The Icon Men's Accelerant leather jacket is simply a quality piece of riding apparel. Icon has a reputation for being a company that appeals to the young and trendy segment of the riding community. Some of their gear is, in my opinion, a little "over the top" ...

Mt. Kilimanjaro is an extreme mountain environment in Tanzania. The Firstgear Men's Kilimanjaro Waterproof Jacket is a jacket designed for extreme motorcycling conditions. If you spend much time around touring and adventure motorcyclists, certain jackets tend to come up in conversation. Premium and extremely pricey jackets like ...

Having lived in Arizona for over 4 decades, I know a little something about heat. Having been a motorcyclist for almost as long, I know a little something about hot weather gear. I don't know if Joe Rocket invented the armored mesh jacket, but they are at least ...

Leather is protective, heavy, and expensive. Cordura textile is versatile, waterproof, and relatively affordable. An increasing number of quality motorcycle jackets are mating these two materials with very positive results. By placing leather in the impact-prone zones of the jacket, like the forearms and shoulders, the ...

Let's start with the technical features of the Fox Racing V3 Latinese motocross helmet. Most importantly, it is Snell and DOT certified. The shell is constructed of carbon fiber, Kevlar, and fiberglass. These are the premium materials for modern helmet construction. Fox Racing knows dirt ...

I have always felt that there are two areas where a motorcyclist simply cannot cut financial corners. One is tires, and the other is helmets. My experience with helmets is relatively extensive. I buy a new helmet every three years. However, I always seem to ...

Personally, I'm not into the whole "fear and intimidation" aspect in a lot of today's motorcycling gear. I have never donned flames, bones, or skulls. However, I am a realist, and I know this is a marketable aspect of our sport.

Icon's Men's Skull Leather Motorcycle Jacket plays ...

Riding to work at this time of year has its appeals. You tough out the cold morning, the street still untouched by the warming massage of all those particles of light, and you receive your afternoon reward of a beautiful fall ride past fields and fauna. These are, at least, my circumstances.

Tour Master ...

There are plenty of bike covers to choose from now that it's bike covering season. Trikes, however, are often neglected the comfort of a well-fitted cover and instead don a frumpy tarp for the winter season. A tarp traps moisture that will contribute to rust and degradation, which is not what you want ...

The KBC Ed Hardy "Death or Glory" Nomad brings me a weird kind of joy. The Ed Hardy tattoo designs, which don't shirk their responsibility of transmitting a certain disregard for an under-lived life, give this helmet an uncompromising look.

This particular model of the Nomad is in no way subtle, ...

Hawk helmets have been doing creative acrobatics with their helmet designs. The Advance green and white helmet takes the broad tapering stripes that have been the fashion in decals since, well, as long as I've seen full face helmets with decals. A little twist and they've added a strong, almost typographical art ...

Cats and dogs. Truckers and bikers. Leather and synthetic. Usually, these things are in opposition, but every now and then they come together in the spirit of peace and harmony. River Road's luggage liners bring the beneficial attributes of modern synthetic materials to your leather saddlebags, but tuck away and ...

Chase Harper's Dual Purpose bags will fulfill almost any functional needs you have for a set of saddlebags. A long feature list accompanies this product, so beyond the short time we are about to spend together, you should look up all the specs.

To start, the one feature that Chase Harper is ...

The Suomy Vandal Bayliss Limited is Suomy's new entry-level helmet designed for sport riders, sport tourers, and "urban riders", whatever that might mean. The Vandal features the same features found in Soumy's top-shelf premium helmets such as an ultra-luxurious liner with special "anti-nap" fabric the provides comfort, durability and hypoallergenic qualities. ...

The streetbike community is overrun, drowning in a deluge of textile jackets. Don't get me wrong; there are companies, like Icon, that make some great leathers for the street rider. There is, however, a particular style to this kind of jacket, and manufacturers will charge you an arm and a leg ...

Full-face helmets are not for everyone. The claustrophobic, for instance, might find them restrictive. Heck, I find them restrictive and I'm one of their most avid defenders. I'm inclined toward the half helmets for their style and the wind-in-your-face experience. Scorpion's Spitfire is a nice compromise if you're ever feeling ...

