A Real Brown Trouser Moment

[Biff]

I thought I'd share with you one of those moments when your (my) life genuinely flashes before your (my) eyes.

I spent a great long weekend travelling from Christchurch north via Kaikoura to Nelson and then the following day from Nelson, via Havelock on towards Westport. Fantastic riding roads (apart from melting tarmac!), great scenery and good company.

On the second day of my trip my friend and I set off late from Nelson having spent far too much time on Sat night partaking in the local pubs and biker clubs hospitality. As such we hit the Buller Gorge at around 6pm.

After taking our time enjoying the views we upped the pace somewhat through the Buller. I was in the lead and enjoyed the relatively traffic and cop free roads, pushing my mates hired VFR 800 quite hard into corners and enjoying every minute of the bum hanging off seat long sweeping corners that the gorge is much famed for. That was until I came across a long left hander. Setting myself up nicely to the right of my lane and adjusting my body position ready for the corner I was wary of the fact that on my left there was a shear drop. A drop that would take some surviving unless my guardian angel gave me a piggy back ride on the way down.

As soon as I entered the corner I suddenly went blind, and for about 2 seconds I wasn’t sure whether this was through some biological malfunction of my own body or something else. Out of the corner of my eye I then noticed what looked very much like the roads center line which I had just crossed, directly into the path of an oncoming moving shape, a shape that unfortunately was moving towards me. I counter-steered as hard as I could scraping the VFR's virgin peg and my left boot on the tarmac. I missed the object, which by this time had flown by me with inches to spare. All I thought was, "shit, my wife, kids etc etc etc” and I honestly thought I saw them for a brief moment.

It was about a second later when my sight returned, that I realised that the temporary blindness was caused by a combination of low light level caused by overhanging foliage and the light blocking properties of my iridium visor

I was stunned to say the least. I never ride at dusk or at night with my iridium visor on my helmet, always choosing to exchange it for my clear one which is I normally keep handy. But up until this corner I had no warning whatsoever that the light levels were likely to be low enough to cause any problems. It took a bit of native bush casting a shadow over the road to teach me a lesson.

Sorry if I've bored you, but if there's a chance that someone out there can avoid the same brown trouser moment or worse by avoiding a similar occurrence then all's good.

Thanks for reading this

[StoneChucker]

It's all good to read other people's experiences! Is an iridium visor different to a tinted visor?

Glad you were able to tell that story

[Biff]

It's all good to read other people's experiences! Is an iridium visor different to a tinted visor?

Glad you were able to tell that story

I guess so. Mine has a kind of metallic blue tint to it. Incidentally, these are illegal in the UK for the very reason why my Y fronts now look like Rossi has been doing doughnuts in them.

[ajturbo]

yep had a holly shit moment yesterday... same reason( but had sunglases on) and it was just before the rain hit.. it had gotten so dark so quickly.. the road seam to just dissapear!!! where the F*** had it gone!!

know what you went though!!

luck for us we stayied on the road eh!!

andy

[scumdog]

Good to see a KBer print a bad experience that could affect others.
Too dark a set of sunglasses will do the same, generally I wear polaroid sunnies 90% of the time and 'flying goggles at night.
BTW I wear a fullface only in shitty weather or if heading off in darkness.

[Daisy Duke]

Holy cow BB, isn't that what you've described to me before as an OFC (oh fk corner)?!!

Poor missis Biff, I hope you bought her a nice pressie from your trip if she's got to clean your jockies for you!!

Thanks for sharing that experience. We newbies rely on these experiences in order to learn.

[MacD]

I guess so. Mine has a kind of metallic blue tint to it. Incidentally, these are illegal in the UK for the very reason why my Y fronts now look like Rossi has been doing doughnuts in them.

The significant factor for whether the visor is legal for daylight use in the UK is total light transmission through the visor. Either you can reduce transmission by increasing reflectance as in Iridium visiors (and mirror sunglasses) or by increasing absorption (a darker tint). Users claim that Iridium (mirror) visors reduce glare more than simple tinted visors, although there should be little overall difference if the % light transmission is the same.

In the UK there is a minimum limit of 50% light transmission for visors for daylight use. There was an investigation into lowering this limit to allow darker tinted visors around 2002. The study suggested that a decreased light transmission of as low as 33% was reasonable for daylight hours. However following consultation agreement could not be reached and the current 50% limit was retained.

Oddly enough, in the UK tinted motorcycle goggles have a light transmission minimum limit of only 18%. Not a particularly consistent situation!

You can read the summary report here.

Perhaps something worth thinking about is that standard sunglasses are often significantly darker tints (perhaps only 15% transmission) than a lot of tinted visors. At a guess I'd say my blue iridium visor has about a 40% transmission level, if I remember I'll measure it at work tomorrow.

Edit: Not a bad guess, the visor measures up at about 35% transmission on a simple spectrophotometer. A more accurate measurement would require me to cut a piece off my visor which I don't think I'll do just yet!

[erik]

Glad you're ok, Biff Baff.

Particularly for newbies like me, it's good to be reminded of this stuff.

MacD, what kinda work do you do that you can measure the light transmission through a visor? How do you measure such a thing?

[Ms Piggy]

Glad you were able toi share this with us Biff Baff and that everything (aprt from the Y's) survived.

I have a tinted visor and on Wednesday night I rode home and it was getting very dark - reminder to self: always keep clear visor handy when do an evening ride.

[aff-man]

yip i have been caught out a couple of times with the iridium visor.
Once because of low level light and i found myself almost running off the corners because i couldn't see them. Riding the rest of the way with the visor up (bugs in face) was NOT fun.
Also had problems during the rain. Decided to switch over the visors when i couldn't se the road and was just folling the taillights of the bike in front (hopeing the wouldn't crash else i'd follow not long after)

So yeh iridium visors are wicked when there is full sunlights and no shade etc etc ect but i now wear the clear one with that anti fog fade as it gets brighter sticker thingy in it.

[Sniper]

Glad to hear you got through it OK. I definetaly will learn from it

[Riff Raff]

Soak your y-fronts overnight in nappisan, then give them a vigorous hand scrubbing before putting them through the wash - ah feck it - just throw them away!

Glad you're ok mate. Good lesson for everyone!

[PSYCHO]

There are a couple of nasty corners down there, including a left hander about 1/2 a km north of Berlins pub which I allmost came to grief on once.

Glad you got to tell the story Biff Baff

[Holy Roller]

Good to see a KBer print a bad experience that could affect others.
Too dark a set of sunglasses will do the same, generally I wear polaroid sunnies 90% of the time and 'flying goggles at night.
BTW I wear a fullface only in shitty weather or if heading off in darkness.

My boy brought me a pair of polaroid mirror fly fishing sunnys for Christmas, best set of glasses I've had for a long time. No wind in the eyes and I've not noticed any probs like the one mentioned here. Like SD I use either clear saftey glasses at night for short rides to or from work or goggles when on a trip.

[vifferman]

Is an iridium visor different to a tinted visor?

In the case of the one fitted to my X-Vent, nope. It's tinted and iridium coated. But it does say "FOR DAY TIME USE ONLY" on it.

Which is fine, except when I'm wearing it, I can't read the little label wot says that....