Choosing a combo of riding gear that provides armour, waterproofing, warmth, and cooling ability is notoriously difficult for "enduro touring": that combination of mostly off- or rough-road overland travel, and camping. Off-road riding tends to be at relatively low speeds and requires great flexibility, protection from sharp rocks and branches, and high cooling capacity for grinding technical terrain on hot days with low airflow. By contrast, riding on the road entails higher speeds and therefore the need for high abrasion resistance and impact protection in the event of a slide or collision with another vehicle. When you add the need for waterproofing and warmth to adapt to rapid weather and temperature changes which can occur during summer storms and in the mountains, it's a tall order to find gear that meets all the requirements in one solution.
Despite having tried a range of options from all-in-one suits to a combination of bits from different brands over 100,000 km of riding, I'm disappointed to say I haven't yet found a solution that works really well in all scenarios. Ultimately, I've settled on one set of gear for day-rides in hot weather, and another set of gear for longer trips where covering the worst anticipated conditions and reducing the weight of my packed gear takes priority over optimal hot weather performance.
The following observations are meant to help you choose riding gear that better suits your own needs. If any gear-makers are reading this, I have a long list of design tweaks that I think could significantly improve the performance of existing options without increasing the difficulty or cost of production.
For hot weather, one option is to go full MX gear, but this can be bulky if you need to put on a jacket in a rainstorm, and the padding often doesn't offer much high-speed protection. However, the hard surfaces do allow the gear to slide on pavement, which hopefully allows the protection to maintain its integrity and position until you stop sliding.
My trail gear starts with a TekVest, which is the single best upper-body protector I've found. It's made from robust materials, including closed-cell impact foam faced with UHMW sheeting to enhance puncture and sliding resistance around my whole torso and shoulders. This is one beefy jacket that moulds to my body over time. The rib and kidney protection is the best I've found, the zippers are massive, the back pocket holds a bladder comfortably, the pockets are handy for snacks, a neck brace easily integrates with the neck hole. Although the garment is not CE-rated (probably too expensive of a process for the small manufacturer), compared to other armour I've inspected, it appears to offer protection that is far superior in every respect. It's the one piece of gear I've tried where I don't doubt it would save me from significant injury, whether falling onto rocks on a trail, or sliding down the road at highway speeds.
The drawbacks of the TekVest are its weight and bulkiness. It isn't something you can easily stuff into a side bag, or fit under every waterproof jacket (although it does fit under my Klim Carlsbad).
Under the TekVest I typically wear an Under Armour heat-gear shirt, elbow pads, and a Klim tech jersey over the pads. It's probably overkill, and this year I'll experiment with eliminating the jersey layer when using the TekVest. While tough, the jersey probably doesn't provide much abrasion resistance if you slide on the road, so wearing armour underneath with sliding surfaces is critical.
These are the Fox Titan Pro arm guards I wear with the TekVest. Having tried a few brands and models, these have decent construction quality and seemed to fit me the best, but I wouldn't say they fit great: they tend to migrate down my forearms when I'm sweating, exposing my elbows. The reason I chose these was for their combination of hard and soft armour to enhance sliding inside a jacket or jersey--not just when sliding in a get-off on the road. Alternatives I've checked out don't seem particularly confidence-inspiring, although there's a sliding option from Leatt that looks like it's worth a try.
Before getting the TekVest, I wore a Fox Titan jacket which is a popular choice. Overall protection is good. I like that the back plate is hard plastic, designed to resist hyper-flexing of the spine, and secures with a kidney belt. I don't like that the jacket doesn't integrate with a neck brace, and that the zipper and sleeve material are light and flimsy. The materials look likely to shred and allow the elbow pads to tear away during a high-speed fall. This is armour you want to wear under something else to provide a little more overall integrity.
The Dainese D-Core armoured shirt initially looked like a good option to reduce bulk and increase mobility in the arm area when wearing a riding jacket and potentially a heated jacket. It's really comfortable in a range of temperatures, but I found that the lack of back and chest armour makes it less versatile than, say, a Forcefield shirt. I'm not sure what use-case Dainese is trying to address with this shirt. Maybe it makes more sense with street gear or in touring-only applications.
Last year I bought this Alpine Stars armoured shirt which upgrades the Dainese concept above, with back and chest armour. This has been my go-to armour for wearing under my Klim Carlsbad jacket (with D30 inserts removed from the jacket) since it does a better job of keeping the armour in the right place, adds chest protection, and improves mobility. However, the armour is not removable, so when the garment gets stinky it can be a bit challenging to wash.
And here's my Klim Carlsbad jacket. It's generously cut and relatively light, which is good for fitting over the above armour shirts and even the TekVest, but means the built-in armour is going to move out of optimal position. I only use the built-in armour in the spring and fall, and when I also use a heated jacket (so the heat is closer to my skin).
