All Rights Reserved © 2014 Thomas W. Day
Pre-Geza Gear, the bicycles, the WR250X, the trailer, and everything attached was covered in slush and ice after 350 miles of miserable west Texas weather.
Not much went well for the first couple of months on our 2013-2014 attempt to play snowbirds. A day before we left home, my custom-fitted Harbor Freight trailer took a hit when a friend decided to stand on the hitch to counterbalance loading the bike and bent the frame so badly I almost decided to leave the bike at home. The VW-based RV turned out to be allergic to rain, ice, and snow. Our planned route was sacrificed to accommodate the perfect storm of failing vehicle, unseasonably cold and wet weather in practically every direction, and even our bicycles turned out to be more of a hassle than assets.
The only thing that worked as expected was my beautiful and beloved Yamaha WR250X. After 350 miles of slogging through a sudden ice storm between central Texas and Carlsbad, New Mexico, I expected to have done permanent damage to that sorely abused machine. After I slid it off of the trailer and cleaned it up, the best sound I could have imagined was when the little bike fired up instantly in 30F weather and got me into Carlsbad for much needed groceries and supplies. I immediately went on-line to find a cover that would protect my blue beauty from any more vicious weather. I found Geza Gear (www.gezagear.com) and that company's assortment of stretchy covers that are guaranteed to survive practically anything from 12 to 72 months, depending on the model.
All loaded up and ready to go exploring; sleet, snow, or rain be damned.
On the advice of Geza Gear's customer service, I went for the fairly expensive Pro-Elite version of the cover, along with the stuff sack and mirror covers for about $270 shipped. The cover arrived just in time to go through the last round of ice and wind before we left Albuquerque. Since then, the bike has been protected by that cover for 3,800 miles of, mostly, bright sun and heavy winds traveling around New Mexico and back home through Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, and Iowa. We did hit a little blast of rain in Missouri, but it didn't test the cover much.
The Pro Elite's #9238 material is a wonder. You can cut slits in the stuff for tie-down straps to pass through without worrying about those incursions turning into never-ending tears. The stuff is tough as leather and flexible as Spandex. Not once in all of those miles the cover even appear to make the slightest effort to blow off; and we took some buffeting from near-tornado winds in Texas and a Dust Bowl-quality storm in Roswell, New Mexico.
All of their materials are designed to "materials can take the punishing effects and monumental stresses of applied wind-forces from 55mph to over 100mph while being towed on your motorcycle on an open trailer cross-country, without shredding or buffetting." The custom designed materials are not off-the-shelf stuff you can find from any other manufacturer that I know of. With names like Elonitec, Elonitec/Antron, Duracor, Iridiex, #9238, #12373, LX88, and Iridiex/Kevlar/GoreTex, I'm not sure where you'd start to look, if you wanted to imitate Geza Gear's product line.
The rear view window look at the cover on the road at 65mph. Barely a flicker from the material and all of the important bits are protected.
There isn't much that I can add to the company's claim that their covers are "cut and sewn is determined from YOUR EXACT bike year, make and model." The Yamaha WR250X isn't exactly a common animal and it's a long ways from the kind of motorcycle on which Geza Gear's products are probably found, but they assembled a cover that was an exact fit for my motorcycle, including some cute rearview mirror covers and cutouts for the mirrors and a lift for my bike's short windshield. You can see from the included pictures how precisely the cover fits my bike and how little motion there is in transit. For someone who is going to be travelling for a while, I have found nothing comparable.
There are a lot of decisions I made that winter that I would avoid on a second pass, buying my Geeza Gear cover is not one of them. I expect to get years of service out of this terrific protection.
