How To: Goggles
April 10, 2007
In this series we have gone from the more basic tearoff prep with Scott’s John Knowles, to Smith’s Roll-off mud prep with Rob Walters, now we have John Kuzo who builds goggles for Kevin Windham, Andrew Short, Jeremy McGrath and the Motoworld Suzuki team, among others. No-one can argue with John’s pedigree, as his stepfather is none other than self-proclaimed goggle czar Bevo.
The long hot summers at the AMA Nationals mean there’s a lot of dusty days and the prep for these days is as important as anything, so take it away John.
Lens Choice
Why all the different colour lenses? What do they do? I’ll tell you.
Clear
Always the best choice if you’re not sure what to use and it’s a mixture of conditions; you will never see RC or Travis use anything but clear and if there’s floodlights or mud it’s best to go with the plain option, your eyes are used to it anyway.
Blue
If the sun is out but there are shadows from trees (or anything for that matter) it’s best to go with blue; the colour is very calming on the eyes though won’t really affect the vision when going from shade to the bright light. Mike Brown’s and Jamie Dobb’s favourite.
Grey
The best choice for bright shadow-free days; it’s not real good if there’s deep ruts or shadows anywhere as the depth perception isn’t helped with the grey, but for south California hard baked tracks it’s the way to go. Easty is a big fan.
Peach
The choice for dusty days the peach lens is the way to go; it really helps when the vision is cut down, Nate Ramsey’s lens of choice.
Yellow
If the weather is overcast and the light is really dull, the yellow lens really brings everything to life, though if the sun comes out then you will be blinded.
Iridium
The space age looking lens isn’t just for show (though it does look cool) and is the favourite for photo shoots, the reflective lens is one step further than the grey tint; they reflect the light away from the eye and look like light blue from the rider’s eyes, Mike Alessi’s favourite.
The first issue with hot days is sweat, it’s a problem with all goggles and the ones with the more comfortable thick foams are the worst; what happens is as the rider sweats the absorbent foam just fills up and late in the moto if he jars his head the sweat will drip into the goggle and onto the lens – not the required effect.
To remedy this we used to use panty liners, though this is embarrassing to say the least when you’re buying ‘em, it really helps when the weather gets hot; the one of choice here in the states is the Kotex Light Days though I’m sure other brands work just as well, they are just the ones we used to use. I say “used to” as now Spy make a sweat strip just for this purpose and the glue on these is way better than the Kotex which is a struggle to keep in place.
If the track has really fine dust, like Glen Helen for example, then the foam which filters the dust simply can’t keep up; it will allow dust through and spoil your day, so like you do with the filter on your bike you need to oil the foam. Now you don’t want to use that nasty blue shit bikes use, but simply coat the foam with baby oil, a real thin layer is all that’s needed to help the dust from passing through, you can apply this with a paintbrush or be really careful with the nozzle on the bottle.
Now it’s impossible to stop everything getting in the goggle frame, especially like the aforementioned Glen Helen (which is a goggle nightmare) dirt; so to help with the problem which is almost impossible to stop, all you can do is to help with giving something for the foreign matter to stick to. We use Vaseline, and a good finger full inside the bottom edge of the frame will give the dirt something to stick to instead of bouncing around and eventually in your eye. Also the Vaseline won’t affect your eyes, as it is really quite close. Also it’s best to run the strap a little tighter than usual.
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