Motorcycle trip - Gear

If you've made it through the last few posts, you know all about where we went on our trip, and what I thought of the bike, but I thought before I was done writing I would take a bit to talk about the gear we used on the trip, what worked, what didn't.
The bikes both had side bags, which held some of our stuff, but we both had a duffel bag lashed to the pillion seat that held most of our clothes. I also had a Nelson-Rigg CL-400 tank bag that I bought specifically for the trip. I have to give New Enough a shout out, because they took care of me on this one. I ordered it early in the week before we left, and had it shipped directly to Wisconsin with the right shipping to get it there in time. However, when it didn't ship for 2 business days (despite saying that it normally ships same day), I called to find out what was wrong. Turns out that because my shipping and billing address didn't match, my order was flagged for fraud review, and the guy that does that had just gone out due to the birth of his child. They got my order out that same day and gave me a free upgrade to 2nd-day shipping so that it would definitely get there in time. Always worth highlighting excellent customer service!
The tank bag was what we used to hold things like camera, toll money, wallets, phones, and other things we needed quick access to. The bag has a detachable clear plastic map pocket that I was able to put my GPS into. This kept the GPS dry and protected, but still let me use the touchscreen. My GPS (Garmin Nuvi 750) has a 3.5" headphone jack, and a SD card slot. I was able to plug in a set of headphones so that I could hear the direction announcements and the MP3s that I had loaded on the card. If you've read my intro post about the trip, you already know how I loaded the route into the GPS.
I used a set of Koss Plug headphones, which are very cheap, but are basically a set of squishy earplugs with a hole through the center. Once they're in your ears, they shut out a lot of the external noise, and so you get good sound without having to have the volume turned up really loud. The seal they make with your ear canal gives good bass response from a set of earbuds, and they are pretty comfortable to wear all day. It makes a big difference when you're riding a motorcycle all day if you can cut out a lot of that constant wind noise, and they made a good substitute for true earplugs, as well as fit pretty well under my helmet. The only time I ran into troubles was if I accidentally tugged on the cord and dislodged one of them, or as I was taking off my helmet, as that usually pulled them loose as well.

I powered the GPS using a 12-volt socket with alligator clips on it which I was able to clip directly to the bike's battery. There was a bolt under the seat that I was able to use as the negative terminal (the battery's negative terminal was impossible to get to) and it didn't interfere at all with the seat once it was in place. The only issue with this setup was that the Sportster's battery cover wouldn't stay closed with the positive clip in place, and we had to zip-tie it closed. This would have been pretty easy to solve with one of those aftermarket Battery Tender sockets, as there are multiple companies that make adapters that have a Battery Tender plug on one side and a 12v socket on the other. My bike has one that the previous owner installed, so if I ever take a trip on my bike, I'll be able to use that, and Chris was talking about installing those for his and Heather's bikes anyway, so either way we're covered.

In terms of gear, I rode with an HJC AC-12 helmet (not the Carbon fiber version linked here), Fieldsheer Mach 7 Jacket, Harley-Davidson FXRG textile riding pants (sorry no link, they appear to be discontinued in favor of leather ones), and Roadgear CarbonMaxx gloves, as well as some Caterpillar steel-toed work boots. None of this was really new for the trip, as that's pretty much my standard summer riding uniform. I have a set of Cortech gloves as well as a Fieldsheer non-perforated leather jacket for colder weather, but I'm a firm believer in all the gear, all the time, so I'm geared up even in the hottest weather.
However, this was definitely an opportunity to test out the long-distance comfort of all of this stuff. Honestly, I have very little in the way of complaints about any of the riding gear that I use. All of it is comfortable and works well, even when worn all day. The pants kept me dry when it rained, and the side ventilation kept me comfortable the rest of the time. The jacket kept me cool (sometimes too cool) and has full CE armor, and once I added the orthotic insoles into my boots, they're comfortable for all-day wear, even if I have to be on my feet for a good portion of the time.
The main things that I noticed:
My gloves really aren't well-suited for the vibration and riding position of a Sportster. I would have liked some gloves with some gel padding in the palms and fingers, because my hands definitely swelled after riding all day, and my palms right near my fingers were sore/numb from holding the grips. By the end of the trip, I had to remove my wedding ring because my fingers were getting so swollen.
Also, this is the first time that I wore my nice polarized sunglasses under my helmet instead of the cheapie pair I normally wear, and I'm not sure if it is just the shield on my helmet, or all of them, but looking through plexiglass shields with polarized shades creates a lot of false-color effects that are pretty annoying and more or less eliminate the benefit of polarized sunglasses in the first place.
Lastly, I'm going to be replacing my helmet, but not because I discovered that I don't like it. On two separate occasions, it fell from chest height off of the bike and onto the ground, and I have a couple of pretty good divots in the top shell. Everything I read says that helmets are sort of single-use in that regard, since any break in the shell makes it weaker overall, and the EPS foam that serves as the impact absorber is one-way crush. I'm pretty annoyed with myself, but fortunately my helmet was only about $100, and I got 2 years' use out of it, so this is a lot less heartbreaking than if it had been a $600 Arai/Shoei. Chris and Heather swear by their Arais, and I have at least one friend with a Shoei, but I simply can't justify the cost. Perhaps I don't know what I'm missing, but since I can buy 3 or 4 helmets for every one of theirs, I'm pretty ok with that.
Since I've had such good luck and comfort with this HJC, I'm likely purchasing another, this time an FS-15, since it appears that the AC-12 has been discontinued. I'm toying with getting a carbon fiber one this time, since the reviews I've read about the carbon helmets imply that the lightness makes a pretty huge difference, and the FS-15 carbon seems to be available for only about $60-70 more than the non CF version, but I haven't decided for sure yet.