Overall Klim has done a decent job of the jacket, but I find some of the materials (e.g. back) to be especially thin and unlikely to survive even a modest slide. The sleeve vents are a royal pain to operate, and one of the other vent pulls broke off within a year. Waterproofing is pretty good even in torrential rains except around the neck, where the collar could use some reshaping and repositioning of fasteners to ensure a better seal. Klim has since extensively modified the jacket design for 2020 and claims it now meets the new CE safety standards. (For their prices, it's about time Klim started improving the safety of their gear!) I'm intrigued by the redesign, which positions the Carlsbad more towards the Badlands end of the scale but without the weight and bulk (and cost!).
By they way, if you're looking to revitalize the DWR coating of your Klim gear, Gear Aid ReviveX works well and is the option recommended by Klim. Make sure you clean your gear first using a gentle laundry detergent (e.g. for wool) and rinse it well.
Last fall, in desperation to extend the riding season, I purchased a First Gear heated jacket with a wireless controller. The heating is fantastic and truly a worthwhile upgrade, making rides down to 10C tolerable without any other heated gear. The jacket is well made and my only complaint with it is the size of the neck hole, which seems almost big enough to squeeze through with a helmet on. Since the collar is heated, it's odd the designers would leave such a gap to allow cold air in. You can sort of fold the collar over to reduce the neck gap, but it creates an uncomfortable lump.
A large size fits nicely under the Klim Carlsbad (also large) with the armour in, and the slippery shell material facilitates arm mobility. A kidney belt in the Carlsbad is essential to hold the back pad in place, and to improve the cold weather performance of the heated jacket by pressing it close and blocking drafts from the waist.
On the hottest days I'll choose my Klim Mojave mesh pants. Combined with the TekVest, I can withstand all but the hottest days of trail and road riding. The Mojaves also have plenty of knee room for braces or pads. These are very comfortable pants that dry quickly. I swap in the hip pads from my Klim Carlsbad pants. Unfortunately, the Mojave doesn't have a tailbone pad like the Carlsbad.
Here's the Klim Carlsbad pants, with optional Klim suspenders. Maybe it's just my shoulder shape, but I could not for the life of me keep the suspenders up. I ended up making a Velcro strap to pull the suspender sides together in front. The thigh pockets are well positioned and handy, the waist height is good to resist water entry, and mobility is decent for a non-stretch material. One challenge is peeing in these pants, because the combined high waist and gusseted zipper create a significant wall to overcome. First-world problems.
Built-in one protection almost universally sucks, rarely keeping its position except when the knee is bent and seated. I've tried a few knee guards, eventually leading up to a pair of 2018 AlpineStars Fluid Carbon braces that I returned after a month of use because the padding would not remain attached. Nineteen months later, I'm still trying to sort out the warranty with the dealer... they've had my return for over a year and I'm out more than $700 for the braces.
As another solution, I've settled on the EVS Pastrana knee guards, which are super comfortable, remain in place, and provide excellent protection in a more compact form than a full brace. While braces ensure full mechanical protection for the knee joint, the compression tube design of the EVS design does provide some additional stability over just an armoured knee guard.
The EVS inner tube incorporates a silicon grip layer that does a great job of ripping out your leg hairs and chafing raw a strip around your leg, as I painfully discovered after a day of trail riding. MX thigh socks are essential to provide a little extra protection, and they also help control sweat when wearing the Carlsbad pants.
A few years ago I mused about combining features of good mountaineering gear (like soft-shell waterproof fabrics and layering) with motorcycling features (e.g. armour and fit) to come up with the ultimate all-weather suit. For instance, one of the most durable and high-performance fabrics I've worn is a four-way stretch, soft-shell material from Schoeller. Their products are absolutely abrasion- and cut-proof. Not cheap, but incredibly durable. I've experimented with jackets made from this material over my motorcycle armour and found it works really well in all conditions, but the lack of exterior sliding protection is a concern that would need to be addressed for road use.
So I was intrigued to receive a flyer from Mosko Moto recently which advertised their latest ADV riding suit system. It incorporates the layered approach I've experimented with. While I'd like to see more abrasion/sliding resistance added to areas like the elbows and shoulders, it looks like a step in the right direction.
For these components to really work together as a system, they need to fit properly and coordinate details like location of pockets and fasteners. It'll be interesting to see if more manufacturers take Mosko's approach, specializing in making only certain components and ensuring they work well, while leaving other components to other specialist manufacturers. As it is now, there's a lot of riding gear "fluff" on the market, with nondescript and mediocre designs that focus on style and don't offer any performance advantages. Within any luck, companies like Mosko Moto and Adventure Spec (which has some drool-worthy options) can continue inject a little more innovation into the industry.
No comments:
Post a Comment