#Leather

When Editor-in-Chief Duke asked who wanted to sample a $250 jacket of questionable origin from a brand unknown to us a few months ago, all our hands did not shoot up as one. We MOrons tend to sashay about in premium gear as much as possible in the interests of both style and safety, things that don’t generally square with a $250 price tag. For the sake of science, though, I volunteered.

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.

Monday, June 20 marks the 25th Ride to Work Day, an annual event created to show the general public that motorcyclists are their friends and neighbors and that there are lots of us out there sharing the roads with them.

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.

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.

In case you haven’t heard by now, I crashed in the middle of our 2015 Literbike Track Shootout. Well, to put it more accurately, I was taken out by another rider. If you missed it, jump to the 0:41 mark of our accompanying video to see exactly what happened. Thankfully, I was fortunate enough to be wearing proper gear, including the Alpinestars GP-Pro leather suit, which took the brunt of the damage, but I was really hoping I wouldn’t have to write this review, as putting any piece of protective gear through the ultimate test really, well, sucks.

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.

Lately, there’s been a rise in popularity in cafe- and naked-type bikes. Take the recently reviewed Royal Enfield Continental GT, quirky Moto Guzzi V7, old-is-new-again Yamaha SR400, and of course the venerable Triumph Bonneville as examples. They are simple motorcycles that take you back to a simpler time. And these days, wearing full-fledged, Power Ranger-like protective gear just seems, well, silly.

As one of the best-known manufacturers of motorcycle gear, Joe Rocket has carved itself a nice niche in the industry. What’s extraordinary about that niche is that it’s all-inclusive. It’s not gear suited toward a particular style of riding or a certain type of rider.