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Leather or textile

2915 Views 15 Replies 9 Participants Last post by  bob
which do you prefer? I have both but grab the First Gear 3/4 jacket mostly.
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I have a thirteen year old leather jacket that I wear for shorter trips and commuting. I have an Aerostich Roadcrafter for longer trips. I prefer the Roadcrafter when it's raining.
Textile. Mesh, actually. Love the flexibility, and gotta have that air flow, especially when it's hot. I can never get comfortable in leather. I have a Tourmaster Intake, with an insulated vest liner and a sleeved windbreaker liner. Perfect for all the weather I ride in.
Textile. TM Flex 2 jacket to go from mesh to solid shell to insulated to double insulated. TM Flex pant to go from mesh-solid-insulated. Saved my hide in 2010 when I low sided half way around a right hand hairpin turn. Front wheel latched onto a large brass keyed lock in the road. Front skied straight across the road into the ditch while in full lean. Gear was shredded but no damage to me. I am full ATGATT with armored gear now. Insurance replaced all bike parts and gear with cash left over since they paid me the going rate for labor and oem pricing on the parts and I did all the work myself. Ended up with a bunch of extras added to the bike like LED lights and GPS, etc. Brass lock now hangs on the new engine guard as a symbolic gremlin bell. I'll post a photo in my album if I can.

edit: looks like I can't add any more photos to my existing album. Only 5 in there now.
photo now uploaded in bob's bikes photo gallery.
what do you guys do for bottoms? I've been hearing good things about kevlar jeans except they don't seem to breathe very well which kinda makes the desire to wear jeans a bit less.
I wear the TM Flex armored textile over pants as in my earlier post. Cool in summer and very warm in cold temps.

I used to wear leather. Still have my chaps and a vest. Leather is the best for sliding, road rash protection but does nothing for impact protection unless there is also armor included. All my textile stuff has CE armor for shoulders, elbows and knees and also high density foam armor for back and hips.
I am more a fan of leather. Both are nice though. it totally depends on the specific article. I think a better question might be what brand of gear to you prefer to wear?
Can you tell? Tour Master.
Even have TM Solution Boots, Polar-Tex gloves or Dri-Mesh gloves depending on temps above 32*F (below that it's the Gerbing heated gloves).
Even my helmet, which is the new HJC IS-17 Intake full face in Hi-Viz, is one of the subsidiaries of Helmet House along with Tour Master, Cortech, Shoei, Fieldsheer and Pokerun as well as Mobile Warming battery heated gear.
Of course most of what I have came from Motorcyclegear.com :)
both! you can never have too much gear

each has its pros and cons.
I have both types of clothing as well. I tend to prefer leather, maybe because it is more "traditional" and I like the way it looks and feels. I have a cheapo Interstate leather jacket, and a much more expensive Schott one that is my favorite. I lost 30 pounds in the past year, so I recently traded my old Schott jacket to someone who had GAINED weight and ended up with a different Schott model. I also have custom-fitted chaps and several pairs of gloves.

Leather, of course, is not great for hot weather riding. So I have two textile jackets, a TourMaster Sonoma Air and an Olympia Airglide. The TourMaster is hi-viz yellow--I thought it was a good idea for safety but I just feel silly wearing it. The Olympia is silver and black and I like its look much better; it also seems easier to fasten and to change between layers. Unfortunately both of those are now too large for me. I didn't want to spend a lot on new jackets before I knew what size I would eventually end up after losing the weight, so last summer I bought an inexpensive Bilt black mesh jacket from Cycle Gear that works fine.

I will leave the discussion of footwear to another thread. :)
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good job on the weight loss (unless its the bad kind of weight loss)

where do you find your Schott stuff? I email them about availability and they NEVER return my emails.
I have both types of clothing as well. I tend to prefer leather, maybe because it is more "traditional" and I like the way it looks and feels. I have a cheapo Interstate leather jacket, and a much more expensive Schott one that is my favorite. I lost 30 pounds in the past year, so I recently traded my old Schott jacket to someone who had GAINED weight and ended up with a different Schott model. I also have custom-fitted chaps and several pairs of gloves.

Leather, of course, is not great for hot weather riding. So I have two textile jackets, a TourMaster Sonoma Air and an Olympia Airglide. The TourMaster is hi-viz yellow--I thought it was a good idea for safety but I just feel silly wearing it. The Olympia is silver and black and I like its look much better; it also seems easier to fasten and to change between layers. Unfortunately both of those are now too large for me. I didn't want to spend a lot on new jackets before I knew what size I would eventually end up after losing the weight, so last summer I bought an inexpensive Bilt black mesh jacket from Cycle Gear that works fine.

I will leave the discussion of footwear to another thread. :)
Congrats on losing weight, 30 LBS is a lot!
How did you go about losing that much weight?
Congrats on losing weight, 30 LBS is a lot!
How did you go about losing that much weight?
As much as I would like to tell you that it was something like Hydroxycut or other "miracle pill", it came down to eating better and exercising. I used MyFitnessPal to track everything I ate, started working with a trainer and did cardio as often as I could. It took just under 3 months to lose it. Unfortunately I put almost 10 pounds back on since Thanksgiving and am working my tail off to get that off before I pick up the 1300. (Hey, whatever it takes to motivate you is what you should use. I wanna look as good on that bike as I can because I know it will get a LOT of attention!)

Hit the gym 4 nights this week--weight training twice and cardio all 4 times. Down 2 pounds and counting!!
And as long as you're moving every chance you get it will keep going! Slow and steady is better than fast, seems to last longer that way. Plus you end up with some good habits learned that tend to stick with you... unlike the weight. Congrats on that.
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