Passes & Canyons Blog

I’ve known ever since that crash occurred on June 29 that I was going to need to buy some new gear. A new helmet at the very least, considering that the one I was wearing had done its job and needed to be retired. To that end, I visited Performance Cycle on Wednesday. My initial intent was to look at riding suits but I ended up looking at a lot more.

I’ve got several particulars I’m looking for in a riding suit. First, I want something highly visible, so black is out. With what’s available in the stores now that seems to narrow it down to gray or gray with some neon yellow trim. OK, I can live with that. Besides, I’m figuring on wearing a high-viz mesh vest over it all so that should be the more important factor.

I also want pants and a jacket that can be connected as one unit, at least as much as possible. Apparently that means zipping them together just in the back. Fine, that will do. And I want something with an inner liner for winter warmth.

Waterproof is another criterion. Here’s where it starts getting tricky. I recently read about how suits that keep you dry can also end up trapping moisture inside and that doesn’t sound good at all. Gore-Tex looks like the answer because it supposedly keeps moisture out but “breathes” so sweat can get out. I need to find that stuff I read before to see what the issue was.

I also want zippers that will not fail. The Rev-It! riding pants I have now have silicone(?) zippers in the vents and one of them has completely failed. It is stuck open–not the best in winter. Also, the main zipper came undone a while ago and it was very hard to get it back together and functional. The Rev-It! pants I looked at no longer use that silicone zipper and I would hope the metal zippers are better. But that would be a reason I might go with a different brand.

All that said, I identified several possibilities: the Klim Carlsbad suit, the Alpinestars Bogota suit, and the Rev-It! Sand 5 H2O. They’re all roughly the same price, around $1,000 total for the two pieces. Now I want to investigate all three to see what reviewers and users have had to say about their plusses and minuses. If you have any experience or recommendations on any of these please pass your thoughts along.

I also looked at helmets, glove liners, and warm base layers. Stevie, the Performance Cycle guy who assisted me, was very helpful and gave me all kinds of things to consider and choose between. I’ll get into those items next time.

Biker Quote for Today

“Riding a motorcycle is a tribute, a tip of the helmet as it were, to our rugged ancestors who challenge us through the dust of centuries, proof that we have succumbed to the safety nets of civilization.” — Foster Kinn