#Alpinestars

Unless you’re a world-class rally racer, an afternoon spent riding with Red Bull Factory KTM’s Toby Price aboard his booming 450 isn’t a common experience. Note I said riding with, and not alongside Price. The only time I was alongside the man was when he stopped and I caught up. End the day with a cozy fireside chat including Price, Monster Energy Honda’s Ricky Brabec, and Husqvarna Factory Racing’s Skyler Howes and you’ve the ingredients for memorable uniqueness.

I might as well just come out and say it: In my years as a motojournalist, I’ve had the pleasure of testing dozens of track leathers, from ill-fitting, inexpensive off-the-rack items to full-on custom-sized suits, and the Alpinestars Fusion Race Suit is the most comfortable and best breathing one I’ve ever had the pleasure of donning. Since that’s my opinion, I figured I shouldn’t string you readers out. However, if you want to find out why I feel this way, I’d be happy to tell you. 

–We’re constantly on the look for great deals on motorcycle gear. We’ll be updating this post each week with the latest sales on gear and accessories, so keep checking here for new deals.

HEY! Did you know you could help support us MOrons by buying stuff at Revzilla? It’s true. Whenever you click on over there after seeing a thing here, we get a piece of the pie. It’s a win/win situation – especially when the thing is on sale. You get a deal on what you needed anyway. We get to keep eating. Here are a few of this week’s retail therapy opportunities.

While in Spain on the 2024 Triumph Street Triple R/RS intro, I crashed during the street portion of the ride. As much as I’d like to let this mishap go down the memory hole, it gave me the opportunity to abrasion and impact test some gear. Let’s set the stage, shall we: By making a series of small mistakes in an S-bend that combined to tuck the front end and put me on the ground at about 60 mph, I landed on my left knee and hip, followed by my torso and the underside of the left arm – all fairly typical of this type of crash. In those few seconds of sliding, the Alpinestars Caliber Jacket did its job of protecting my hide by sacrificing its hide. I won’t get into the specifics of the Alpinestars Caliber Jacket’s construction in this review. You can read about it here. What I want to focus on is how it performed in the crash, how much damage it sustained, the repair process, and why I decided to have it repaired.

MO Tested: Alpinestars Caliber Jacket Review

Crash Tested: Alpinestars Copper 2 Denim Pants Review

I’ve been wearing Alpinestars Copper Denim Pants in one form or another for seven years, and while I’ve been quite happy with how they looked like traditional jeans and provided comfort off the motorcycle, none of our staff of MOrons have put them to the ultimate test until now. If you’ve read my recent 2024 Triumph Street Triple 765 R/RS Review, you know I did a little pavement surfing on an Andalusian highway. Naturally, to further my embarrassment over my first crash at an introduction since 2015, I need to document the condition of every piece of gear that contacted the pavement so that you, dear reader, can judge the efficacy of the protection provided by my riding kit. The short version is that the Alpinestars Copper 2 Denim Pants sacrificed themselves so that my legs could escape unscathed. 

MO Tested: Alpinestars Copper Denim Pants

2024 Triumph Street Triple 765 R/RS Review – First Ride

I’ve been searching for the perfect brown leather jacket for years. For some reason, this color appeals to me more than the classic black or multi-colored gear. However, to my eye, brown is a color that is difficult to get right. I’ve seen too many items with a burgundy tint that really doesn’t appeal to me. When I discovered the Alpinestars Caliber jacket, I knew I’d found the jacket I was looking for. 

MO (Crash) Tested: AGV Sport Element Vintage Jacket

MO Tested: Alpinestars Brera Airflow Jacket Review

Maybe think of this as more a second opinion than a review, since Ryan Adams already wrote quite a bit about Alpinestars’ latest Tech Air 3 vest in Best Motorcycle Airbag Jackets last week. While he was posting that, I was attending the Los Angeles premier of the new vest last Wednesday. I haven’t spent enough time in the thing to know how I really feel about it yet, but I can highly recommend The Bike Shed’s breakfast burrito.

Motorcycling airbags systems have now been in development for upward of 30 years. Companies like Alpinestars and Dainese have brought products to market, revised them, updated them, and developed new airbag systems to cover a broad range of motorcycling such as track riding, commuting, and off-road riding. We’ve seen these systems go from being integrated into specific garments, to standalone units that can be worn universally (with proper fitment). Now, we even have subscription-based systems that offer a lower barrier to entry price-wise than initially available. 

Here at MO, we’ve done our best to cover the cutting edge of this technology as new products and airbags emerge. Heck, our own Troy Siahaan has proven himself time and time again to be a most excellent crash test dummy and because of this, he won’t be caught on two wheels without an airbag between him and impending doom. Do yourself a favor and read through Troy’s copious crash tested articles for first hand experience of airbag deployments. Due to his experience, I couldn’t think of a better person to lend a few keystrokes to this article.

Before we get into the five airbag systems we were able to test, we want to address the lack of a major player in the biz. We contacted Helite, which initially showed interest in being involved, but was then later unresponsive. Helite makes a range of airbag products from vests and jackets, to airbag backpacks, and now, airbag riding pants. All of the company’s current product line relies on mechanical tethers to the motorcycle which, when pulled, opens a CO2 cartridge which then deploys the airbag. There are other interesting features to Helite products and we are disappointed to have not been able to include them in this buyer’s guide. 