Sometimes you look at a product and you don't have to give two thoughts about its purpose. River Road's Basic leather motorcycle jacket is just that: a basic motorcycle jacket. You look at it and you know that it's cut and designed for riding because it looks like the jackets ...

Helmet branding is important. My natural inclination is to reject branding due to its relevance to status, which is a bunch of bull in my opinion. Branding, however, has function beyond that superficial stuff. It's a way to know that you're getting a good product without having to conduct crash tests in your ...

The AGV Miglia (Italian for "miles") is a modular helmet that comes with some surprisingly good features. If you've been considering a modular but didn't want to pay the investment price of some of the upper-end models, the Miglia brings high quality to a very affordable range.

At a fairly light 3 ...

Anyone who knows me knows that I like versatility. I'm terrible at making the big decisions because I always want to make the "right" one. Any product that can assure me it will accommodate me during a sudden snowstorm in a desert has my vote. Maybe the AGV Sport Evolution/Rally ...

I'm going to get right into the AGV S4 specs, because it's an impressive list.

The shell is constructed with carbon Kevlar fiber stratification and high resistance and absorption thermoplastic resins. The composite fibers keep it light but strong. To ensure this brain cage fits, the rider has the selection of ...

My brother-in-law just bought his third riding jacket. Third. He has a leather, a textile, and now another textile that has "Kawasaki" written on it. Each of these serve a purpose to deal with specific riding conditions, including that riding condition where people are looking at you and wondering what brand ...

Where I grew up there were miles and miles of woodlands with ill-tended 2-tracks snaking throughout them. You could ride off into the forest and not see another human for hours. Most popular sports involved guns, and most popular clothing was camouflage.

Many of THH's helmets are designed with flaming skulls and ...

Old tech is cheap, so there are a few manufacturers of helmets who decided to take what works and sell, sell, sell. Like everything today, your cutting-edge helmet is going to be old news in a few weeks, so saving your pennies might be smart.

Cyber helmets are not at the cutting ...

HJC has been the best-selling helmet brand in the US for years. I don't know if they will hold that title for 2009, but I would guess it likely, considering the quality they deliver for prices that make you nod. The cost of their helmets is not ridiculously, quality-questioningly good, but ...

Nolan makes some of the most aerodynamic helmets, including the Outlaw full-face model, which is surprising as they still have a stabilizing spoiler. Spoilers often lead to greater wind resistance and noise, but Nolan's engineering has gotten around those pitfalls with their unique polycarbonate shell. Even though it's a modular, it's ...

At Xelement they make a variety of leather apparel items as well as saddlebags. New for their lineup is the Cruiser Premium Vented jacket. It's called a vented jacket because the two upper zippers are actually vents, and there's a matching pair of zippered vents on the lower ...

Most things are designed to last these days, and what doesn't last is so fragile that it wears out before it wears in. You hardly ever see a nicely worn leather jacket anymore. My riding partner has had his jacket for seven years and it still looks new. Yes, I ...

The Shoei Na Company has been making helmets for motorcyclists since 1958. Their newest off-road offering is the VFX-W, introduced in 2008 and bringing some new designs for 2009. While a top-quality helmet with unique features, you'll also pay for this uniqueness in the same ballpark as Arai or ...

Here's something for the ladies: A textile riding jacket that is soft yet rugged and replete with CE-approved armor in the elbows and shoulders. Tour Master's Trinity Series jacket offers the rider more flexibility than leather, and nearly as much protection. No textile jacket is going to give the abrasion resistance ...

My first riding helmet was a matte black shell without any kind of symbol or emblem aside from the DOT sticker. After a while, I cut a few designs out of reflective tape and decorated its plain exterior. One of my riding buddies told me later that the ...

This helmet is what I call a blank canvas. The matte black TZ-R by Shoei is as simple as they come in appearance and will happily take your stickers, reflectors, paint, or whatever else you want to use to personalize it.

While the exterior is plain-jane, the inside carries a long history of ...

Sometimes, you have to see something to believe it. If someone described the Power Trip Stiletto jacket with the zebra design, all I would think would be, "Yeah, that will catch some attention, a zebra on fire!" Power Trip seems to have pulled off the design better than I could ...

