Having a Heavy Sport Bike Jacket

Having a Heavy Sport Bike Jacket
Hi, my name is Chad. We’re talking about sport bikes and sport bike gear. We’ve covered helmets and gloves and light jackets. We’re now going to talk about a little heavier, better protecting jackets- race quality stuff. Jackets generally, for serious riding- racing- are made out of leather. This one’s cow hide. Current racer technology uses kangaroo hide because it’s thinner. For the same strength, it’s much thinner so it’s lighter. A jacket like this weighs quite a bit. Its got hard armor built in at the shoulder and the arm points. It’s got padding underneath that- it’s got padding in the back, and you can put what’s called a back protector in separate. It’s a hard piece of plastic that flexes, but it only flexes one way, so it protects your spine from impact. These jackets- this one has a zipper in the back so you can zip it onto a pair of pants that will protect you. And these jackets are really made- the ones that are full competition- are made really just to ride in. they’re not very comfortable for everyday wear. They do make ones that are street. They have most of the same protection, but they’re more comfortable to wear just walking around. The reason why they’re not very comfortable is you have to buy them tight so the armor stays in place otherwise your armor will slip out the way when you fall. So you zip yourself in place. But mostly, the arms are rotated forward. So this jacket is made to sit like this, whereas a regular jacket the arms are cut to sit down. So this bike- this jacket, rather- is very comfortable to ride on a bike, but walking around it’s not terribly comfortable. There are leather jackets with very similar armor that are made more for street, and they’re a little less comfortable up like this. But essentially, this jacket provides about as much protection as you’re going to get. If you go down, it’ll take the shock- it’ll take an awful lot of abrasion. Guys on the race track go down in these well over a hundred miles an hour and get and walk away with little or no injuries at all. So these jackets have to be made well because you don’t want the seams busting and parts coming out when you go down. So they’re a little more expensive, running somewhere from about two hundred dollars all the way up to six, seven hundred dollars. But they are worth there weight in gold. They’re worn to wear all the time. You can get ones that are perforated with small holes through them, but they don’t breathe nearly as well as the mesh jackets do, that we had previously. But if you can stand to wear the leather, this is about as much protection as you’re going to get in a jacket.