#jacket

Living on a budget is a fact of life, and MO staffers remember how buying our first motorcycles drained our available funds. So, like many young riders, we skimped a bit on our first riding gear. (I, for example, rode in a jean jacket until I could afford my first leather one.) The advent of textiles in the moto-gear arsenal of materials helped bring proper gear within reach of many budget-minded riders. On the flip-side, however, we’ve also noticed a ton of gear that went well beyond price-consciousness into the realm of cheap – as in crappy – gear that offers either little protection or sub-standard construction. The folks behind Pilot Motosport noticed this, too, and decided to create a price-point jacket that didn’t skimp on the protection or quality. The result is the Pilot Slate Air Jacket.

Wearing black leather on summer ride can very quickly turn a protective garment  into a sauna when not actively riding. A long stoplight can be torture enough to make some riders swear off wearing proper riding gear. Without putting too fine a point on it, let’s just say that they’re fools.

Riders on the European side of the pond are probably more familiar with the Swiss manufacturer iXS Motorcycle Fashion Apparel than those in the American market. However, don’t let the word fashion in the company name fool you. iXS produces motorcycle gear ranging from technical undergarments to race-ready one-piece leathers and everything in between. Since the company is looking to expand its presence stateside, the timing was perfect to sample part of the iXS vintage line of leather jackets. To my eye, the Flagstaff looked to provide an ideal balance between retro styling and real-world protection.

If you wear the same pair of pants for weeks, months or maybe even years without washing them, they become so saturated with the oils from your skin that they become a whole other kind of material, one that has unique waterproof characteristics. The downside is your pants also develop a unique smell that’s familiar to you if you use the free internet terminals in a big-city library, where a guy is searching for evidence that the government agency beaming radio signals into his brain also kidnapped the keyboard player from the early-’80s funk group Dazz Band and replaced him with a robot.*

Our apologies to our friends on the east coast who actually do experience a winter, but here in Southern California, where the MO gang call home, the weather lately has been nothing short of perfect. Hot, even. Save for a couple rain showers here and there, El Nino has hardly made a dent in increasing our water levels and it’s come nowhere close to causing homeowners to cash in their flood insurance. In the long run this doesn’t help California’s drought problem, but in the short term at least we can go ride. And with the moderately high temps during the day cooling down dramatically once the sun goes down, a three-season jacket is the thing to have.

For quite a while, I’ve been looking for a two-piece leather riding suit for use on sporting street rides that could also double as track leathers in a pinch. Yes, a one-piece suit could work, but in the world away from the track, I’ve found them to be more than a little inconvenient. (Think bathrooms and restaurants.) Two-piece leathers offer almost the same level of protection while adding the versatility of wearing the jacket with riding jeans or simply taking off the jacket when stopping at a roadside cafe. So, the Rev’It Replica Jacket and GT-R Pants caught my eye.

For 2015 Alpinestars officially labeled its new Pikes Drystar jacket as sport-touring apparel. But what is sport-touring? Is it riding fast on a saddlebag-equipped Suzuki V-Strom 1000 in the above photo, or is it spending a long weekend aboard a Kawasaki Z1000 (luggage options available) in the photo below? My mind’s eye says the Pikes jacket is appropriate for either, and looks good doing both.

We’re going back six years for this year’s Church feature, to the 2009 Triumph Sprint ST. Right around this time Sport-Touring rigs were starting to usher in the electronic age, with bikes like the 2010 Kawasaki Concours getting traction control and ABS. Meanwhile, the Sprint ST was trudging along, relatively archaic in its tech features. But does that necessarily make it a bad motorcycle? Not according to Pete Brissette. Here he is, explaining the virtues of Triumph’s aging – but still relevant – Sport Tourer.

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.

I was smitten with the Dainese Street Rider jacket as soon as I saw it on Guy Martin on the cover of a Brit bike magazine last spring, and when a press release pimping it showed up in my inbox from Dainese shortly thereafter, I took it as a sign that the gods wanted me to have one. You should stop reading right now if $679.95 is too much for a jacket; I hate to admit I’ve become a terrible 1%-er when it comes to things like this.

When it comes to Speed and Strength’s Fame and Fortune jacket, I, in the immortal words of Wayne Campbell, am not worthy. Although my ownership of a ’75 Honda CB400F predates the hipster/cafe racer movement, a hipster I’m not. Wearing this jacket, though, gets me about as close as I’ll ever be.

Harley-Davidson’s 2015 technical MotorClothes line features a variety of new and/or upgraded apparel. We recently spent some time in the rain wearing Harley-Davidson’s two-piece High Tail Colorblocked Hi-Vis Rain Suit, and have been enjoying the warming massage of the Dual-Source Heated Jacket Liner. There’s also two new versions of the FXRG Triple Vent System Switchback jackets – one leather, one textile – a standard FXRG leather jacket, and FXRG Dual-Homologated and modular helmets.

When looking for a classically styled leather motorcycle jacket, you have to wade through an overabundance of bomber jackets. While they may be cool, they’ve become almost a-dime-a-dozen in the cruiser world. However, a vintage-styled motorcycle cop jacket carries much of the same period feeling (it even has epaulets) and will be fairly unique out on the road. The Triumph Patrol Jacket is a good antidote for the run-of-the-mill bomber jacket.

What better time to test the air-flowing capabilities of Fieldsheer’s High Temp Mesh Jacket and Pants than during California’s drought. On one particular trip we experienced “OMG it’s hot,” “who’s idea was this – it’s too hot,” and “get me off this f*&$ing motorcycle, hell isn’t this hot.” Fieldsheer’s mesh worked pretty darn good in two of the three degree variances.

When riding in the summer, it’s a must that a capable riding jacket for this kind of weather flows a significant amount of air to the rider. Traditionally, jacket manufacturers use mesh panels as the way to achieve this goal. Some use more than others, but when it comes to flowing air, unless you prefer riding shirtless, mesh is the best we’ve got. The problem with mesh, of course, comes when it’s greeted by asphalt.