steveb leatherworks: the blather

After nearly 20 years of faithful service my novelty jockey helmet needed a rebuild in a pretty big way. Back in the day, most any self respecting NYC biker wore a jockey helmet – this was most certainly a *club* style influence.  Growing up at ground zero in the moto scene, there was never really a choice about headgear and it was a rite of passage for me and my friends to take the ride to the tack shop near Belmont Racetrack to select our jockey helmets. You rode a HD, you lived in Queens, you wore a jockey helmet…simple. The Boss calls this helmet Q-tip head,  and cant believe that Bikers would ever wear anything *so stupid*…..*sigh* girls…they just don’t get it…

I remember the day pretty clearly when i got mine – it was just after i got legal license wise (had to before i moved to CT) and got my motorcycle accreditation – after a bitch of a road test. It was a new and improved helmet with a semi indestructible coating on the outside. I wasn’t too happy at the time with this innovation – I really wanted the *really really* old school version all my friends wore. But i walked out with it and it became my primary lid. After getting hassled a few times when being on the bike out of state for it being a non-DOT lid, i picked up a *real* half-helmet, which i wore out and replaced just last year… Seems all my shit is wearing out. I still wore my jockey helmet  when harassing motorists locally, so it has seen pretty consistent (ab)use over the years.

Amazingly, 20 years of  miles and road trips, the outside of my helmet still looks like new, really surprising considering the lack of care. The inside liner is still in pretty good shape, but the leather pieces that hold this lunker to the head, not so much – they were pretty ragged and really began falling apart this riding season, so I promised myself to add this to the production schedule for steveb leather works llc, international inc. co.. Brendan replaced Pupkins helmets leather bits years ago, so i knew it could be done. I wound up making a chin cup for that rebuild, contributing to Brendan’s work.

The riding season here is pretty much done for the time being with the weather being oh-so East Coast-y, so I thought, now is a good time to tackle this chore. Giving this some thought, i knew I wanted to use a laminated construction – lined, glued and sewn materials, and a specific weight of veg tan. The leather pieces needed to be comfortable and I couldn’t go overkill in terms of weight, as I am known to do that on rare occasion.. I knew I wanted to improve the chin cup materials and get rid of all the nylon webbing and adjustable buckles…I don’t need the adjustments, once the helmet is set for me, I am good. At this point in my life, I think i am done growing. Well my hat size isn’t expanding anyway….

So I got my helmet, materials and game plan figured out –  drilled out the rivets on the old set up, made my templates, made some adjustments in the design, based on my *user experiences” and got to making hay. All the pieces cut, dyed, glued, stitched, edged – I made the chin cup, lined it with Elk for comfort (elk is thick stuff and soft) and decorated the straps holding it on. I opted to keep the helmet simple in terms of decoration for the most part, the stitching gives it a little zip, which is all it needs.

So ther yea have it, the new helmet set up holds to the back of my head a little closer, the chin cup is nice and the strap snaps on now, rather than the lames-ass hook arrangement it came with. I didn’t buff out all the edges like I normally do, and the stitching is a bit rough, but hey – it’s a prototype and its for me – so cut me some slack, if you would. Either way, I think that this should last me another 20…. I also know that I will be getting some calls for this service once the cat gets out of the bag that I am doing this, now that I’ve worked out the prototype on my own gear. ……excuse the lousy helmet model, hard to find good handsome help these days,,,