Second, if you grab one of those service station scrubber wands, you don't know what kind of abrasives are imbedded in its spongy or squeegee surfaces. It's worth it to carry your own cleaning materials. At service stations, the temptation is to do a "final wipe-off" with those handy paper towels. Resist the urge! Paper is processed wood pulp. You're essentially scrubbing your windshield with a handful of ground-up twigs! Is it any wonder your windshield quickly goes from crystal clear to a crazy-quilt pattern of swirls and whorls that's especially annoying when riding in the rain or in the glare of on-coming headlights!

Alcohol or high-petroleum-content cleaners are even more destructive to aftermarket windshields made of Lexan®. Spritz a little alcohol on one of these windshields and it immediately turns milky white. I had a customer tell me he destroyed his windshield while refilling his fuel tank. The hose nozzle sprung loose, gushing gasoline all over the inside of his Lexan windshield. Was he angry!

Here's how I tell my customers to clean their windshields.

Step 1. Use a wet, not damp, wash cloth or hand towel you keep for that purpose in a plastic zip-lock bag inside your Wing's travel trunk. Allow the water to soften the dried-on bugs. Work crosswise and up and down; if you use a circular motion, you tend, unconsciously, to increase the rag pressure and scrub harder than you need to. Also, if there's any grit on the cloth to gouge the surface, circular scratches are more annoying to the eye than straight ones. (By the way, I don't use diaper material because the tightness of the weave tends to pick up and retain grit.) Soft terry cloth is the best for the initial soaking and wiping.

Step 2. With the windshield still wet, sparingly spray on some of Sumner Laboratories' product called 210®. Using clean tee-shirt material, gently wipe the windshield dry, again, using straight back-and-forth motions. Sumner's 210® is available through many motorcycle and plastic supply houses ( and Tulsa Enterprises carries it too!) It's specifically formulated for use on Lucite or Lexan. Besides being anti-static and anti-fog, it helps seal the pores of plastic and leaves a protective coating. From Tulsa Enterprises, a seven-ounce can of 210® costs $5.50 plus shipping. Sumner Laboratories' 210® Plus scratch remover (7.5 oz., $6.50) can improve lightly scratched surfaces. As with any product you've not tried before, do a test sample in a small (preferably out of the line of sight) area of the windshield to see if it makes things better or worse.

Of course, in the final analysis, for severely scratched and pitted windshields, the best thing to do is start over with a fresh one, promising yourself to give it better care than you gave the last one. Just as investing in a fresh set of motorcycle tires makes a world of difference in how your motorcycle rides, by making the relatively small investment for a new windshield, you can improve your whole outlook on life!