Dress for Excess

Dress for Excess

Author: Judy Mecham

Part 1 of a 3-part series on motorcycle apparel:

From our July 21, 2007 Newsletter.

 

“Be Cool”

Your motorcycling apparel decisions must consider comfort and protection from crashes and the everyday challenges of riding a motorcycle. The right gear makes motorcycling safer and more comfortable through a wide range of conditions, and thus your choice of riding gear is as important to making motorcycling fun as your choice of motorcycle is. Yet, often an apparel-buying decision is based on little more than what the wearer sees while standing in front of a mirror.

Consider a riding jacket. Most riders buy on style, but a real riding jacket should do much more than look good. With a bit of layering, it will increase your comfort throughout the range of temperatures you ride in, serve your needs on the road, prevent damage to your machine, repel gravel and bugs, and — on that day when something goes wrong — provide significant impact protection and minimize abrasions.

That’s the difference between a real motorcycle jacket and a good-looking but functionally deficient jacket.

There used to be only two choices in protective motorcycle jackets — leather or textile. And if you wanted a full-coverage jacket that didn’t stick to your skin while motorcycling in the sweltering summer heat, you were pretty much out of luck. Even a perforated leather jacket is hot and heavy, unless you’re speeding along on your motorcycle.

That was back in the 20th century, before the advent of the mesh motorcycle jacket with a simple concept: thicker fibers on the exterior fabric result in a more open weave so that air flows directly onto the rider.

You can actually be cooler in hot weather in a solid crash-resistant motorcycle jacket than in a T-shirt, but the jacket must have good venting in places where the moving air touches it. If you ride behind a large windshield, that means it must have vents out on the sleeves, perhaps even on the outside of the sleeves. Some jackets have a unique scoop on the outside of the forearms to catch air flowing around the shield. If you don’t have a windshield, then large vents in the upper chest, such as tuck-away
panels on some jackets, are a cool solution. What goes in . . ., must come out, so the jacket should have exit venting on the back too. If you are buying a jacket just for warm weather, one of the mesh motorcycle jackets can actually keep you cooler while moving than riding in just a shirt. I’m sure you’re wondering, “how is that”? The sun dehydrates the skin basically by extractiing water from the exposed areas. The best way to cure and prevent minor dehydration is by consming a lot of water and avoiding fluid loss.

Those vents can be a liability on cold rides, so if you plan to use a mesh or vented jacket in a wider range of temperatures, there should be some means of sealing them. An insulating liner increases a jacket’s cold-weather utility. A longer jacket, especially one with some sort of belt or elastic waist, will reduce the drafts that can blow up your back and chill your kidneys.

Various other design features can expand a jacket’s temperature range. If the front closure features a snap-down flap over the zipper, you might be able to get air flowing through by unzipping the jacket most of the way but using the snaps to keep yourself fully covered. Sleeves that close with a zipper plus a snap can provide a similar option to keep the closure intact but let some air flow through.

The Fine Points

Massive zippers, fancy snaps or big chrome buckles may look cool, but they can also scratch your bike’s paint, especially on the tank. Sleeve zippers and snaps will also come into contact with your bike more frequently than you might suppose. However, don’t abandon these kinds of closures in favor of a knit cuff. The problem with knit-style cuffs, often found on aviator-style jackets, is that they permit the sleeve to ride up your arm if you are sliding on it in a crash. The sleeve should close snugly
enough for it not to pull up and expose your forearm. You probably want some adjustability in the cuff area though, to accommodate additional layers of clothing, watches or gloves. A closure that uses hook-and-loop material (such as Velcro) can provide great flexibility. The preference is for a system that uses hook-and-loop material or snaps to adjust the size, combined with a zipper (independent of the adjusting system) for closure. The least convenient cuff systems are those you must zip and adjust each time you put the jacket on.

This is also true of waist adjustments. The adjustments help you accommodate varying layers beneath the jacket.

Jacket length is also an issue. Short jackets tend to be the most popular from a styling standpoint, but I have noticed that few experienced riders use them as their primary jacket. Short jackets have a tendency to pull up in a slide, leaving you exposed between the bottom of the jacket and the top of your pants. I prefer a jacket that reaches my hips, since it is less likely to ride up that far in a slide. It also keeps breezes from blowing up my back on colder rides.

Remember that anything you want to reach while riding must be accessible to your left hand, so change pockets for tolls, map pockets, etc. should be on the right side. Zipper pulls should be large enough to grip with heavy gloves. If you are planning on mating the jacket to pants, it’s nice if it comes with a zipper for that purpose, though that can be sewed in later.

Motorcycle jackets offer a wide variety of collar styles, including some that zip off. I prefer a tall collar that I can leave open when the weather is warm or close snugly to fend off cold or bugs. If the collar uses a tab-type closure that fastens with a hook-and-loop fastener, the hook portion should be on the tab with a loop patch that allows you to fold the tab inside the jacket when it’s not in use. This will prevent the hook section from snagging your helmet strap.

Wear Protection

The road doesn’t know the difference of what you wear or what you ride. The risk are the same for all riders; drivers who run red lights, gravel in the road, animals, cell phone talkers, etc.

Soft, supple fashion leather may look good in the showroom, but it provides no real abrasion protection, a fact that will become painfully obvious when you are sliding along the asphalt at 50 mph. That heavy, motorcycle-weight leather may not hug your curves like the paper-thin stuff, but it will break in and become comfortable in a few rides. Although you will pay more, riding leather will also last far longer than the fashion-weight stuff.

Armor may seem, well…unseemly, until you need it. Then it might prevent broken bones or perhaps even internal injuries. Apparel with armor might look and feel lumpy when you first wear it. Even though the looks won’t change much, we have learned that most armor molds and moves to fit the body it’s wrapped around. Over the last several years, meaningful research has been conducted on what sort of body armor is most effective, it stands to reason that the kind of armor built like a helmet, with an outer shell to spread out the impact load and a layer of slowly resilient foam, is the best bet. However, almost any sort of padding is likely to improve on the impact-absorbing capabilities of leather or Cordura.

In our next issue:
“ Getting Into Your Pants”

Part 2 of a 3-part series on motorcycle apparel.