Modern Vespa

Here was a new one for me. Forecast was for rain in the morning and snow in the afternoon. 3rd snow in Dallas this winter. Usually we get none.

I decided that I would ride to work and monitor the afternoon weather for road freezing. Temperature in morning was 24 degrees but not raining. Great ride to the office.

Rain started around noon and changed to a rain/snow mix around 2:30. At 4 I decided to head home. On the commute my face shield started icing (freezing) over. When I would wipe it off it would immediately ice over again. The fly shield also completely iced over but that didn't matter being I look over it.

Frankly the icing was a surprise to me. I've read about and I have experienced face shield fogging, but I have never seen anything about face shield icing.

I finished the last lap of my ride home with the shield fully open. Not fun in freezing cold snow/rain drizzle.

I just did a search on the subject but didn't find anything about it. Nor do I remember seeing this discussed in Proficient Motorcycling. Any tricks to prevent it (other than don't ride in snow/rain drizzle )?

HJC makes a electric shield for snowmobile riding.
HJC CL-14
Don't know how much you would need it in Texas but there out there and well worth the money if you want to ride a sled all out in bad weather.
Chris

Thanks for the information ctl73, learn something new everyday. Like you said though, probably overkill for Texas. Thought there might be something like an anti-fogging spray or Rain-X for ice. By the way, I use Rain-X on the exterior of my face shield and an anit-fog spray on the interior.

Maybe Rain-X would keep the ice from gaining a purchase on the shield?

Just a thought...

Is this an open-face helmet with visor? Expect this behaviour, wrong sort of helmet for the conditions.

Good thought except my face shield had a fresh layer of Rain-X put on it this morning for the expected rain ride in. Maybe it's what iced over

Thanks Jim, but no it's full face. I guess at least the icing over shows that I'm not a hot head (Okay, bad joke )

I'm under the impression that this is bad for plastic . . . my experience is that this causes an opaque haze over time.

I used Rain-X on the windscreen of my ET-4, and it caused a haze that eventually had to be buffed out with plastic polish and an orbital buffer.

VMMV, of course, but you might consider one of the plastic specific products on the market to avoid replacing your face shield.

I've read this about Rain-X and have used Plexus for several months to try to get rain to run off (we've had a lot of rain here). While I like the Plexus on the helmet itself, it didn't seem to do much for the face shield on getting rain to run off. Having also read where some swear by Rain-X, I decide I'd give that a try this morning. Figured the worst case might be that I would have to buy a new face shield. Scare to put it on my wind shield as that is just too expensive to replace.

this has worked well for me and fog. No ice for me in Socal

http://www.fogtech.com/

their rain shield and fog product work the best of anything I've tried in MN

I just started to use it, I also think its the best

Maybe you shouldn't be riding in this stuff I shouldn't talk though, because we drove our rear-wheel drive sports car with summer tires in that crap that hit Oklahoma on Christmas Eve. Then we drove to visit my sister-in-law in the same city on Christmas; my husband's car got stuck 4 or 5 times. We then drove home in the aftermath on the day after Christmas. So we haven't learned our lesson either. Ride safely.

175mws and louisq:

Thanks for the information. I checked out their web page and these products look pretty good. Couple that with your endorsements and I think this may be my solution. Thanks again.

Soniam:

Yeah you can't talk if you were out in that stuff on Christmas Eve in Oklahoma. I was out in it too in a cage in Dallas and it was challenge enough. Oklahoma would have been brutal.

We were desperate to get away from a relative The holidays with family will make you do strange and dangerous things. My husband's racing skills came in handy when we started to spin. He missed the concrete wall and barrel. We went into the grass, and he just pulled right back on the highway without missing a beat. However, I suspect he needed an underwear change after that.

Ha, like you didn't

Full Disclosure: I make Raincoat Water Repellent and Fogtech One-Step Anti-Fog

I wanted to thank you for the good reviews on my products. But also, I need help from those who ride in freezing conditions. I suspect that Raincoat will help keep ice from forming on your shield. But I have not been able to test because I ride in California.

If OK with the mods, I would like to know if some of you would like to test Raincoat at no charge. Just report back on how it works, especially in icing conditions. Ideally, you apply Raincoat to 1/2 your shield, ride a bit, then report on the differences you see.

If you do ride in such conditions, please email your mailing address to gene (at) motosolutions (dot) com. To make it easy to cut and paste to my addressing system, your address must be in the following format:

First Last Name
Number Street Apartment
City, ST ZIP or Postal Code
Country

Any other format will be ignored! Sorry. No PMs please.

I will send a sample of Raincoat (and Fogtech too) to any Modern Vespa member anywhere in the world if received by January 15th, 2010.

Just say you saw the offer here in the Modern Vespa forum. Like below:

Hey I saw your freebie offer on the Modern Vespa forum. Please send me those free samples. My address is:

Gene Menzies
123 Main Street Apt 24-B
Greeley, CO 23456
USA