MRA X-creen Wing Replacement

If you've read my previous posts, you know that I bought my MRA X-creen second hand.  Once I got it mounted properly and the wing adjusted to my liking, I have really liked it.  I did notice that there were a couple of tiny cracks around the screws that clamped the mounting hardware to the wing itself, but I accepted that as part of purchasing on the secondary market as well as part of the significant cost savings.  Over time, the cracks have increased significantly to the point that I became concerned that the wing might eventually break loose.

I went to the MRA website (www.mra.de/en) to see about ordering a replacement part, but I only found where you can order the entire X-creen.  I clicked on the Contact link and submitted a request for pricing on a replacement wing, and I received a reply from Nicole asking me to send her pictures of the wing and the cracks as they may be able to replace the part free of charge.  I sent her the pictures (shown above), and she sent me another email saying that they would replace the wing for free!  I love it when a company stands behind their products, no questions asked.

The part arrived a little over a week later, and instead of just the clear plastic wing, it was the wing plus the mounting hardware that is screwed onto the wing.

When I went to replace the wing, I couldn't really see how the locking mechanism came apart.  Mentally, I had an idea of how it should go together just based on how the locking mechanism works, but I didn't want to force anything and break something else.  I went back to the MRA site and started looking at the installation instructions for their other products that use the same mechanism and finally found an exploded diagram of the locking mechanism.  As it turns out, it is assembled as I had visualized it, and the diagram and associated instructions confirmed my suspicion that the pieces simply snap into place.

X-creen Mounting Hardware - Exploded Diagram

The key to the whole thing is part 2, which is the locking knob for adjusting the angle of the wing itself.  The instructions said to turn it so that it is in the open position (parallel with the length of the shield), but I found that it would not budge.  When I turned it to the locked position (perpendicular to the length of the shield), it came out fairly easily.

After removing the locking knob on the other side, it was a simple matter of removing the shield from the arms.  You need to be careful when removing the shield, because part 4 will be loose and can fall out of the arm.  This is the piece that the locking knob slots into in order to lock the shield into place.

Installation of the new wing was a simple matter of reversing the steps above.  I found that I had to pinch the locking mechanism at part 4 and the outside of the new wing in order to get the locking pin to insert fully.  This makes sense since the pin serves that very function.  With the arms and wing adjusted back to what I believe is their original positions, everything is ready to go again.

I want to thank Nicole at MRA for the excellent customer service!

Thoughts on the Cardo Scala Rider G9 and NoNoise Motosport Ear Plugs

I could write an entire review of the G9, but I don't really see the point in doing so when there are reviews out there that far exceed what I could write.  So if you want a full on review, I would suggest you go read the excellent review over on www.webbikeworld.com.  Now it's been a while since I read the review, so I apologize if I cover anything that was already mentioned there.  So like the Shoei GT-Air, this is a fairly pricey bit of kit, but I think it's well worth it, particularly if you have someone who would be willing to go in on the G9 Powerset, which bundles two units for less than the cost of two separate units.  Unfortunately, I didn't have such a person, so I had to bite the bullet and purchase a single unit.  When I got mine, the going rate on the Internet was about $250 for the single, and $400 for the PowerSet.  So basically, you could get a second unit for $150 more, which is a savings of $100 or $50 per unit.  Fortunately, I was able to pick mine up at the IMS where I was able to take advantage of the show discount. As of this writing, I believe there's a new G9x out, but I have no idea what the enhancements are.  I make it a policy not to look at what the next generations of items I own offer so as to keep the feature-envy to a minimum.

UPDATE:  Cardo released a firmware update for the G9, which added some of the features of the G9x.  I believe the only difference between the updated G9 and the G9x is that the G9x has replaceable plug-in speakers, but don't quote me on that.  It would be best to verify that for yourself if that is something that is important to you.  To be honest, your only option at this time is most likely going to be the G9x anyway.

Cardo Scala Rider G9 mounted on Shoei GT-Air

The decision to get the G9 was pretty much made for me as you may recall from my IMS posting.  I had considered the Sena SMH-10, because it got great reviews, plus they make a headset that wraps around the back of the head like regular computer headsets, which I thought would be great for talking to my wife if we ever took a trip where I could ride the bike while she follows along in the car with our son.  I ultimately ended up with the G9, because my friends, Kari and Jess, had already bought the G9, and I wanted to be able to talk to them.  Wouldn't it be great if all of the headset manufacturers could get together and decide on a common frequency instead of everyone having their own proprietary frequency?  See also Cell Phone Providers.

