02/07/2012

As editor and host on the television program MCTV (www.mctv.dk) shown on dk4, I ride among 20-40,000 kilometers every year. Something I have done ever since I started working with motorcycles as part of my profession in the early 1980s.

Overall I have driven more than one million kilometers on two wheels, to which I can add another 200,000 kilometers on the ‘spinach-powered’ bicycle. In many years I have been an eager (although unsuccessful) cyclist, something that has certain relevance in this connection.

All motorcyclist and cyclist are aware of the encounter with an UFO (Unidentified Flying Object). Sometimes they hit your arm or your forehead, and other times they hit your eyes. Some with such severe consequences like loss of vision on one or both eyes.

It has always been on my mind to protect my eyes. A few years back I was riding with an open visor, but with sunglasses underneath. BANG!... a stone chip right in the middle of one of the lenses. The lens shattered and I had splinters inside the helmet, but the lens had just barely protected my eye. Back then I thought that the impact had not been so powerful, but the damage to the lens proved different.

On a recent test I had borrowed a pair of sunglasses from Wiley X, and I was wearing a pilot helmet (open face helmet), when I was overtaken by a speedy van. BANG BANG BANG it said, when 3 stone chips hit my face – one on my helmet and two on my sunglasses. The force was so impressive that I immediately pulled in to the side of the road due to chock, but also to see how much damage the sunglasses had taken. I was convinced that the glasses had to be damaged, since the impact had actually pushed the glasses a little. To my surprise the glasses had only received two minor scratches. With open jars I stared on the glasses, because from based on the sound and force of the impact, I was sure that the glasses were ruined.

The entire process is actually quite funny, because I met with Thomas Weaver from Wiley X Europe on a car show back in the fall, where he handed me a pair of sunglasses and told me to test them on my bike in spring. A few months later I can then call Thomas and tell him that I am convinced that the sunglasses, which he gave me saved my eye that day. So to all my fellow motorcyclist and cyclist: “It does not only happen to your neighbor, so protect your eyes and be critical when choosing a pair of sunglasses!.

Have a good ride!”. Mick Østergaard – Journalist and editor on Motortv.dk & MCTV.dk