| Motorcycles and Twowheelers: Motorcycle clothing and luggage - "Motorcycle Protective clothing That works!" Friday, 10 February, 2012 | Home | Suggest a Link |
We support this site using affiliate marketing as a way to earn revenue. All the ads, and many of the links mentioning other products, services, or websites are special links that earn us a commission when you use or pay for their product/service.
Please do not use our site if this concerns you.
There is some great looking motorcycle clothing on the market these days, but believe me not all of the motorcycle clothing offers as much protection as you think. In Europe, for motorcycle clothing to be lawfully sold as “safety clothing, it has to pass a series of European standards, which are pretty lengthy but are available on my website. The standards cover the clothing's performance in abrasion, tearing and impact tests, and when they have passed; they are sold with the CE mark. However, no such regulation is available in the USA, so what should you look for?
Not many people realise that most motorcycle injuries occur below the belt. Your legs and feet are extremely vulnerable, so make sure that you wear a decent pair of high boots and some protective pants. The pants should be reinforced at the knees and hips; ideally they should attach to your jacket by a zipper. Boots should be thick leather, with a sole that can flex with the foot, but has a resistance to crushing across the foot.
Traditional material for motorcycle clothing is leather, but thick nylon and other synthetic materials work well too. Kevlar reinforced jeans are better than normal jeans. Normal jeans last 0.6 seconds in the European standard abrasion test, while protective motorcycle pants will last 5 seconds or more. You don’t really want to be ripping your skin open within half a second of falling of your bike, do you? Thought not.
Same principles apply to jackets. Make sure they are hard wearing, if they are leather, make sure it is thick leather, not fashion leather like some jackets. Stitching should be uniform with no dropped stitches, and all your “sharp bits”, your elbows and shoulders, should be reinforced, ideally with some impact protection included.
A decent pair of gloves is a must; your palms will be at risk in an accident; you instinctively put out your hands palm side down to stop yourself in a slide, so the palms of your gloves should be reinforced with patches. Knitted Kevlar is especially good for this kind of abrasion resistance, but reinforced leather works well too.
Impact protection can be bought separately, like back protectors and so on, but remember where your most vulnerable areas are. And make sure if you buy impact protection you actually wear it! If you have any doubts it may be better to go for motorcycle clothing with a degree of impact protection included, so that you know when you put on your jacket and pants, the protection is always going to be there.
Last but not least, pick out a helmet you can wear and wear it always. You may have a greater chance of getting injured below the waist in a motorcycle accident, but the consequences of being involved in an accident without a helmet just don’t bear thinking about….
So, next time you are shopping for motorcycle clothing, give a bit of thought to the level of protection it offers before you buy it. You never know it could save you a lot of unnecessary pain!
When dirt bike racing was in its infancy riders wore whatever was available to protect themselves. Open faced helmets, Jofa pants, leather protection… as the protective equipment was not specifically made for dirt bike racing, riders looked more like confused hockey playing bikies than dirt bike racers!
As the sport (best sport in the world mind you :) ) became more popular, the growth was then able to sustain ‘parallel’ or complementary manufacturing industries. Companies like JT USA, Sinisalo etc. could now focus primarily on making only motocross gear.
More money was now being pushed into research and development of motocross gear,
Read this article in full
Most motorcyclists put their bikes away sometime around October or November, and leave them tucked up in the garage until March or April. Some of us are more foolish and ride all year round. Keeping the motorbike in good order through the winter requires work and I hope to write about this soon.
Keeping warm is the other problem. I have been riding through 15 winters now, and I have learnt an awful lot, mostly the hard way. It is a cold and fresh November day as I write this and I've been out on the bike. I would like to
Read this article in full
A motorcycle helmet is one of those essentials that will help save your life should you have an accident while riding your bike. This will protect your head from a damaging and even potentially fatal head injury. Motorcycle helmets are so important that state lawmakers have even included a directive in the state laws that orders all people riding the motorcycle to wear helmets.
Some people though do not understand the importance of this accessory. In fact, some people do not even like wearing it because it is too heavy and too suffocating. Others find it a killjoy to not be
Read this article in full
The leather jacket is perhaps one of the biggest wardrobe staples for a motorcycle enthusiast. After all, who can picture a Harley rider without a great jacket? But there's more to biker gear than just looks.
The leather jacket itself is the favored option for many riders for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the protection leather can provide. Riding a bike is serious business and the safety gear a biker buys should be a top priority. From leather jackets to helmets, biker gear must speak to safety first. To do otherwise, is to make a bad
Read this article in full
You cannot choose a helmet based on its size or the material it's made from alone. There are many things that need to be considered when purchasing motorcycle helmets. Sure, it's probably possible to locate a helmet that is the right color or that is made from the type of material that will satisfy your safety concerns, but when it comes to "proper fit" it opens up a whole new can of worms. It is so important to consider the "safety factor." Some motorcycle helmets are just not as safe as others and you should be aware of this.
Some of
Read this article in full
| © . All rights reserved. |
 |  |  |  |  |
