As someone who rides a bike to get to places during this COVID-19 pandemic, I find it bulky to have to stash a face shield in a small bag that I bring along. The frame might break, and you can’t just easily remove the plastic sheet since it’s locked to the frame. Inspired by a friend who wore a removable plastic cover in front of his bike helmet, I’m also going to create my own “DIY face shield”.
Materials Needed
We’ll need the following:
- Your helmet.
- The plastic sheet that came with the usual face shield. You won’t need the frame. 😉
- Velcro strips* with an adhesive tape on one side
- A pair of scissors
* Ok, so today I learned that the generic term, as Wikipedia calls them, is hook-and-loop fasteners. Anyway, these strips are basically the ones that have an adhesive tape on the other side so you can stick them on to surfaces. I discovered recently that I still have a small stash of them that I bought from the ancient CD-R King years ago! Probably you’ll find similar ones on today’s e-commerce sites like Shopee or Lazada. :-p
Creating the bike helmet DIY face shield
It’s super easy! Just cut up short strips of the velcro hook-and-loop fasteners (what a mouthful). In my case, I needed 8-cm strips on either side of the plastic sheet. You don’t need to line the entire length of the plastic sheet with velcro. Maybe you can, if you really want to. But the idea is to use just enough velcro to keep the sheet in place while it’s being used.
If your helmet, like mine, has a flat edge up front, it’s easy to stick the velcro strips on the very edge of the plastic sheet. If not, you might need to fold a certain portion of the top edge of the sheet so that it will fit. You can get a bit creative at this part, since our helmets vary in shape and design!
By the way: Make sure you’ve already removed the very thin protective layer covering the entire plastic sheet after purchase! When you’re ready, stick one set of the velcro on the plastic sheet.
As seen in the above image, I attached the stickers with the “loop” side (i.e., the smoother of the velcro pair) here. The other half goes to the edge of the helmet.
When completed, it would look like below. Success!
Wearing your DIY face shield
Creating your own DIY face shield has a lot of benefits. For one, you only need to set it up when you’re already at the establishment (like malls) you need to enter. No need to hold your helmet by your arm either, since you will need to wear it inside now as your portable face shield!
When you’re ready to leave the establishment, you can easily tuck away the plastic sheet by removing it from the velcro attachment.
In the interest of safety, don’t wear your face shield while biking! Unnecessary glare might get in the way, and Metro Manila’s streets are hazardous enough as they are right now. Face shields are required inside establishments and public transportation, but are not required for biking as per clarification by the Department of Transportation (DOTr).
The velcro attachments might uglify your bike helmet, however. We’re hoping that COVID-19 will just be a temporary setback in our everyday lives. So hopefully, having those small pieces of velcro on your helmet will be a small temporary inconvenience while we need our bikes to get around for essentials.
As always, ride safe and keep away from COVID!
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