I’ve started taking some photographs while motorcycling. I bought a used Canon PowerShot SD700IS from eBay for about $100 and already had an SD card lying around. I take most of my shots while moving, using my left hand to operate all the controls of the camera.

I keep the camera in my left front pocket. When I wore my Rev’It Cayenne Pro this was no big deal: the jacket’s large, top-load pockets made it easy to get the camera out and put it back again. However, I now wear the Rev’It Turbine since the weather is warmer. As I mentioned in my review, the Turbine has traditional side-mounted vertical pockets that are hard to get into and out of with a full sized gauntlet glove. This makes grabbing the camera even more awkward, since my hand is now closed around something and less likely to escape the pocket without difficulty.

Worried about dropping my camera on the road, I stopped taking as many pictures as I wanted. I read that a few riders secured their cameras to their bikes via a retractable lanyard. Think of a heavy duty janitor keychain that zips a big ring of keys back to a belt. Gear Keeper makes a whole swath of retractable lanyards, and the RT20012 seemed to be highly regarded on ADVrider.com

I put in an order for one via a vendor on Amazon, and it arrived a few days later.
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I’m not going to recap my nightmare experience with motorcycle safety equipment manufacturer Motoport, but over two months ago the Wayne Boyer offered to take my jacket back for a full refund. I was hopeful that the issue would be resolved quickly, and I would get my money back.

Long story short: Wayne never gave me the refund, and I had to dispute the affair with Discover. Discover ruled in my favor, and I finally got my money back on December 7th.

Here’s the full time line:
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The first half of my ride home from Georgia was great. I was moving along at a good clip, and the sun was bright and shining.

That is, until I got to Fayetteville, North Carolina.

Fayetteville seems to be the tipping point for bad motorcycle weather. On my trip down, my route south of Fayetteville was completely covered by rain. I guess the northern part of my return trip got jealous and wanted to get in on the “fun.”

It rained non-stop, and hard, all the way home. It wasn’t as bad as my trip down, but it was a soaking rain. Paranoid (and hopefully wiser) from my gear problems on the way down, I adjusted my waterproofing strategy slightly.
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As mentioned earlier, I spent four days on a motorcycle trip to see two of my friends outside of Savannah, Georgia. It’s almost five hundred highway miles, which winds up being between eight to nine hours depending on traffic, weather conditions, and the bike I’m on. My best time was on my first trip on my FZ6 because I had great weather and a very comfortable saddle.

This time I took Raider, my BMW R1150R. In theory, it should have been the best of both of my trips: the comfort of my old K1200LTE touring bike, and the mobility of Cylon. Thanks to the weather and an extremely hard seat, it was really the worst of both worlds.

But I still had a kick ass time. ;)
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The first half of my trip down to Georgia was fantastic. It was cool enough that I wasn’t hot in my Rev’It Cayenne Pro jacket, but not so cold my hands were freezing. It was overcast enough that I didn’t have to squint behind my Native sunglasses, but not so overcast that I had to worry about rain.

That is, until I got to Fayetteville, North Carolina. Then the sky opened up. It didn’t stop until I reached Savannah, some 280 miles later.

What followed was a near total failure of every piece of waterproof motorcycling gear that I owned. Am I being too harsh?
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Almost four months ago, I was killing time in a coffee shop in California. I was visiting family and had a PT Cruiser rental car instead of my motorcycles, and I was missing my two-wheeled friends badly. I made up for it by reading motorcycle gear reviews, and found read Web Bike World’s review of the Rev’It Cayenne Pro textile jacket and pants. I wanted it.

At the same time, my friend Fish Sprout was researching Motoport’s kevlar textile gear, mostly because her friend owned a set. The Cayenne Pro, despite ingenious venting options, was still a three-season jacket. Motoport owners reported wearing the jacket in temperatures from the 30s to 120s. The lure of a strong, four-season textile suit that wouldn’t melt to your skin like most mesh led me to order jacket and pants from Motoport in late June.