The first hurdle I had to cross was getting the unit mounted.  There are two methods available: a glue-on plate and a clamping plate.  The glue-on plate is pretty much a permanent solution, but it just wouldn't work with the way the GT-Air is designed.  I think it's probably more intended for half-helmets.  That left the clamping plate.  On some helmets, it's a simple matter of removing the cheek pad, clamping it on, and replacing the cheek pad.  The GT-Air would not be one of these helmets.  There's the outer shell, and then the skirt of the cheek pad inserts between the outer shell and the inner EPC foam liner, which isn't really much of a space.  The thin end of the clamp is probably around 1/8" thick, which seems like trying to shove an elephant through the eye of a needle when you're looking at this brand new, perfectly flawless, really expensive helmet.  I admit it.  I put off mounting it for the better part of two months as I had to convince myself that I wouldn't totally screw up the EPC liner while inserting the inner part of the clamping plate.  On the bright side, I did try out various mounting locations to see where I would ultimately want it, so I had that decision out of the way.  I finally decided to experiment on my old RF-1000, which wasn't quite the same since the EPC liner already had quite a bit of play just from general use over 7 years, but it did fit without anything breaking.  After that, I gritted my teeth, and slowly inserted the backplate in between the shell and the EPC liner/cheek pad skirt.  To my surprise, it went in quite easily and settled right in.  I screwed in the mounting plate, and that was it.  No muss, no fuss, no bad cracking of brand new EPC liners.  I decided to mount the boom mic instead of the wired remote mic just to keep it simple.  Having ridden with it for a while now, I think I may just keep it this way, although I do need to check to see if the remote mic's foam is smaller.  The boom mic's foam rubs my chin, which can be annoying.  At any rate, the current setup works just fine, and Kari has no problem hearing me.

The speakers went in quite easily.  The GT-Air actually has these little pockets build into the EPC liner, so all you have to do is remove the foam placeholder, apply the velcro, and stick the speaker in.  Easy peasy.  You route the wire between the speakers as far over the top of the helmet as possible as it doubles as the radio antenna.  I have yet to try listening to the radio.  I should really spend some time with the manual...

After getting the comms mounted, I plugged the G9 into my computer to configure it.  This was about as quick and painless as it could be.  I was even able to add Kari and Jess to its address book, which made it really easy to pair up with Kari the next time I saw her.

The next order of business was to pair it to my iPhone 4S.  Bluetooth on, pair, done.  Can't ask for anything simpler than that.  The best part of it all is that with a press of the call button (top middle), I have Siri ready to take a voice command.  This, of course, requires that you set the phone to allow Siri from the lock screen, which isn't the most secure thing to do, but you can live with it or turn it on/off as you need to like I do.

At this point, I've only used the comm system for two things:  inter-bike comms and listening to music.  I've had a call come in on my cellphone, but I couldn't remember what to do to answer it, which is just as well, seeing as how I was riding a motorcycle at the time.  Kari tells me that when Jess has called her from the bike as a test, she wouldn't have been able to tell Jess was on the bike if she hadn't already known.  I think I would probably pull over to take/place a call anyway.

Lesson Learned #1:  Crank up the volume on the iPhone before riding off.  You want the phone to be at max volume so that the helmet volume is regulated by the G9.  If you don't, the iPhone (or any Bluetooth device, I would think) volume will be woefully low even with the automatic adjustment for ambient noise.

Lesson Learned #2:  Those foamy earplugs work a little too well.  Until now, I had worn noise isolating ear buds with my iPhone providing music.  Since this wasn't going to work with the G9, I switched back to my foamies.  These worked a bit too well, which made conversing with Kari a bit touch and go at times, relegating our conversation to something you would expect to hear between a couple of really ancient people using horns in their ears to talk.

"something something something something," Kari would say.

"I'm sorry, can you say that again?" I would reply.

