what to buy- leather? material?
 

hi all need advice on what to buy for my kit! atm i am using a friends dainese jacket and boots but need to get hold of my own stuff. have heard Hein Gericke stuff is good.
sadly at the moment i dont have a load of cash as i just insured the bike and bought it so what can you all recomend?

Thanks a load Rick :smt023

Re: what to buy- leather? material?
 

You can't go too far wrong with Hein Gericke kit. Just make sure it fits properly and is comfy. If you can, go for the Sport armour upgrade as it's top quality armour and is so much more comfortable to wear. Northampton has a Gericke, so has Luton. Both are as friendly as the other, but Paws works at Northampton and is reputed to really know her stuff.

Re: what to buy- leather? material?
 

What size boot are you??
I have some Spada waterproof boots to fit 7 to 8 that are too big for me. They have only been worn a couple of times.

Re: what to buy- leather? material?
 

first you need to decide leather or textiles. IMHO leathers are more protective but pretty useless at keeping out the wet and cold. I'm lucky and have both. Textiles I use for winter riding and paid around £180.

I wear Heine Gericke leathers and find them to be pretty good. They have been crash tested and stood up well. They cost around £350 5 years ago.

You do want to get the best you can afford and this does not always mean the big brands. I'll let Lozzo expand his opinions on the big brands, but I'm sure you can find some good quality for reasonable money.

Re: what to buy- leather? material?
 

Depends what you use the bike for really and how much you wish to spend.

I can never be bothered getting changed when I get to uni, so I wear draggin combats (get lonley without all the pockets), and a halvarsons jacket (fookin excellent)

Got 2 piece leathers when I can be bothered.

Re: what to buy- leather? material?
 

ok thanks- well im size 8 in boots im about 5'9 65kgs quite slim! im going to be using the bike more for plesure but if i ride to work and it rains then ill be stuck, maybe textile will be the way to go?

Re: what to buy- leather? material?
 

You can put waterproofs over leathers

Re: what to buy- leather? material?
 

...and in winter I usually wear a fleece over my levvers. Doesn't look too special but I don't care.

Re: what to buy- leather? material?
 

Me too, keeps the salt crud off the leather and breaks the force of the rain so it doesn't get through the stitching and soak you.

Re: what to buy- leather? material?
 

Pete and I both have leathers and textile gear, but although we ride all year in all weather we haven't worn our textiles for the last two winters. A good thick fleece over our leathers is enough to keep us warm, and we both think leathers provide more protection than textiles. That may not be true, but it's what we think.

Re: what to buy- leather? material?
 

If funds weren't an issue, I'd suggest HG rain gear over leathers. I wear HG "blizzard" pants and jacket over Dainese leathers and Sidi boots.

But since funds are always an issue, maybe HG textile jacket and pants. I've always found HG stuff to be pretty high quality.

Re: what to buy- leather? material?
 

Remember rain gear over leathers is also more of a pain to put on and take off though.

Re: what to buy- leather? material?
 

I started out with just textile gear, and then when I started to do more -ehem, spirited riding, I got some leathers second hand off ebay. I've never tried the HG stuff, but heard it's good. I have Frank Thomas textiles which have been fine and cost about ?200 for the set, but I know some people on here don't rate that brand.

Re: what to buy- leather? material?
 

Right now I have both, of you get textile buy grotex it will keep you dry, I need to get some gortex trousers, as the one I have arent but my jackect is I can tell the differnce!

I gonna swap my 2-piece for one piece, then I have an all in one water proof HG tribale oversuit that keeps me dry in my leathers.

Buy a good lid, you notice the differnce I have 2 lids a cheap shark one which I wore yesterday wearing it after my arai I can tell its cheap s*** spend money on that, you will need a back protector, jackect and trousers oh gloves.

I have waterproof boots as well, they are Alpinestar SMX-4 well worth the money. I wear summer gloves with heated grips, I think saftey is far important.

Put this way I wearing my leathers, with 3 layers underneath, a fleece over the top, then the over suit I was very warm, in fact on the M25 I was sweating:cheers: at 80 mph+

You need a budget for your gear, like the most u want to spend, but I would plan to spend something ?800, I have spent far more than this. But the right gear can save your life, so I wouldn't be tight. If it means no beer, no going out for a month then I would. Up to you.

