#agv

When it comes to AGV helmets, it doesn’t get any higher than the Pista GP R and Corsa R helmets. AGV bills the former as the MotoGP helmet – the exact same one Valentino Rossi wears – while the latter is considered the company’s “Ultimate Track Helmet.” Of course, when you’re talking about flagship products from premier brands, you’re also talking mega bucks. So let’s get that out of the way now: The Pista GP R starts at a staggering $1,399.95, ramping up to an even more jaw dropping $1,599.95 for the Rossi and Andrea Iannone replica colorways. The Corsa R is just a smidge more reasonable, its starting price is $799.95, capped off with the $999.95 price tag for the Rossi Goodwood replica.

Over the course of his 20-year Grand Prix career, Valentino Rossi has slipped his cranium into countless helmets, each with its own design. Most regular-season helmets incorporate the Sun & Moon motif first seen in his freshman GP year. Other helmets are one-off designs created for special events such as his hometown race at Misano, winter testing, Marco Simoncelli tributes, etc. Regardless the occasion, the Aldo Drudi-designed helmets are usually delicious looking lids recognizable by their attractiveness and flamboyancy. Here are my 10 favorites.

Back in the timeline of my motorcycle sales career, I managed to piss off the Arai rep who serviced the dealership I worked for by ordering an AGV helmet after having already ordered an Arai through him. A young racer named Valentino Rossi was rampaging the 125cc GP class, and his helmet design was one of the coolest I’d ever seen. The AGV didn’t fit as good as the Arai and I had to pay full-pop instead of the bro deal the Arai rep was giving me, but I wanted Rossi’s design that bad. Years later, returning from San Francisco’s Halloween festivities to where my T595
Triumph Daytona was parked on some side street, I arrived to find my beloved Rossi AGV cut from the bike, only a dangling D-ring left to prove it once existed. I still hate whoever that guy was.

I’ve been looking for a brown leather jacket for a while, but nothing had quite tickled my fancy. While I liked the feature set, particularly the full perforation of the Dainese Street Rider jacket John Burns recently tested, I felt it was a little too sporty in the styling for my purposes. I wanted something that would look at home on a modern classic or cruiser as it would on a sporty bike. So, when I stumbled on the AGV Sport Element Vintage Jacket during some clandestine surfing on family movie night (a.k.a. dad suffers through yet another kid-friendly rom-com), I was pretty stoked. It had the right combination of classic yet modern style I craved. My only real hesitation was whether the arm and shoulder vents could make up for the lack of perforation in the SoCal heat.

It’s June and the temperatures are now starting to hot up. That can only mean one thing: Summer’s here and riding season is in full swing. For some, riding in hot weather means shedding the protective gear in order to stay cool. You don’t need us to remind you what a bad idea this is, as one of our favorite adages when it comes to riding in hot climes is “I’d rather sweat than bleed.” For this buyer’s guide, we’ve put together 10 jackets and pants that’ll both keep you cool on a hot ride and also protect your hide should you have the unfortunate fate of falling down. The list is organized in ascending order based on price.

With the AGV AX-8 EVO Naked, the Italian helmet brand is bringing a new look to the street market, one that caters to what it calls “new road-riders generation.” The AX-8 EVO’s shape appears round and featureless, and its ventilation ports are minimal. Its eyeport, however, is huge, and its chinbar tapers sharply from the cheeks to the chin, very similar to a dual-sport or off-road helmet. This isn’t a coincidence; when looking for inspiration for a new sport-touring oriented street helmet, AGV turned to its AX-8 DUAL EVO lid. Essentially, the Naked version strips the visor from the off-road helmet and calls it a day. A simple approach, but the result is this contemporary and modern-looking helmet.

Southern California residents who are also fans of the Dainese/AGV brands are likely familiar with the D-Store Orange County. One of three official full-fledged Dainese/AGV retail stores (the others being San Francisco and Chicago), what you might not have known is that the OC store, which is roughly equivalent to a large two-bedroom home, also housed Dainese’s North American headquarters for several years. Think about that – Dainese, known the world over as one of the finest motorcycle apparel companies, ran its North American operations in modest office space at the back of a retail store.

A girlfriend from years ago – the one who instead of toasting bread then spreading peanut butter on top to create a warm, tasty snack, would microwave the combination long enough to molecularly change the Jif Chunky into a soupy, burnt mixture of glop oozing down the sides of a rubberized slice of Wonder – mistook another person for me.