Fog City Hyper Optiks Review

thatguyx

Member
Joined
Oct 18, 2007
Messages
180
Reaction score
3
Points
0
Location
edison, nj
Visit site
Well I finally picked up this little piece from work and tried it out... The regular clear inserts cost $19.99 and $43.99 for their hyper optiks version

fog city uses a clear shield material with a light-medium adhesive around the edges... this adhesive is re-attachable, but it has a max re-attachableness (word?) of 3-4 times, so get it right the first (maybe second) time.

installation: it took me approximately 15 minutes to get it just the way i liked. the fog city inserts have some cut-outs for pin-lock visors. fitting it was a b*tch and a half... i could never get it centered just right. the insert itself is flat and trying to get it to sit just right on a curved surface takes work. i firmly believe if i had a pin-lock visor installation would've taken at most 5 minutes, since lining up the insert perfectly by eye can be annoying to say the least. i installed it to my liking and let it sit for a while. only to find out that i had to push the upper adhesive back in when i tried to put on the shield.

effectiveness: in a word, amazing. I rode around today with all my vents closed something that would cause hell on my old helmet/shield. today was about mid 40's to low 50's and no problems with fogging where the insert was attached. it works well and you can tell because if you try to breathe hard and fog your screen up, you'll notice that the outside edges where the fog city insert doesn't cover fogs up, but your vision of the road is clear.

bonus: the fog city hyper optiks insert is photochromatic. it starts off as a subtle greenish-yellow tint, however after about 5 seconds when exposed into sun light it tints to a medium blue. personally i think it looks cool, and it does help with sun light. through the edges of the visor i can see what everything should look like, but i think it helps my eyes when looking towards the sun.

downside: the adhesive is ok, but not great. i think when i fitted the fog city insert, it wasn't low enough. so when i opened my visor the shield fell off, luckily it was still inside my helmet so i pulled over and re-centered it. all was fine until i noticed i was off center again, so back at home i tried to re-position it... that was a mistake as the insert will no longer hold on the upper edges. it holds on one side, but the other doesn't stick as well. this is problem with the design because the insert itself is flat making the install a pain in the ***.

final thoughts: according to Fog City's website it recommends not using this all the time as it may distort your vision. I noticed no such distortion, perhaps I was distracted by the pretty blue hue of everything through my shield. along with the adhesive not being perfect (but can't really hold that against them), the insert is cut slightly small, i noticed towards the bottom of my helmet I can see the road in a different color. this is not distracting enough to affect riding, but it would be nice if they mad the shield a little bigger. also it would be nice if the insert came pre-curved slightly to ease with installation.

overall I'd give the Fog City insert a 8.5 out of 10. It works better than expected, it's just installation (without a pin-lock visor) can be an issue.

I'm probably gonna buy an extra shield if not one with pin-locks so I can use the fog city insert whenever i need. as for the summer i'm sure i wont have much fogging issues anyway, so this is for those colder mornings or winter riding.
 
H

HavBlue

Tiny rubber door stops at the lower extreme of the face shield = 10 cents at Home Depot and no fog, ever.
 
Top