Re: what to buy- leather? material?
 

yeh i do think your right with not skimping on safety gear but at the same time new bike etc- want to get out there! i went hg the other day and the guy was saying that the "tricky" jacket and trousers were good goretex and had good safety all round shoulders front anf back but i thought before jumping in with the frist thing i see that i should ask.

do you guys have links to where you got your clothing so i can have a look see what i like the look of and how its rated.

thanks for all your help :)

Re: what to buy- leather? material?
 

Goretex is like magic... But it's also expensive. Teknic Sprint 2 textile trousers are very good IMO, I tested mine and though they were left destroyed I was completely protected. They come with the upgraded Knox armour as standard, and have proper hip armour pockets too. I wear Rukka goretex textiles now but the Sprints were very good, and around ?100 which is a good price for what you get.

I tend to wear textiles as I wear them over other trousers, easy to get changed at my destination. Leathers are better in most other ways though. For recreational riding, well, depends on the weather, the RUkka trousers can do anything without fannying about with waterproofs so I do wear those a lot in summer too.

Personally I reckon that if you can only buy one set of gear, you should make it textiles, since they're very flexible, and decent ones can be pretty cheap. My last pair of Belstaff trousers- my current spares- were ?60 and very well made. Almost all leathers under ?100 are frankly tat.

Re: what to buy- leather? material?
 

I like belstaff gear.

Jackets had 2 slides with minor scrapes, trousers took the brunt of the last one and are still perfectly useable.

Re: what to buy- leather? material?
 

I got A* textile jacket and leather/textile jeans which I like a lot, they've stood up to one crash without any tears or anything, so I'm suitably impressed. I got textiles because I started riding at the start of winter and all the crappy weather.

I want leathers, and I'll get em, as soon as I can afford them.. At the moment I want a hideout classic 2pc suit for 800 quid. I'm mainly looking at makes Lozzo has given the thumbs up and avoiding others, he certainly seems to know what he's on about on the matter :)

Re: what to buy- leather? material?
 

Right, lets clear one thing up. The guy at Gericke should never have mentioned the word "safety" when talking about a tricky Jacket, if he used that word in particular he broke the law as the Tricky jacket offers nothing which is legally classed as safety at all, except the armour inside. There is sod all in the way of protective armour in the front of a Tricky jacket and the back protector will not be anywhere as good as a separate one worn on the body. The armour in the jacket is CE approved, but the jacket itself isn't, so in effect you should treat it as a Goretex waterproof fashion jacket - it's a good quality waterproof jacket, but it's not a safe jacket. Only one company make a textile jacket that can be sold as personal protective equipment and that's Halvarsson's Safety Jacket at a cost of over 800 quid. Every other textile jacket will destroy itself in a slide down the road in less than 3 seconds and leave you open to just the armour, if it stays in place - this is proven fact, test results are available from Cambridge University's labs if you want to bore yourself to sleep reading them.

Leathers will offer you much more resistance to abrasion, but again, unless you spend alot of money on specialist brands (not the high priced fashionable Italian rubbish you see in flash bike shops) you won't get something that the law regard as protective equipment. Leather is most certanly a better choice than textile in a crash, but not as 'all year round' practical.

If I were you, I'd buy the leathers first and a lightweight waterproof oversuit for the wet days, some Goretex sports boots like the Oxtar (now TCS) ones (CE Approved personal protective equipment too) and a pair of waterproof leather sports gloves with carbon knuckles, something like the Held Akira Tex. We're coming up for summer, you wont need the textile stuff in 2 months, but you'll want leathers.

Save up for decent quality textile gear for winter, but just remember it's bloody useless in a high speed slide up the tarmac and armour is only of some use if the textile holding it in stays intact. Buy Goretex waterproof stuff if you can, because Gore will only allow their waterproofing material to be used in better made clothing. You know the textile will fail in a crash, but you buy textile to stay dry and warm, so buy a product you know will work, and Goretex is guaranteed to work for 5 years.

Re: what to buy- leather? material?
 

Lozzo, I would have to take issue with your opinion that textiles are useless in a slide on tarmac. Yes leather does have better abrasion resistance that most textiles however they are getting better and better all the time and if you have the money there are textiles out there that will almost match leather in a slide.

Re: what to buy- leather? material?
 

rst leathers any good?
And if so which ones in their range?

Re: what to buy- leather? material?
 

lozzo I do apologise, I just caught the end of your post. I have now opened my eyes and seen all of it and the mention of the halvarssons gear.

Re: what to buy- leather? material?
 

