With winter now almost upon us and the dark, cold, damp weather setting in, now’s the time to think about keeping your bike protected from the elements.
For those not lucky enough to have a garage, shed or sheltered area for your pride and joy, an outdoor cover is an essential piece of kit. Seeing as we are in this situation ourselves we decided to take a look at what’s on offer from Oxford Products.
Oxford are well experienced in the bike accessory business and currently offer 3 outdoor cover options. The entry level option, the Aquatex, provides a decent straightforward option to keep your bike dry. It’s double-stitched Nylon build makes it more durable than cheaper covers available elsewhere. It also comes in 4 sizes, offering a good fit for a range of bikes, the RRP is between £20-25 depending on size. Click here for the best prices on the Aquatex cover.
Next in the range is the popular Rainex cover, the model we’ve been testing over the last few months. Personally i’ve owned one of these covers before and it did a great job, on opening the new version it’s clear that Oxford have put in some effort to develop it even further.
The quality of the PVC outer is evident to the touch, and with taped scenes there is no way water is getting through this cover. The soft inner lining is an additional feature on this mid-range cover, which helps to protect your paintwork for added piece of mind (especially when the cat is about).
We’ve had the cover on the bike for a good couple of months and in that time it has been thoroughly rain tested! Another thing that we noticed was when you removed the cover after it had been raining, the bike was completely dry inside, which Oxford attribute to the concealed vents that eliminate condensation.
We had the medium sized cover which fit our 2007 GSX-R600 snugly with minimal overhang, the handy strap at the bottom can be adjusted to pull the cover in tighter around the bike too. The Rainex also features a couple of small holes near the front and back wheel for passing a chain through, another indication that this is a well thought out product.
The Rainex comes in 3 sizes and retails for around £45-£50 and if you can afford the difference from the basic cover it is well worth it. Click here for the best prices on the Rainex cover.
The final cover in the Oxford line-up is the Stormex, the cover that they say offers ‘ultimate all-weather bike protection’. Without testing this model we can’t really comment on the quality of the materials compared to the Rainex, however the materials are most likely to be even better quality. Other than that it has all of the features included on the Rainex and has an RRP of £60-80. Click here for the best prices on the Stormex cover.
There’s a simple reason behind the success of Oxford’s bike covers, they perform well and at a reasonable price. So if you’re looking to get your bike covered, find your nearest Oxford dealer at www.oxprod.com