Repeat ad nauseum

I didn't want to give up the ear protection, because I'm rather fond of my hearing.  I saw these NoNoise Motosport Ear Plugs at TwistedThrottle, which are supposedly tuned to kill frequencies most associated with riding a motorcycle while making it possible to hear things without them sounding like Charlie Brown's teacher.  I ordered up a pair, and I have to say that I'm very impressed.  There's still some muffling, which is to be expected, but the level of noise is way low even compared to the noise isolating ear buds, and I can talk to people with them in and the helmet on without constantly saying, "Sorry, I got my ear plugs in and can't hear a damn thing you're saying!"  They're probably the next best thing to custom ear plugs, which I would definitely get if there were some way to integrate them easily with the G9.

I do think that the volume of the G9 could be a little higher.  On windy days, the wind noise can make it difficult to hear conversations.  The set did come with some little pillows to put behind the speakers to get them closer to your ears, but I have yet to try it.

I have had some instances where the Bluetooth connections seems a bit flaky.  The nice comms voice-in-my-head will announce that the phone has been disconnected, but it never says when it's reconnected.  This happened over and over during one ride, but hasn't happened again.  Another time, I could not get the voice commands to work no matter what I did.  Siri would acknowledge, but the confirmation would always be "Music Off" or something like that.  Again, it hasn't happened again, so who knows?

Overall, I'm very pleased with the G9.  Its learning curve is pretty steep, but it seems to be worth it.  Coupled with the GT-Air and a set of NoNoise ear plugs, it's a great solution to a complex problem.

Thoughts on the new lid: Shoei's GT-Air

So over the past few months, riding weather has been hard to come by for me as it has managed to rain on just about every available day I've had.  The big dry spell lasted from late October into late December with the only perfect riding days being used to drive out of town, including the trip to the International Motorcycle Show.  As you may have read, I bought a new helmet at the show -- Shoe's new GT-Air.

So just wearing it around the house, the GT-Air fits very similarly to my old RF-1000.  Having said that, the fit seems to conform to my head a little better than the RF-1000.  I wore an XL RF-1000, and I wear an XL GT-Air, so if you're looking to upgrade your RF-1000 or RF-1100, you should find the corresponding size GT-Air to fit as well.  For what it's worth, I also tried the RF-1200 and Neotec and found their fit to be similar as well as the sizing.  As is typical with Shoei, the inner liner is very plush and comfortable.  I wear glasses, and I do not have any problem with the padding on my temples.  I have discovered, though, that the GT-Air is a bit taller physically than the RF-1000 as it takes a little shifting around to get it situated just right so that I can latch the lid shut on my Givi topbox.  This is due to the position of the top vent, which is centered and more on top of the helmet than on the RF-1000, which had dual brow vents mounted more forward and to the sides.  The weight isn't appreciably different.  I think I read somewhere that the GT-Air is lighter, but I find in practice that the difference isn't noticeable.

The first opportunity I had to wear it out on a ride came just before Christmas.  It was pretty cold (for Texas, so low 50s) and really windy (20mph gusts) which made for some pretty miserable riding on the superslab on the way out to the more fun and twisty roads.  This helmet definitely earned its name.  This thing flows serious amounts of air.  In my RF-1000, I could ride all year round with all of the vents in the open position, and it was fine.  In the winters, it was cold but not too bad.  I didn't get very far down the freeway frontage road before I had to snap the vents closed.  I could actually feel the air flowing across the top of my head.  Looking inside the helmet, there are three large vent channels, and the inner liner helps with this effect as well.  Even riding today with temperatures in the upper 60s/lower 70s, I didn't feel the need to have anything but the chin vent open.  I have high hopes for this helmet come the triple-digit summer temps.

From a completely subjective standpoint, the GT-Air seems to be quieter on the highways, but there's still a fair amount of wind roar.  The neck roll seems to do a better job of keeping the turbulence on the bottom at bay as shrugging my shoulders up when at speed doesn't produce as pronounced a reduction in road noise as on the RF-1000.  It does make it a little tougher to pull the helmet on, but it's worth it.  One thing I've noticed is that the chin strap feels like it's a little further back towards my neck than the RF-1000's, and the little strap retention snap is a bit further up, almost in the helmet, making it a little tougher to secure the end of the strap.  It's a minor thing but worth mentioning.