Why do you think I mentioned the Halvarssons Safety Jacket, which is a CE approved textile and performs much better than most leather suits you can buy off the peg. Virtually all other textile jackets offer almost zero abrasion resistance to be perfectly honest, my own included. Even cheap leather will outperform the more expensive non CE approved textile jackets in abrasion tests. This kind of thing has been my bread and butter for years and I take an active interest in motorcycle clothing safety developments, I do know what I'm on about.

As far as the trading standards people and myself are concerned, if it doesn't have a CE label on it, then it's not a safety item and should be treated as a fashion item - it really is as simple as that. Getting CE approval for a product is not expensive and once you have it you can call the tune on price and it will sell to the safety nuts like myself. If more manufacturers could be bothered to submit their clothing we the consumers would have a better idea of what's worth buying, and 2 Italian leathers companies would either go out of business or start justifying their huge price tags.

Re: what to buy- leather? material?
 

That's ok, I was typing my typically long-winded reply when you posted your apology.

Re: what to buy- leather? material?
 

General opinion seems to say don't bother with them, cheap and nasty.

Teknic are cheap and good.

Re: what to buy- leather? material?
 

Halvarssons gear is excellent IMO, though some of their cheaper stuff isn't legally rated, it's nice and warm and waterproof and they seem to have taken care in making it. (my jacket's RRP ?190)

However if I knew I was going to take a slide I'd far rather be wearing my leather jacket, which is also not legally PPE, but is still double layered full thickness leather, double and triple stitched in places.

The fashion jackets make you look like a poofter anyway.

Re: what to buy- leather? material?
 

I hate the fashion jackets that are sold as bike jackets, I think a nice thick knitted cardigan would offer you about the same level of protection in an off!

Re: what to buy- leather? material?
 

Italian style, never much saw the point of putting form above function.

My leather jacket's a belstaff and you can tell they wanted the collar to look good, because it's the only bit that annoys me.

Re: what to buy- leather? material?
 

In one Cambridge test a pair of £4-99 Tesco Value Jeans got a better abrasion test time than a very expensive Italian leather race suit. My source wouldn't tell me exactly what make of leathers, only that they were a high profile Italian company.

Re: what to buy- leather? material?
 

am I not right in saying that one magazine, who I can't remember found that a cheese and pickle sandwich had a better impact rating than some of frank thomas's old style knee armour?

Re: what to buy- leather? material?
 

You're correct, but I wouldn't even look at FT gear. one of my best mates is one of their old sales reps and he told me he spent half his working days with them dealing with returns, failures and irate customers.

Re: what to buy- leather? material?
 

I know this is your field, but in my own direct experience you're overstating things... I've slid from 40mph myself without so much as a scratch or a burn in textile trousers. OK, so that's not very high speed but even from higher speeds that basic level of protection is still there.

A few years back I arrived at a recent crash where a guy had lost control of his Vmax after a puncture and slid along the motorway from about 80mph in some textile jacket and a pair of no-name cordura biking combats, and though he had a few scrapes and some minor burns (mostly on one arm, which had split at a seam) he was in pretty good shape, up and walking. I've been on the scene of a couple of other sliding accidents where the rider's been in textiles and they've done OK (and a couple where they've been in regular clothes, and they've not done so well) I've also seen leathers burst like a paper bag on impact and offer no protection at all. (cough, Dainese, cough)

Obviously it's not as good as leather, mind. In that same 40mph crash my Furygan leather jacket hardly even noticed that it'd been on the ground, it didn't even wear through the dye :mrgreen: The Teknics gear was in tatters, it hadn't holed except at one pocket but it was straight in the bin. I'd always sooner be in leathers when I crash obviously. I'd sooner not crash at all!

This idea that a biking textile jacket- made of a reasonably abrasion resistance material, and with considerable thicknesses of material and properly constructed seams- is no more protective than a fashion jacket, to me it's demonstrably false tbh... I'm not sure it's a good message to be giving either, since people might read it and think "Ah well, I'll just ride in my jeans" If you see someone crash in ordinary jeans, even at low speeds they tend to rip in large chunks, seams split, they can just fall apart. Hell, fall over in the street in a typical jacket and trousers and you can lose skin. Think how many times you put your knees out as a kid!

Re: what to buy- leather? material?
 

No- those trousers (Strike) were never advertised as being armoured. FT pointed out as much in the article, but the magazine muddied the waters for the purposes of their article. "These unarmoured trousers might as well be unarmoured!" There was a good article there to be written, about armour upgrades, checking your gear, filling available pockets, choosing your gear better...

Re: what to buy- leather? material?
 

