the fog.

This is not a fun curve for a sportbike when it’s the least bit wet.

When riding very slow or stopped for more than a few seconds I had to crack the shield open to keep it completely clear, but never had to raise it up more than a smidgen.

further down the road

Here’s a shot of that gloomy overcast sky. Normally I would have preferred to try this out for you on a super bright sunshine filled, but freezing cold clear morning, when the glare from the low hanging sun reveals every flaw in your shield but it didn’t happen that way.

a gloomy morning at the crossroads

My final verdict on the Blaze Antifog cleaner products? Well it’s actually positive but mixed. I really need to check it out in a variety of more conditions, but normally this morning I would have been riding around with my faceshield open just to be able to see, so that alone is a great thing. It’s not perfect, I still had a little fogging when stopped or at very low speed but as soon as I began moving it went away. Perhaps with continued use it will improve more, at this time I only have applied it to my shield once. At 25-30 bucks a pop for the kit, it is rather expensive, & I would like to see it around $19.99 or so myself, but it does work. It’s up to you, if you were blind what would you pay to see? I do recommend removing the face-shield and using something made for painted surfaces to clean the rest of the helmet. Not because this stuff will hurt it, but because it is expensive and there are other products such as the Honda cleaner, that do a better job of removing thick caked on bug guts.

If you are a year round rider and do not have a factory anti-fog coating on your face-shield or goggles you might want to try it out.

Let’s Ride Y’all

I had to include a picture of the Minimum Ninja!