The first half of my ride home from Georgia was great. I was moving along at a good clip, and the sun was bright and shining.

That is, until I got to Fayetteville, North Carolina.

Fayetteville seems to be the tipping point for bad motorcycle weather. On my trip down, my route south of Fayetteville was completely covered by rain. I guess the northern part of my return trip got jealous and wanted to get in on the “fun.”

It rained non-stop, and hard, all the way home. It wasn’t as bad as my trip down, but it was a soaking rain. Paranoid (and hopefully wiser) from my gear problems on the way down, I adjusted my waterproofing strategy slightly.
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As mentioned earlier, I spent four days on a motorcycle trip to see two of my friends outside of Savannah, Georgia. It’s almost five hundred highway miles, which winds up being between eight to nine hours depending on traffic, weather conditions, and the bike I’m on. My best time was on my first trip on my FZ6 because I had great weather and a very comfortable saddle.

This time I took Raider, my BMW R1150R. In theory, it should have been the best of both of my trips: the comfort of my old K1200LTE touring bike, and the mobility of Cylon. Thanks to the weather and an extremely hard seat, it was really the worst of both worlds.

But I still had a kick ass time. ;)
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The first half of my trip down to Georgia was fantastic. It was cool enough that I wasn’t hot in my Rev’It Cayenne Pro jacket, but not so cold my hands were freezing. It was overcast enough that I didn’t have to squint behind my Native sunglasses, but not so overcast that I had to worry about rain.

That is, until I got to Fayetteville, North Carolina. Then the sky opened up. It didn’t stop until I reached Savannah, some 280 miles later.

What followed was a near total failure of every piece of waterproof motorcycling gear that I owned. Am I being too harsh?
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Almost four months ago, I was killing time in a coffee shop in California. I was visiting family and had a PT Cruiser rental car instead of my motorcycles, and I was missing my two-wheeled friends badly. I made up for it by reading motorcycle gear reviews, and found read Web Bike World’s review of the Rev’It Cayenne Pro textile jacket and pants. I wanted it.

At the same time, my friend Fish Sprout was researching Motoport’s kevlar textile gear, mostly because her friend owned a set. The Cayenne Pro, despite ingenious venting options, was still a three-season jacket. Motoport owners reported wearing the jacket in temperatures from the 30s to 120s. The lure of a strong, four-season textile suit that wouldn’t melt to your skin like most mesh led me to order jacket and pants from Motoport in late June.

It was a huge mistake. For a product promising a “custom” fit, my Motoport jacket was put together for someone who weighed an extra twenty or thirty pounds. I sent it back twice for alterations, and am still in the process of getting my money back.

Cold temperatures were fast approaching, and I hadn’t solved the problem of a weather-resilient jacket that would hold up well in a crash. My Tourmaster Transition 2 jacket fit well and had nice features, but claims of the jacket disintegrating in crashes as slow as 25MPH made me nervous.

I bit the bullet, and bought the jacket from Beach Moto, run by a member of the ADVrider.com community. Dennis, the owner, was everything Motoport wasn’t, and should have been — responsive, personable, professional, and efficient. Did I mention that dealing with Beach Moto was easy and didn’t make me feel like an idiot? Motoport, take notice.

However, I’m getting ahead of myself. On to the jacket.
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My friend Ghost Rider passed away on July 4th, 2007. The following fall his mother and family put together a benefit ride to Yorktown, Virginia. We did it again this year, this time heading up to the Blue Ridge Parkway.

The weather called for rain for most of the day. I was not deterred for a moment — I’ve ridden in the rain plenty of times and have specialized gear that goes on top of my protective clothing — but I was afraid the event would be postponed until the next day. I already had plans for Sunday, and didn’t want to miss out. I put on wicking bottoms and top, my Motoport mesh kevlar pants and my Teknic perforated leather jacket. I stuffed my waterproof gear in the side case and motored off to the rallying point: the Starbucks where Ghost Rider used to work, and where we met for the first time.
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My altered Ultra II Air Mesh kevlar jacket and pants arrived while I was away in California last week. The initial order was very mis-sized, and I had sent the jacket back to have it resized, and the knee armor on the pants relocated.

After almost three weeks of waiting, I was really anxious to give the gear another try. Unfortunately there is going to be a Round Three between myself and Motoport.
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I think gloves are probably the third piece of protective gear typically purchased by a motorcyclist. First the helmet, then the jacket, then gloves. Boots are probably fourth, with most bikers never getting specialized pants. I wear all of these things (and sometimes more) every time I ride. I use a keyboard and mouse to make a living, so I am even more paranoid about my hands than most.

Leather is typically the best protective material for abrasion depending on the quality, thickness, and type of leather (cow vs kangaroo vs goat, etc). Leather forms to your body’s peculiarities over time, which made my otherwise questionably-made Held Ninja gloves a fantastic glove to wear.

Unfortunately, leather’s protective qualities fade over time due to exposure to the elements. I am not sure how violent the quality degradation is, Cycleport founder Wayne seems to think it can be up to 20%, especially if the leather has been exposed to rain.

I purchased a pair of Cycleport (also known as Motoport) kevlar full gauntlet kevlar racing gloves. The gloves were $129 before shipping, which pits it against the upper tier of racing gloves from other manufacturers. Here’s my review.
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I ordered a custom-fitted motorcycle jacket, pants, and gloves from Motoport (also known as Cycleport) about six weeks ago. The company makes all kinds of promises: incredible abrasion resistance, great impact absorption through the armor and reinforced areas and element resistant. The best claim was that if they are unable to repair any piece of their equipment after a crash, they will replace it for free.

Anecdotal evidence on the Internet seemed to validate these claims. One fellow was speeding at about 140MPH on his bike, saw a law enforcement officer, and clamped down on the brakes. He lost control and slid for quite a long ways. His bike was totaled, but the suit went in for repair to reflective tape.

$1200 and six weeks later, my order arrived today. It’s mostly bad news.
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Edit: I bought the jacket! Please read my review here.

As I have mentioned several times before on Gibberish, motorcycle gear is a compromise between comfort and safety. In general, leather offers the most abrasion resistance compared to textile fabrics (Kevlar, Cordura, etc), which in turn is better than denim or cotton. The problem is that leather is often the least comfortable in the cold or in the rain. Leather gear is also the least “usable” from a day to day perspective. If you compare a typical leather street jacket to a textile “touring” jacket, the touring jacket has tons of pockets and nifty accessories. One of the things I like the most about my Tourmaster Transition 2 jacket is the tiny key pocket. It is a lot easier to grab my keys from there instead of fumbling about in a giant storage pouch.
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I follow a simple phrase about motorcycle safety equipment: “All the Gear, All the Time.” That means protective gloves, boots, pants, jacket and of course a helmet. The difficult thing about ATGATT — besides being getting funny looks in public — is that the comfort and performance of your gear can totally make or break a ride.

I wear leather gear as often as possible. It has the greatest abrasion resistance out of the three material types used in safety gear (leather, textile, and mesh). The problem with wearing leather is that it isn’t great in the cold, and sucks when it’s wet. The protective properties aren’t affected, but wet leather is cold, heavy leather. Between getting stuck in a torrential downpour coming home on a trip and freezing my ass off during the winter I started looking at textile gear.

Most protective textile gear is waterproof and are equipped with a removable insulated liner. They feature body armor of varying degrees. The trick would be to find something that kept me dry, kept me warm, and kept me safe, without busting the bank.
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