Passes & Canyons Blog

Hearing that I had tried out the UCLEAR HBC 100 Moto helmet communicator and loved it, my friend Patty Davis, National Motorcycle Travel Examiner, remarked that she still preferred her CB helmet communicator because it has greater range and as many people as have them can be on the same conversation. The range with the HBC 100 is about a tenth of a mile and only two riders can be in communication.

Those are certainly valid arguments. It’s also something I discussed with Kelly Kern, my co-tester, when we put the HBC 100 through the paces. And for starters, let me just say that Kelly and I both loved the HBC 100.

Kelly does a lot of group riding and she made note that a lot of people on these rides do use CB systems. She also noted that they are a lot more expensive. We didn’t discuss, but a bit of searching suggests to me, that CB systems generally come with boom microphones. A boom, in case you’re unclear, is one of those arms that sticks out from the unit and needs to be positioned in front of your mouth.

Judy and I have used a boom microphone communicator and we found the boom to be a big pain in the butt. We had to be sure it was properly positioned each time and for me that meant that much of the time I actually rode along with it grasped lightly between my lips the whole time. The HBC 100 has microphones built into the speakers, which are placed inside the helmet by your ears. The mics pick up your voice when you speak, plain and simple. And the clarity is vastly superior to our old system, which, by the way, just up and quit working a couple years ago.

I totally understand Patty’s interest in having multiple people in on the conversation. In my review of the HBC 100 on Examiner.com I made the point that if I was a honcho at UCLEAR it would be my top priority to make that available on my next product upgrade. And if that is a top priority for you then you probably need to look at a different product.

For Judy and me, however, our interest is in rider to passenger communication. In that case, range is immaterial, since she’s sitting right behind me. Having more than two on the conversation is immaterial, because we just want to talk to each other. And meanwhile, not having a boom, not having to make some sound to activate the voice-activation, having crystal clear sound quality–all of these things are huge for us. With the units installed, all we have to do is put on our helmets, turn the units on, and talk. Just talk. Nothing more. Add to that the fact that the HBC 100 is affordable at $200 for one unit and another $50 for an accessory pack that lets you connect two helmets, and there’s just no reason we would even look at anything else.

So as with any purchase, it really depends on what you need. If what you need fits with what the HBC 100 offers, I would strongly urge you to check it out. There may be comparable units on the market, I don’t know. But this is one unit I now have some familiarity with and I like it. A lot.

Recent from National Motorcycle Examiner
Product test: Big thumbs up on UCLEAR HBC 100 Moto helmet communicator

Biker Quote for Today

The “better” rider waves first.

For the second year in a row I put more than twice as many miles on my motorcycles as I did on my car. And on this gorgeous January day I was out doing what I can to make that happen again in 2012. What a fabulous day to be out on a motorcycle! And I saw a lot of guys out there, too. At one point there were four of us going three ways at an intersection. You’ve got to love Colorado.

On the Kawi in 2011 I rode a total of 6,875 miles. That’s actually down from 2010, when I put 10,004 miles on the bike. I also rode the Honda 506 miles, which gives a total of 7,381 on the bikes. The total on my car was just 3,556. Working at home has a way of reducing the miles you put on any and all of your vehicles. Have I ever remarked on how much I love not having to commute to work?

Of course, these figures don’t include things like the miles I put on the rented Harley up in British Columbia, but they also don’t include the miles we put on the rental car we had either. Nor does it include the miles I cover in my wife’s car when she and I go somewhere together in it. I just keep it simple by considering only my own vehicles. Doing anything else would be too much brain damage.

If my plans work the way I hope, I do expect to get a lot more miles on the Kawi this year. I mentioned previously that I’m hoping to make it out to Ohio for the AMA’s Vintage Motorcycle Days, and if I do, that trip should put as many as 3,000 miles on the bike, depending on which side trips I take along the way.

So here’s to a great year of riding in 2012. Just ride the thing!

Recent from National Motorcycle Examiner
Noise–and lights–that might really save lives

Biker Quote for Today

The life of a vagabond isn’t always riding, sometimes you have to stop & pose for pictures with the natives. It’s not much fun, but how could I disappoint these poor Kazakh girls? — rtwdoug

I was first out of bed on Saturday and when I saw how the wind was blasting I started reconsidering doing the Last Brass Monkey Run. Then when Judy got up, her first words were “I’m not going with you on the Last Brass Monkey Run.”

I had already decided not to ride when I got an email from Alan Baumbach that he sent to several people saying he wasn’t going to ride in this wind. Said he lost a friend a while back due to a crash presumably related to strong winds. So I guess I wasn’t the only one.

Still later I heard from other people who did ride, and did do the run, and they said it wasn’t all that bad. Good for you guys, I was still glad not to be out in that.

By Sunday the wind had died down and I was ready to ride. It was cold, only around 33 degrees, but we’ve got electric vests and other warm clothes. Besides, I had finally received the second UCLEAR HBC 100 Moto helmet communicator and I got them installed in our helmets. We wanted to take a ride and test them.

As I mentioned before, these communicators do a lot more than let the rider and passenger talk. They also connect with your cell phone, your GPS, or your iPod. I’ll be testing all those things later, but on Sunday we were just trying out the rider to passenger communication. And really, we need to do a lot more testing than we did. We didn’t stay out too long because it was cold and our fingers were really feeling it after not too long.

So just from what we found, these communicators are pretty sweet. They installed pretty easily and they work very well. There’s no boom in front of your mouth and yet they pick up your speech very nicely. The sound coming out of the speakers is amazingly clear. We just rode and talked. That was it. It was that simple.

Now, we did have a little trouble coming through at higher speeds, and that’s one of the things we want to play with. The units are supposed to automatically compensate for higher and lower levels of noise, but we had manually turned them down before we took off. Around home we were getting a lot of random noise and that was less annoying with the volume turned down. Once we got out on the road, however, that noise went away entirely. I suspect it’s a lot of stray signals from other devices on or near that same frequency. Get away from population and you get away from the noise.

So this is just an interim report. Now in the next few days, which are supposed to be very nice, I’m hoping to get together with someone who has a bluetooth-enabled cell phone to try out the other features on these communicators. Once that happens I’ll have more to tell you.

Recent from National Motorcycle Examiner
Motorcycle year in pictures 2011

Biker Quote for Today

Whatever it is, it’s better in the wind…