Too old for head-banging

Helmet Vibration


Thursday saw Dilbert and I filtering for the best part of 12-miles down the M3 in blistering heat. He'd managed to cruise at 80mph and peaked to a fright (mine) at 95mph - once; for a look-see. Then we had to filter for that long while in the heat.

I got a little heat-stressed. Filtering is listed on the Web as an art form. I came quite naturally to it but then I've been filtering most of my life with the early days of racing bikes about town and then small motorbikes, and then the endless array of cars (and minibuses, some of you may remember) thrashed along past queues in reckless attempts to "make the lights".

Anyway, once home I felt ill. The buffeting I'd experienced had been pretty severe and although I'd chosen to ignore it at the time its after effects were server enough to make Friday's ride even more uncomfortable. On the home leg of the A32 I just wanted to give up. The vibration became nausea inducing and mixed with some more heat being wrapped up after having had a soaking in Farnborough before entering clearer skies from Fremlington. By the close of the A31 I was pretty ragged; by Warnford I just wanted my Dad to tell the fair ride operator to stop the ride so I could get off.

Saturday was bad. My balance had been knocked off even keel and so I cleaned Dilbert and set to reading up on helmet noise and vibration. There's not a lot on the latter: I've sat up out of my seat, I'm on my 3rd screen, I've turned my helmet 15-degrees against the direction of travel, used each and every Vario setting,closed and opened my vents (on the helmet, too), and secured my visor, etc. I was not keen to get back on Dilbert on Monday, except once on board we had a fairly exciting ride that convinced me 2-wheels is still the way to go.

So, I've been thinking....

This morning we popped in to a bike shop in Farnborough, and look what I was chasing!

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