A Tiny Bubble of Comfort

It's not the comfort as much as it is the contrast.

On Jun 27, 2024, at 12:07 PM, Wiley Davis wrote: “I have two R3 suits...not sure that makes me a "great" customer, but I do love them. In fact, as weird as it might sound, there's something I really really enjoy (crave, even) about being on the bike on a day that's cold and/or wet enough to need layers under the suit and that feeling of mild isolation and detachment the suit gives me (which feels odd to say given that the antithesis of this is also one of the appeals of riding). Something about feeling swaddled in a tiny bubble of comfort while inches away the wind and cold and rain rages. It's not the comfort so much as it is the contrast, I think.”

I could hardly argue and was so inspired by how Mr. Wiley Davis ‘gets it’ the same way I do, I was inspired to reply to him (at the following unforgivable length):

Thanks, Wiley, I have two R-3s as well. Same model and color (Black, light, tactical) so they look identical, but one is a size larger than the other and also has some fit alterations to allow slightly more room for insulation. A down puffy, usually. The impact armor is different also. The ‘3-season’ one has the stiffer ‘competition’ armor + optional back pad and hip armor. The winter one has the softer standard armor which works better in cold weather.

Like you, I really enjoy riding when the typical recreational riders are not out riding. Partly because I have all the gear to do this, and partly because some of the attention from people encountered can be so amusing. Most of my everyday motorcycling is within a 15-mile radius. Once a week I’m in a grocery store restocking my pantry and fridge with one of our Lightweight Portable Bags. In a downpour, I’ll walk into the store dripping rainwater around my feet and start shopping while holding my helmet in one hand and the grocery basket in the other and at that point some intelligent-looking fellow shopper will sometimes smile curiously at my drowned-rat appearance and then seriously ask: “Did you ride your motorcycle?”

One would think this was obvious. Despite a temptation to reply sarcastically I giggle inside and reply with a grin and a nod. As I continue shopping I’m thinking “That was the best part of my day (other than the actual riding itself).” Such comedy moments never get old.

I also always try to ride to vote on election day on my way home from work.  I’ll arrive at around 7:45 PM, fifteen minutes before the polls close. The always-seriously-geriatric volunteer poll workers look bored, tired, and counting the minutes while waiting to leave. I like voting, and I especially enjoy not having problems finding parking near the polling place. My voting location is in the basement of a Lutheran church.

Every day when I commute to and from work, I wear a backpack containing a small thermos, a notebook computer, some lunch, and maybe a sweater or something I’m reading. On one shoulder strap is a Velcro-on accessory pocket for a phone and a small aluminum carabiner with a miniature three-button garage door remote dangling.  On the other shoulder strap is an aluminum pepper spray thing about the size of a AA mini-Mag light. Below that is another small carabiner with a dangling key to a bicycle lock and a different mini garage door remote for another garage door. The stuff on the two carabiners sometimes jingles softly when I walk. I’ve been walking/bicycling/motorcycling back and forth to work most days this way for thirty-five years, nearly always wearing a well-used Aerostich one-piece suit.

Next, I walk down a flight of stairs into the church basement and head over to the very tired and very elderly poll worker who has in front of him the big book of registered voters with last names beginning with the letters F-through-J and I smile.  “Goldfine,” I say, “Andrew”.  The room is library-quiet and there are half a dozen other voters sitting behind cardboard dividers concentrating on marking their machine-score ballots with their choices. The place is as serious as a library reading room when the tired fossil sitting on the other side of the registration table looks me up and down for a long careful moment and then croaks in a voice just loud enough to carry through the entire room:

“Where’s your parachute?”

All the concentrating voters hear this and some look up. Don Rickles would have been proud.

I grin and reply: “Be nice. I’d like my ballot please.”  A moment later he points to the blank line beside my name in that big registered voter book and I sign it and collect the precious printed paper ballot, trod over to an open table, and do my best for two minutes to pick (mostly guess) the least objectionable individuals for the next couple of years. A few moments later I’m riding away into the dark and seriously frosty November evening smiling and thinking, “That geezer’s comment was by far the best part of my week (except for this actual ride)”

Yup, the R-3’s “tiny bubble of comfort” is exactly what makes such moments possible. Rain, sun, heat, cold, snow, whatever. If I had been dressed as any traditional rider, in denim and leather, and had profiled to the non-riding public in that conventional way, nobody would have said anything, and my riding life would not be nearly so fun.  – Mr. Subjective, July 2024

PS – In old western TV shows and movies in the 1950s when I was a child, some of the heroes (The Lone Ranger and many others.) wore gun belts with two revolvers, one on each side. A cliché came into the language referring to these characters generically as “Two gun Pete”.  No idea where this came from, or exactly what it meant, but it would be fair to call me “Two R-3 Andy”.  Having two Aerostich suits sized and armored slightly differently makes all-year-around city riding in the climate around here (-15ºf to + 85ºf / -27ºc to + 29ºc) not only possible but easier than one might think. Having two R-3 similar-looking suits is like having a secret weapon.