The Tour Master Saber Series 2 jacket is prepared for anything. The design makes this a great riding jacket for rain, shine, cold, hot, day, or night riding. My first response to any textile is to balk at the thought of replacing my leather, but I've had to spend time under ...

I've always worn a leather jacket with armor, but it isn't the most comfortable item in my closet. If everyone around you is ranting and raving about the leathers, but you're just not interested in cow hide, Tourmaster offers their Range denim jacket made for bikers.

In appearance the Range looks ...

Unfortunately, most of the products on the market that call themselves "retro" are purchased as a sad attempt to recapture an experience the buyer never had. For example: high school kids in 1996 wearing reproduction clothing to emulate the original Woodstock look.

Icon has not bought into that concept of purchasing ...

I wear a full face helmet for the protection, noise reduction, and the look. Yes, I think full face helmets are better looking than skullcaps. You'll certainly stay better-looking if you happen to find your face heading for the pavement. Should you want to get yourself a fine full face ...

Edward Teach, better known by the infamous title of "Blackbeard the Pirate," was a master of psychological warfare. It is entirely likely that he never killed a single person on his routine high-seas pillaging. Teach chose, instead of violence, to terrify with symbols and extravagant charades. This is why he set his ...

Leather: it's for your senses -- even "sense-ual," as it were. Even the word "leather" has a nice feel and sound to it. And with this thick-skinned and slightly oversized Alpinestars jacket, you'll get a nice feel as well as the creaking sound of good, finished leather. Gotta love that smell, ...

By the nature of a competitive market, there is a wide selection of leather jackets available, so Icon had to understand the specific needs of the rider to make their Motorhead leather worth the coin they're asking. Fortunately, Icon does their homework.

Icon's Motorhead leather is constructed of durable cowhide with excellent ...

Suzuki and Joe Rocket have brought women riders a jacket that has gone the extra mile in fit and function. I've got to give them kudos on the physical structure of the Superstock jacket. A waist that narrows and then flares out at the hip provides a perfect fit for the ...

When you ride 500 miles north or south, you experience a lot of weather. When I set out on my current journey, I would sweat in my leathers every time I had to stop to fill up, but by the end I had closed my vents as I was still ...

I've always worn a full face helmet and drooled over the features of modular helmets. I have never bought a modular because I don't trust the ones I can afford. I'm waiting for the technology to advance or the price to come down. In the meantime, there is an economical alternative -- ...

We all knew it would happen: the fashions of the '70s are back. I'm not talking about pants that are way too tight or wall hair, but the simple, multilayered striping. Regardless of its status as a fashion zombie, the Xelement armored jacket gives a lot of bang for the buck.

A ...

Some folks like to show off the armor they're wearing as a way of saying, "Yes, I do dangerous things." If you're proud of the fact that you need molded thermoplastic rubber shoulders and elbows, then show them off with Joe Rocket's RASP textile jacket.

In addition to the cushioning ...

After getting caught up for two hours in a September rain that just wouldn't end, my riding partner and I pulled into a little pub to dry out. My partner is a small, wiry fellow who didn't stop shaking for twenty minutes. He'd gotten a chill that took us off the road for ...

Finding a high quality, inexpensive helmet is like finding the Holy Grail, and so this GM68S helmet by Gmax is appropriately named "Crusader." Here it is, folks: a fantastic, safe, full face helmet at a price for every rider. Gmax has included and improved upon the common features, like ventilation, and ...

My significant other has a sissy bar bag very similar to the Harley-Davidson Messenger Bag. I don't know what his level of fondness of that bag is, but he never takes it off. I can certainly tell you why I like it, and it's not just because he can carry a ...

I appreciate all of the gear on the market designed for women riders, but enough with the pink. That niche is filled. Some of us would like classic cruiser gear for the dusty road, and River Road has answered our call with their Sierra jacket. This is a jacket for ...

When it comes to riding jackets, often times function and fashion have a hard time seeing eye-to-eye. Alpinestars seems to be one of those companies that has nearly perfected the art, though. Always at the front of the pack when it comes to quality and workmanship, the Italian company also knows how to ...