Date reviewed: November 2017 | Tested by: Chris Newble | Price: From £79.99 | www.specialisedcovers.com
I’ve been testing the Stormshield+ outdoor motorcycle cover for six months now as it’s been protecting my KTM RC 390 when parked up outside my house…
Fit
As expected from a semi-tailored cover, the Stormshield+ fits around the bike impressively. Specialised Covers caters for a wide range or motorcycles and have evidently put in the time to identify the ideal measurements for my particular model.
When ordering online, you can even specify if your bike has panniers or a top box – the company, which makes all its products here in Britain, will then tailor the cover to ensure the best fit possible.
Features
The Stormshiled+ comes with two webbing straps that run under the bike to keep the cover securely in place. They seem to do a sufficient enough job in the wind, as I’m yet to come out of my house in the morning and find the cover sprawled across my driveway.
There’s also elastic around the front and back of the cover that ensures an extra-snug fit around the bottom of the tyres.
Weight
The cover is thick and bulky, which means it holds its shape a lot better than thinner covers. As a result, it falls over the bike with real ease and only needs the odd bit of adjustment to get into its optimal position.
This makes a nice change, as there’s nothing more annoying than when you throw a cover over your bike and have to pull it out from under every foot peg, mirror and odd bit of fairing. After a long ride or when it’s raining heavily, all you want to do is get in the house.
One slight down side to the cover’s thickness is that is does take up slightly more space when not on the bike, and does require more effort to fold up than thinner nylon covers. It’s certainly not a cover to roll up and put in your rucksack.
Fortunately, the guys at Specialised Covers do provide you with with a matching storage bag to put the cover in when you’re not using it.
Look
The cover comes in a choice of four colours; black, grey, blue or green. You have the option to pick one of these colours for the top panel and another for the side panels. For my cover, I opted for grey on the top panel and black on the sides.
One thing I will say is that you might want to consider what colour combination you go for – anything too extravagant could catch the eye of passers-by, and maybe make them more intrigued to take a look underneath. Fortunately, the colour options offered by Specialised Covers are all relatively subtle.
Performance
Protecting my KTM predominately through this summer and autumn, the cover has held up really well.
I used to experience really bad condensation issues with a cheaper nylon cover I bought from Amazon – it got so bad that it even made my bike damp when it was in the garage. With the Stormshield+ cover I’ve had no issues. The cover uses a tri-laminate (three layered), fabric that is proving to be both waterproof and breathable. Specialised Covers has actually patented the technology and it’s clearly doing the job.
The grey colour I chose on the top panel is starting to show the dirt more than the black top panel, but it’s easy enough to wash off.
Conclusion
You do feel like you’ve purchased a real quality piece of kit with a Specialised Cover. It has more than withstood the demands of the year so far and I’m confident it will continue to do so as we head into the winter months.
