Recently I told myself I was going to do something fun for my 45th birthday. I felt getting older and the fun diminishing as I got older so I needed to retain some of my earlier years. My plan was to get something that will instantly get me to feel young again and in turn help me all around in my 1 hour long commute to my new job in Santa Monica. If you’ve ever driven around Los Angeles you know that at any time of the day, on any given freeway there will be traffic. I talked to a few buddies of mine and they suggested I get a motorcycle, I had a motorcycle about ten years ago but a bad accident forced me to turn to cars.The Bike After almost ten years of not riding a motorcycle and not owning one, I saw myself traveling down the rabbit hole and buying another motorcycle, a 2005 MV Agusta F4. There’s no particular reason why I bought the MV other than it’s readily availability and its low relatively low sale price. It’s a black bike with little to no flash
and that’s exactly how I wanted it. All the GearAll the Time (ATGATT)
Given that I had had a bad accident in the past I didn’t want to go without gear, suddenly I turned into an all the gear, all the time type of guy, an accident will do that to you. I bought myself the motorcycle and towed it home, I bought myself a new leather jacket with plenty of padding as well. I even went to the extent of buying nice riding jeans. If you’ve never worn these types of jeans, they’re made out of abrasion resistant material and has breathable ribbed panels so that they’ll slide better in case of a fall and not tear, exposing your skin.
Helmet Standards .The one thing that I struggled with was the helmet. When I started riding in my early twenties I didn’t know anything about helmet standards nor did I care, I just wanted to ride. Now, I paid so much attention to these standards that almost nothing seemed safe enough. I looked around information regarding the different standards and came across a well written blog regarding the main helmet standards. After reading up on the standards I wanted to make sure that the helmet I bought met both D.O.T and Snell standards and the helmet I bought fit the bill perfectly.The guys at Motorcycle House really took their time researching this subject so I bought from them.
Where Did I Buy From? I loved the fact that as soon as I clicked on their helmets section, they broke it down by the type of helmets that they offered. They had scooter helmets, ATV type helmets, touring bike helmets, dirt bike helmets, cruiser bike helmets and some street bike helmets as well all in one convenient page for me. Once I decided what type of helmet was for me, I moved on to the actual helmets themselves. My budget was to stay under $500 which is relatively modest considering some of these helmets can take one thousand dollars right out of your pocket. Thanks to the help of my friends I decided to go with an Arai helmet that was right over my budget at $579. If you have a budget in mind or just want to see everything they have to offer, browse through their whole catalog of helmets and find the right one.
I know I did. I am glad that I have gotten back on a motorcycle. My commute has been cut down to almost half the time it used to take me and some days I cannot see myself getting another car again. What used to be a 90 minute commute is now 45 minutes at most and that’s mainly because it’s a 45 mile drive. The winter is here though, and it’s getting very chilly early in the mornings so I’ll probably need to look for a warmer jacket to wear for the winter months.
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