Helmet Tiger Ear and Tail Repair

You may remember that on Day 41 of Everyday for 7 Weeks, the tail and an ear fell off my wife’s helmet. The tail was helped off by the eager hands of a small child and I suspect the ear was as well. Just after taking the above picture a kid in the distance shrieked “She’s lost her EAR!!” It made me laugh.

The pieces have been safely sitting in a bag for the last several weeks patiently awaiting their reunion with the helmet (and other ear). I had an idea how to repair them, but was missing one tool on the trip to do it then. I see I also left it out of the photo below – an awl. Doh!

Originally, the tail and ears were held onto the suction cups via a thin piece of white string. The string has held strong for a couple years now. There wasn’t an easy way to re-string it, so instead I thought a sturdy ziptie might be better.

With a small push of an awl on my swiss army knife, I had an easy passage to thread the small ziptie.

With the ziptie through the tail, it was a simple matter to loop it through the hole on the suction cup and tighten it up. I used the cutters to remove the extra.

Good as new.

The ear took a couple tries to get the positioning correct. The first attempt was very floppy. Persistence won in the end, and the ear and tail have been reunited with the helmet.

An easy fix that only took a few minutes. The helmet looks much better now. I’ve grown so used to seeing the ears and tail on her helmet, she looked funny without them.

The ears and tail are made by Awesome Ears (who doesn’t appear to have a website) and imported from Europe. I originally got them at Aerostich, but they don’t seem to have them anymore. This site has them along with a decent selection of other styles.

Written by Chrisluhman for Everyday Riding. All rights reserved.