Round the Bay the Ratbag Way

New Helmet with Mirror &Visor

At the Ferry in Sorrento

The hustle, the bustle, the crowds of cyclists!

We human beings are a funny lot!  We love doing things together, and at the same time, and to the extent that things become crowded and unworkable.  In summer, we flock to coastal resorts and the normally quiet towns get traffic jams.  Lots of people go away for long weekends but not for short ones.  And today was a case in point as well.

The "Round the Bay in a Day" ride is tomorrow and there will be thousands of bikes on the road for it.  But not today.  The ride is not today it is tomorrow.  So today  there were only a few cyclists on the road and I did the same ride people pay to do through Bike Vic. , round the bay in a day, 210k.

Set off time was about 5:15, and there were a few small packs of road cyclists I could ride behind and so made quite good pace - about 30kph on the flat for much of the trip to Sorrento.  Mostly they consider me harmless.  I can beat the most tricked out, aero tucked time trial cyclist down a hill but its best to show some restraint - any decent uphill and I am much slower!

Bought a few essentials at a service station (sunscreen, chocolate milk drinks) and was at the ferry about 9:30.   The ticket-seller-lady was quite interested in my bike and helmet visor.   It was nice and roomy on the ferry but soon I was in Queenscliff and back on the job.

I had only a few more stops the whole way to Melbourne and these were * to pee by the roadside * to buy a Mars Bar and some soft drink.  So food and drink for the whole trip was apple juice, biscuits, 3 bananas, 2 litres of chocolate milk, a litre of soft drink and a mars bar, mostly consumed on the bike.

The wind was behind me all the way down the Geelong Road and I only passed 3 cyclists on the 70k distance.  They were all riding together and I whooshed past them quite quickly.
   
 It was one of my last warmups for the 1000k Great Southern Randonnee, and I did the 210k Round the Bay ride in about 10.5 hours.  The ferry ride took maybe an hour so maybe 22k average.   This was last years post.

The next day (Sunday, the actual ride day) I pootled (Pootle or tootle: noun: short ride on a bicycle. Slightly longer than a blocky) in to the bike festival event at the start / finish of the Round the Bay in a Day.  There was a Smith Family / Charity Partner stall there and I donated $20.00, so I did my bit in a round about way.

On another topic, the top photo is my new helmet with mirror installed.  Compare with this post.  It worked well today.

The wonderful Klapprad Cup site has new pictures and videos of this year's event.  Last year this
 German - crap  - folding - bike - race lampooned The English and this year they are mocking Christianity!  The site and videos may offend some pious people. I am wondering who they will lampoon next year but Pro Cyclists would be a possibility!    

All for Now!

Steve Nurse

Rear - View Visor

Mirror on the inside of a helmet visor

Front view of helmet with mirror

Back view of helmet

Side view.  The tilt of the mirror at the front has a big role in determining what you see.

Visor on a helmet on a newly repaired Dahon Boardwalk

Hi

This story started a while ago when I made an oversize visor for for my helmet.  The visor has since solved or improved the riding problems of rain in the eyes, sun glare and sunburn.

About 2 months ago I was riding from Airey's Inlet to Torquay and looking in my handlebar mounted mirrors. And it occured to me that a mirror on the inside of the visor could take the place of both left and right handlebar mirrors.  It took a while for me to do anything about this idea, it bubbled away till eventually I had a go at making something.  Old cd's and bike mirrors and corflute were cut up to mount on a visor but either the visual quality wasn't good or my cutting was bad and I gave up eventually.  Some research found the term "acrylic mirror" on this ( beer view mirror!) instructables page, and I started looking for a supplier and cutter of acrylic mirror.  And I found one in Australian Sheet Traders and ordered some rectangular acrylic mirror cut to size.

 The parts arrived on a Monday and  I wasn't very happy.  Mirror all blurry!  After emailing the supplier, one of their reps came round promptly and sorted things out.  It was just an extra protective film of plastic on the mirror surface.  So it was OK, and many thanks to David at AST, Christine and Ermi for sorting it out.

So now the mirror was built into a visor and it works!  A slight tilt of the head is all that's needed to see the road behind, there are no vulnerable "stalk mirrors" to manipulate and potentially get damaged, and there are no mirrors on the handlebars. In the setup I have at the moment, I can see my eyes in the centre of the mirror but it doesn't bother me.  I feel that building in adjustment to the tilt of the mirror relative to the helmet would improve things but I'm happy enough for now.

Next step is to find out if its been thought of before and the answer is a definite yes.  This link shows one similar patent and it looks to be fairly much the same idea.  One of the pictures is shown below.  So do I stop now?  No, I don't think so.  For the moment I will improve the mirror system for my own use and give away the mirror blanks to anyone who buys a cycling book from me, and maybe to ozhpv members as well.

A patent for a very similar idea exists.

There was a product that provides an integrated mirror in a bike helmet. The Reevu system uses mirrors to provide a rear-view using a sight-path above the riders head.  The manufacturer's web page (previous link) does not seem to be connected to the Reevu main page which concentrates on motorbike helmets. However a review here indicates that the writer has great enthusiasm for the product and hopes that the product will again be on sale "the year after next".( in 2009!)

Vizor-vu Visor for motorbike helmets.  "Sort of the same idea"

As well, the Vizor - Vu, shown at the bottom of the page here is something very similar.  It is designed for motorcycles and was most famously worn by Steve Mcqueen in the film "On any Sunday".

Others in Ozhpv have turned their thoughts to helmet visors as well  and this link provides a plan for a visor and the photos down the bottom of this page show Pete Heal and the visor in action.


Am very interested to hear your comments.  Are the explanations clear enough?

Regards

Steve Nurse