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.

[yorkie_chris]

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

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.

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 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.

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

[northwind]

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.

[yorkie_chris]

I like belstaff gear.

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

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

Originally Posted by Riko360

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

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.

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.