While we know there are other companies out there, these were the latest products we were able to have on hand to review.

With all that said, let’s take a look at how airbags from the other major players stack up.

For generations, the image of bikers in black leather jackets and blue jeans has been a (somewhat accurate) stereotype of motorcycle fashion. Riders and non-riders alike donned this gear to portray this lone individualist image. In fact, the riding gear I wore during my first, formative motorcycle trip as a newly-minted rider was a black leather jacket and blue jeans. And for a long time, this plus boots, gloves, and a helmet were state-of-the-art for rider protection. However, technology has transformed motorcycling in more ways than just adding computers to bikes. Over the past five years or so, we’ve seen an entirely new market of riding apparel move from obscure to relatively commonplace. Riding jeans have moved from merely being denim jeans with a layer of abrasive-resistant material as an under layer to fully technical motorcycle gear with certified armor and a variety of styles and materials.

Naturally, we, here at Motorcycle.com, thought that it would be interesting to take a deeper look at what this popular class of riding apparel has to offer. In the end, we ended up testing 34 pairs of riding jeans. We spent months gathering them and coming up with a uniform way to look at them and convey their qualities, both good and not-so-good, to our faithful readers. You can go ahead and protest our failure to include your favorite model, but we know we didn’t get them all. It would have been impossible. Really, just getting 34 took a lot of effort.

If the Google machine dropped you directly on this page without seeing the introduction to MO’s Massive Riding Jeans Buyer’s Guide, and you are confused as to what’s going on, you should click here to read the introduction and the full listing of jeans. If you’re the adventurous type who just wants to jump to our individual reviews of 34 pairs of jeans, the Table of Contents below will only give you a direct link to jeans on this page. So, we still recommend that you go to the introduction. There’s a lot of good info to cover.

MO Tested: Massive Riding Jeans Buyer’s Guide – Introduction

If the Google machine dropped you directly on this page without seeing the introduction to MO’s Massive Riding Jeans Buyer’s Guide, and you are confused as to what’s going on, you should click here to read the introduction and the full listing of jeans. If you’re the adventurous type who just wants to jump to our individual reviews of 34 pairs of jeans, the Table of Contents below will only give you a direct link to jeans on this page. So, we still recommend that you go to the introduction. There’s a lot of good info to cover.

MO Tested: Massive Riding Jeans Buyer’s Guide – Introduction

If the Google machine dropped you directly on this page without seeing the introduction to MO’s Massive Riding Jeans Buyer’s Guide, and you are confused as to what’s going on, you should click here to read the introduction and the full listing of jeans. If you’re the adventurous type who just wants to jump to our individual reviews of 34 pairs of jeans, the Table of Contents below will only give you a direct link to jeans on this page. So, we still recommend that you go to the introduction. There’s a lot of good info to cover.

MO Tested: Massive Riding Jeans Buyer’s Guide – Introduction

If the Google machine dropped you directly on this page without seeing the introduction to MO’s Massive Riding Jeans Buyer’s Guide, and you are confused as to what’s going on, you should click here to read the introduction and the full listing of jeans. If you’re the adventurous type who just wants to jump to our individual reviews of 34 pairs of jeans, the Table of Contents below will only give you a direct link to jeans on this page. So, we still recommend that you go to the introduction. There’s a lot of good info to cover.

MO Tested: Massive Riding Jeans Buyer’s Guide – Introduction

As a kid, I remember my folks would take their shoes to the local shoe repair shop. I take it for granted now since I’ve been working from home long before it was cool, but there was a time when people not only had to go into an office, they also had to wear nice clothes, too! And the bit of that wardrobe that got the most punishment were the shoes. Those business shoes never looked comfortable, with their hard soles and weird patterns on the leather. But they lasted a long time, and if the soles ever wore out – which they did regularly with my folks – the local repair shop (I guess they were called cobblers even further back in time) could just put a new sole on and breathe new life into what would have been (re)tired shoes.

It’s this idea that old, and seemingly worn-out, goods don’t need to end up in the trash. “Repair, not replace,” is the popular adage these days, and it’s as true now as it has been since the early cobblers first set up their shops on cobblestone streets. Little did I know when I was a kid, but shoe repair shops would prove valuable to me and the greater motorcycling community as a whole. 

If there’s a piece of apparel most associated with motorcycling, it’s undoubtedly the leather motorcycle jacket. The leather jacket is part of our uniform, but even non-riders search the bins for cowhide when it’s time to dress up for Halloween, or down for any occasion that calls for cool. No matter what you ride, the best leather motorcycle jackets are versatile enough to look at home nearly anywhere, and on nearly anything. A premium leather jacket will never go out of style, and the more you wear a quality one, the more comfortable it will feel – there’s just something about leather that other materials can’t match. Bountiful and ubiquitous, with seemingly endless options to choose from, it would be impossible for us to feature every single jacket out there. So here we’ve gathered a small sampling of the best leather motorcycle jackets the market has to offer, listed in alphabetical order.