Textile doesn't offer much protection, proven fact. Even the very best non-CE textile material fails the CE abrasion tests quite spectacularly.

There's no such thing as "reasonably abrasion resistance material" unless you're looking at specialist textiles such as the ones made by Halvarssons. The thicker the better obviously, but they all go through in less than 3 seconds sliding in the tests, some last less than half a second. properly constructed seams help, but they are only as good as the textile each side of the stitching. I got knocked off my Bandit at about 40 while filtering on the M25 about 2 years ago, I hit the deck and rolled wearing a heavyweight DuPont Cordura jacket. When I checked the jacket over later it was holed in three places and both knees were wrecked on the trousers. Even the quality stuff will wear through quickly.

As proven, a cheese sandwich offers a degree of impact protection, but no-one in their right mind would rely on it to do the job. As far as trading standards and the EU are concerned, if it's not CE approved it's a 'bike style' fashion item and you should look on it as offering no crash protection at all. If it does save your skin then well done, you scored a bargain. Lots of off the peg and reasonably priced leathers could quite easily be made to CE standards if a few minor and low cost changes were made - the manufacturers know this but choose to put high volume/low profit sales before safety and slightly higher pricing. CE approved textiles...forget it. It took years for Halvarssons to develop their safety suit and despite the price they've got that niche in the market well and truly covered, but it cost them a mint to corner it.

Re: what to buy- leather? material?
 

The exact same armour was being used in other FT clothing and they were sold as being CE armoured. Their reps were on a mission directly after that magazine went to press to remove and replace all the offending armour from garments hanging in shops. I was working for a rival firm at the time and we'd all deliberately follow the FT reps round nicking all the business they lost because of that article. After a few months you learn the rival rep's call cycles and have them noted in your diary - usually you would try to get in before them so the customer spends with you, but this was different. The FT rep may be one of my best mates outside of work, but business is business. He left and joined our firm to cover my neighbouring area.

Re: what to buy- leather? material?
 

Yeah, forget CE for textiles, but that doesn't mean you have to accept that textiles are completely unprotective. I hear what you're saying but like I say, I've got real world experience to the contrary, not just a once-off, and I won't be the only one I'm sure. Are the tests you mentioned still the old abrasive belt ones? I know that the manufacturers have their own reasons for objecting to abrasive belt tests (they don't like failing tests and it's easier to change the rules than change the problem) but they've been shown not to compare well with a tarmac drag test...

When I say reasonably protective, I've got in mind typical cordura or similiar, 500 denier cordura has far better tear/burst resistance than cotton or denim, but also construction- it's usually present in heavier thicknesses than you'd find in streetwear. Take my Belstaff winter jacket frinstance, at the shoulders the fabric is over 6mm thick, even if it were no more wear resistant than the material used in a typical waterproof textile jacket it'd still last several times as long just for that reason...

Re: what to buy- leather? material?
 

I have a pair of those bought a few months before the article, absolutely no CE markings on 'em. The padding is unmarked too. (and no wonder, it feels like a prawn cracker) Maybe shops were selling it as armoured but that's a totally different question, the gear itself definately wasn't marked as such. Or at least, mine wasn't I'm pretty sure if the magazine had been able to make that stick they'd have thrown it into the mix, considering what a hatchet job the article was. IMO ;)

They're s*** leathers, mind. Considering they cost nearly as much as the Teknics sets you'd have to be a bit mental to buy them now. I couldn't find anything else that fit me... Not even well finished never mind well made, they look painted rather than dyed. They did crash reasonably well (slid on my bum in them at Knockhill all the way down the back straight from about 80mph to a standstill) but I think that was partly luck, there's loads of revealed stitching, single rows, seams in exposed places... Nasty. Not exactly sticking up for FT here you understand, even if they came with real armour they'd still be rubbish. And the pockets are funny sized too so it's hard to add your own armour, the hip pockets are about 2 inches square, what use is that?)

Re: what to buy- leather? material?
 

Big enough for a small cheese and pickle sandwich?:D

Re: what to buy- leather? material?
 

Ah, but I'd misunderstood, you were referring to the same stuff in other FT gear. In which case, that's reeeeally bad.

Re: what to buy- leather? material?
 

Goodness me my lil ears have been buring on this forum last few days!!! :D
Right oh, hein gericke kit-id deffo recommend, and not just because i work for them.I have textiles for winter, leathers for summer-have crashed twice in textiles and theyve done their job!
As for lack of cash, hein gericke A) have a sale on NOW, ends soon though and B) can offer 0% interest free finance over 10mths.