It was a huge mistake. For a product promising a “custom” fit, my Motoport jacket was put together for someone who weighed an extra twenty or thirty pounds. I sent it back twice for alterations, and am still in the process of getting my money back.

Cold temperatures were fast approaching, and I hadn’t solved the problem of a weather-resilient jacket that would hold up well in a crash. My Tourmaster Transition 2 jacket fit well and had nice features, but claims of the jacket disintegrating in crashes as slow as 25MPH made me nervous.

I bit the bullet, and bought the jacket from Beach Moto, run by a member of the ADVrider.com community. Dennis, the owner, was everything Motoport wasn’t, and should have been — responsive, personable, professional, and efficient. Did I mention that dealing with Beach Moto was easy and didn’t make me feel like an idiot? Motoport, take notice.

However, I’m getting ahead of myself. On to the jacket.
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With the American economy in a supposed state of free-fall, I’m trying to limit myself to one stupid purchase per pay period. Yeah, I know, challenge, but let’s assume I stay strong and abide by it.

This pay period’s contenders:

Tour Master Synergy heated jacket
About $200
I ride just about year ’round, and I may be going up to New York state later this month. It’s already in the 30 – 50 degree range up there, and my mother said they’ve had their first “big” frost this year. That means it’s already colder than most days here in Virginia.

The Synergy jacket (with adapter, about $12) will plug right into the auxiliary outlet on my BMW R1150R. I won’t have to do any wiring, and the jacket gets great reviews on sites like Web Bike World (see their review of the Synergy heated vest).

Cardo Scala Q2 Multiset Bluetooth motorcycle headset
About $300
Most times I ride alone, but some times I ride 2UP (with passenger), or with a buddy, like Donut. For times when I am riding with others, it would be nice to be able to communicate with them aside from frantically pinwheeling my arms at 80MPH. I could listen to music, get directions from a GPS, or make a mobile phone call without removing my helmet when riding solo.

The Cardo Scala Q2 Multiset has a pair of these guys in it, and features incremental improvements over the Q2 headset available singly. The Multiset version has a direct jack for an audio device and a longer microphone boom. The former allows for easier connectivity, the latter allows for better mic positioning.

So, what would you buy if you were in my shoes? Staying warm, or staying connected? Keep in mind I have a very capable winter riding jacket (Rev’It Cayenne Pro), the heated jacket would be used for extended rides in lower temperatures.

With all of the riding and motorcycling mishaps last week, I neglected to post that Wayne Boyer of Motoport has broken his usual policy and offered to take my jacket back for a refund. You can read the whole saga if you haven’t been following along. The short story: I sent my jacket back for alterations twice, was dissatisfied, called for a refund, was told that because the jacket was now custom a refund was impossible, I posted about it on the Internet, Wayne emailed me in rebuttal (which was also posted), and now we’re here.

My jacket was sent back last week and should arrive on Monday. I am not sure how long it will take Motoport to process my return. Once I have my money back and this whole event is closed I’m going to update my Internet posts with how the situation was resolved.

I am thankful that Wayne decided to take the jacket back. It’s against Cycleport’s usual policy, but hopefully I will get my cash back in short order. I feel better, but keep your fingers crossed. We’re not out of the woods yet.

I promised Wayne at Motoport I would post his email to me in its entirety. I have only removed my first name from his email. I posted this on advrider.com’s equipment forum, but I am unsure if the post will be allowed to stay because I posted on behalf of a merchant. So I’m reposting it here. I will quote Wayne’s comments, and bold my rebuttal.
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I ordered my kevlar gear from Motoport almost three months ago today. I have returned the jacket twice for alterations, and the pants once. The gear has never come back as I wanted it, and at this point the jacket fits worse than my $150 Tourmaster Transition II jacket. Here’s the story how wanting to resolve a problem with a small-time vendor wound up costing me a little over $650 on a jacket that doesn’t fit right.
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