Colyn
Race Dog
Recently there has been many posts on various forums about the use of earplugs. Many views have been expressed but the general consensus is that we need to take care of our ears because the bike riding is seriously damaging our hearing.
I have tried a few helmets and by trying I mean I actually bought them. SOme manufacturers makes lots of claims about the noise levels in their helmets but today I am will to say there are only two types of helmets when it comes to noise ...
LOUD and LOUDER.
So what can we do ... the easiest way is to wear ear protection. Some riders use their iPods on the bike and buys the fancy headsets that fits inside your ears. These do help a lot. I am not too fond of music or whatever on the bike so I have opted for the soft sponge earplugs that are available on the market.
My problem with these earplugs are hygiene and it always bothers me to put a "dirty" earplug in my ear. Our ears do produce wax for a reason and one of the reasons is to protect our inner ears from living things
Unfortunately we need to compress these foam plugs before inserting them and then the plug expands to provide you with a good seal.
Now the trouble starts the second time you use the same plug ... there is now already a fine wax coating on that plug and in the rolling motion to compress it you will immediately notice that the plug is getting dirty from the transfer of grime from your hand to the wax. Now this seems over stated by the slightest presence of some dirt from the inside of your gloves will be on your hands and that wax on the plug will attract it like a magnet
Here is a shot of a set of earplugs that I used for ONE day on a trip from Nelspruit to Witbank and they were removed and inserted 3 times by the time I got home.
I am sure many of you knows what I am talking about. Now I have a problem inserting that into my ears again ... it just do not seem right to me.
So what do you do if you are on a long road trip ? You can take a lot of these with you, they are cheap enough but that is not quite sensible.
I stumbled onto a site after searching for more information on ear protection and one of the members gave some ideas on maintaining these earplugs. He also said that he does it to do his bit in helping the planet by not ditching the plugs every day.
Here is how you handle it ...
Open the hotwater tap and apply some handsoap to your hands to lather them well.
Now place the plugs in your hands and start gently rubbing them in your palms.
Pretty soon you will notice the wax layer is gone.
Now rinse them properly in the hot water.
Squeezing them hard to get rid of the soap that was absorb as you washed them.
Give it a good rinse again under the running tap and then squeeze them in a dry towel or tissue.
Leave them out to dry.
Here is a shot of the washed plugs ...
The process takes about 2 minutes and you have a clean set of plugs and helped a bit in the ever growing pollution of our environment.
I do not know how many washes this will take and will report back here on my experience. I am very happy with this and now the little holder with 2 sets in will last me for a day on the road and in the evening it takes 5 minutes to clean them up for the next day.
Please tell me if you have other tips.
This was posted originally by me on the Tripwired Forum
I have tried a few helmets and by trying I mean I actually bought them. SOme manufacturers makes lots of claims about the noise levels in their helmets but today I am will to say there are only two types of helmets when it comes to noise ...
LOUD and LOUDER.
So what can we do ... the easiest way is to wear ear protection. Some riders use their iPods on the bike and buys the fancy headsets that fits inside your ears. These do help a lot. I am not too fond of music or whatever on the bike so I have opted for the soft sponge earplugs that are available on the market.
My problem with these earplugs are hygiene and it always bothers me to put a "dirty" earplug in my ear. Our ears do produce wax for a reason and one of the reasons is to protect our inner ears from living things
Unfortunately we need to compress these foam plugs before inserting them and then the plug expands to provide you with a good seal.Now the trouble starts the second time you use the same plug ... there is now already a fine wax coating on that plug and in the rolling motion to compress it you will immediately notice that the plug is getting dirty from the transfer of grime from your hand to the wax. Now this seems over stated by the slightest presence of some dirt from the inside of your gloves will be on your hands and that wax on the plug will attract it like a magnet
Here is a shot of a set of earplugs that I used for ONE day on a trip from Nelspruit to Witbank and they were removed and inserted 3 times by the time I got home.
I am sure many of you knows what I am talking about. Now I have a problem inserting that into my ears again ... it just do not seem right to me.
So what do you do if you are on a long road trip ? You can take a lot of these with you, they are cheap enough but that is not quite sensible.
I stumbled onto a site after searching for more information on ear protection and one of the members gave some ideas on maintaining these earplugs. He also said that he does it to do his bit in helping the planet by not ditching the plugs every day.
Here is how you handle it ...
Open the hotwater tap and apply some handsoap to your hands to lather them well.
Now place the plugs in your hands and start gently rubbing them in your palms.
Pretty soon you will notice the wax layer is gone.
Now rinse them properly in the hot water.
Squeezing them hard to get rid of the soap that was absorb as you washed them.
Give it a good rinse again under the running tap and then squeeze them in a dry towel or tissue.
Leave them out to dry.
Here is a shot of the washed plugs ...
The process takes about 2 minutes and you have a clean set of plugs and helped a bit in the ever growing pollution of our environment.
I do not know how many washes this will take and will report back here on my experience. I am very happy with this and now the little holder with 2 sets in will last me for a day on the road and in the evening it takes 5 minutes to clean them up for the next day.
Please tell me if you have other tips.
This was posted originally by me on the Tripwired Forum