The visor is bigger in both directions than on the RF-1000, but since I wear glasses anyway, that doesn't really make a big difference to me.  I have discovered that the pin lock anti-fog shield that I've installed doesn't want to seal up against the visor in one area at the bottom by my right cheek, resulting in a small triangle of fogging.  I need to see what I can do about that again.  Just a word of caution:  the pin lock shields scratch REALLY easily.  I was cleaning the bottom of it with what I thought was a very soft cotton towel, and it left what I initially thought were streaks on the edges of the pin lock.  Unfortunately, they turned out to be scratches.  It's still worth in, though.  I installed one on my RF-1000 and never looked back.  It was nice to only have to worry about my glasses fogging.  The other visor comment centers around the internal sun visor.  I didn't really think I would use it much, but I figured it would be a nice feature to have for when I forget to change from my regular sunglasses to my sunnies after a lunch break or something, which has been known to happen from time to time.  Two of my most recent rides were for extended periods under very sunny skies.  Even with my sunglasses on, which have the polarized tinted Transitions lenses, I found myself using that internal visor to cut down the light even more.  It's great, because it fits over my glasses without any issue, which was a concern for me initially.

So overall, I love this helmet.  I sometimes I wish I had gone with the Neotec, but I still question how often I would use the full-face flip-up feature.

Pros:

• Shoei's latest technology
• Shoei's reputed build quality and fit/finish
• Flows a ton of air
• Fits my head very well
• Has the emergency removable pads (hopefully won't need to use this feature)
• Comes with a pin lock shield (was an additional ~$110 for my RF-1000 as I had to buy the new visor as well as the shield)
• Inner dark tinted visor
• Still fits in my top case, but barely
• Inner liners are all removable, so easier to clean

Cons:

• It's one of the pricier helmets on the market, but I believe it's worth it
• My pinlock is being difficult and not sealing properly at the approx. 5 o'clock position
• Chin strap feels a little different from my RF-1000; a little tighter towards the neck
• Chinstrap retention snap difficult to engage
• ADDED:  It would be nice if the Hi-Viz options had more of the Hi-Viz color.  I'd probably even go for one that was the inverse of mine -- Hi-Viz body with black offset stripes.  Maybe even retroreflective stripes.

I tried to capture all of the things I wondered about while I was considering this helmet versus the RF-1200 or a marked-down closeout RF-1100.  I also finally got around to installing the Scala Rider Cardo G9 comm unit just in time for my ride today.  I will be posting some observations on the Cardo G9 soon, so check back later! :-)

UPDATE (2014-05-15): The pinlock issue has been resolved!  This spring has been really bizarre for Texas with one week being in the upper 70s and 80s and then the next down in freezing temps.  Try this one on for size.  This morning's low was 49F, which tied a 125 year old record for low temperature for May 15.  The high yesterday was 13F lower than the average.  Why am I telling you all this?  Because with the low temps and the high humidity, fogging happens quite easily, so resolving the pinlock issue is huge.  I broke down and sent an email to Shoei support, and they sent me a link that described how to adjust the tension of the pinlock shield!  Yes, I'm guilty of not following the rule of RTFM.

Apparently the pins are designed like an engine's crankshaft with the barrel against which the pinlock shield rests being offset from the pin's actual center.  By default, the pins are set so that the barrels are farthest apart from each other, which makes sense as it makes it easier to actually mount the pinlock shield to the visor.  I removed the shield and cleaned it and the visor of smudges, bug juice and fingerprints.  Then I set about reinstalling the shield.  Once the shield was on both pins, I then rotated each pin 180 degrees, which basically pushes in the edges of the pinlock shield, causing it to snug up to the visor.  So technically, this adjusts the pinlock shield's compression.  And in my defense, the pinlock shield on my RF-1000 went in and sealed against the visor without any adjustments whatsoever.  That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

After a quick visual inspection, the pinlock shield's edge is obviously sealed against the visor much better than before.  I put the helmet on, closed the visor tight, closed all the vents, and started breathing.  After a few minutes, the helmet got all nice and humid, but the visor remained clear.  A quick check in the mirror showed that the areas of the visor that were left exposed were all fogged up, and there were no regions of leakage around the entire perimiter.  I'm a happy camper again!

Other than that, the chinstrap retention snap has gotten a lot easier to engage.  I'm not sure if it's a function of just being used to it now or something else, but I'm no longer fumbling around trying to get it to snap into place.