Every biker has to have a leather jacket. I’m sure there’s a law written down somewhere that decrees that every motorcyclist must, at some stage, be so equipped. By the same token, there are very few motorcycle clothing manufacturers out there who do not have a leather jacket in their range. Which means the choice is huge and overwhelming.

As Chris explains in this review, there’s no such thing as the perfect motorcycle jacket. And, without doubt, the Gamma jacket from Spidi is not going to meet the needs of a lot of motorcyclists. But for a small minority of riders the Gamma is going to be exactly what they’ve been looking for. It is, by any definition, an urban jacket.

The Rukka Forsair Pro is like a mesh jacket on steroids. The problem with most mesh jackets is that they’re not particularly protective. Most of them are simply going to fall apart in any kind of accident at more than 30mph. The Forsair Pro is made from a 750 denier Cordura for strength, but on this garment the Cordura is knitted rather than woven, allowing it to flow almost twice as much air. What’s more, every single panel of the jacket is going to flow air.

Here at Motolegends we are the jeans people. We sell more motorcycle jeans than anybody in the country. But as we move forward we won’t be offering any traditional aramid-lined, or Kevlar, jeans. They’re just too yesterday! The future is in single-layer jeans where the denim thread is woven around a super-strong fibre to create a single-layer fabric that is very abrasion resistant.

The glove that Chris is talking about today is not usually available to the public. It is made by Brian Sansom of BKS Leathers for a number of UK Police forces, but because we also sell to lots of Police forces, and because we have known Brian forever, we were granted special dispensation to offer these gloves to our customers. The version we’re talking about today is what is known as the summer version.

We love the Rokker boys. We love the Rokker brand. These guys combine cool style with high performance in the way that no other motorcycle clothing manufacturer does. Michael and Kai make the best jeans, the best chinos and the best boots. And every now and then they do a pretty decent jacket too. A case in point is their College Jacket. Never has a proper motorcycling jacket looked less like a proper motorcycling jacket.

The Zephyr shirt from Klim is a really neat and simple bit of kit, but it’s none the worse for that. It’s going to be really useful for a lot of bikers in a lot of circumstances. It’s basically a super-thin, windproof, inner jacket. It’s made from a four-way stretch fabric, to which has been laminated a waterproof/windproof membrane.

Now, there’s nothing particularly fancy or special about this jacket. On one level, it’s simply a ‘cheap as chips’ summer jacket that is not particularly worthy of great comment. Indeed, it’s not even a very new style.

Now we’ve titled this review ‘Top 10 short motorcycle boots’, and we’ve called it that because someone told us that Google loves ‘Top Ten’ reviews. But we simply couldn’t narrow down our selection to just 10 pairs, so the review actually covers no less than 15 different styles. Just don’t tell Google, please!  Now we’ve narrowed our choices to two styles of boot.

Now Chris worships Anthony at RevZilla. If you’re going to do video reviews on motorcycle products, it’s Anthony who sets the bar. Chris kicks off this review with a bit of a joke about the big fella and his review of the Klim Aggressor base layers. There’s only one problem here. Anthony didn’t do that review, but that doesn’t deter the Chap in the Cap. He’s never been one to let the facts get in the way of a good line.

The AFT initials stand for ‘Air Flow Technology’, and what that means is that this is a glove that is designed to flow large volumes of air in hotter conditions. The problem for us is that Rukka already does a really vented glove; and we love it. That glove is the Forsair. It’s a lovely, lightweight and stretchy glove that is so easy to wear, and that flows air through to the hand very nicely.

Frankly, we are in as much of a state of confusion as everybody else. Only a month ago we were excited at the very prospect of 2020. We were encouraged by our newly introduced video reviews; they were going down well and introducing us to lots of new customers. Business was well up on 2019. Exciting new gear was starting to come through. There were loads of talks with IAM groups booked into the diary. And we had a busy calendar of social events for the year that included a fashion show, overseas excursions, bike nights, fish and chip runs and so on.

The Spidi J & Dyneema jean is a slim-fitting, 13 ounce, single-layer jean made from a material called Dyneema, The jean has a 4.1 second slide time. Read our full review, and buy online from the UK’s premier motorcycle clothing store, with free shipping and free returns on all protective orders.

This event has now been cancelled.

It was in 2013 that Shoei first introduced the world to its J-Cruise helmet. It replaced a helmet called the J-Wing that had, in turn, been in the Shoei range for many years. But, for 2020, Shoei has improved and updated the J-Cruise with an upgraded model called, somewhat unimaginatively, the J-Cruise 2.

In a recent video review of a Halvarssons jacket I was somewhat disparaging about the hooded, inner thermal jacket. Predictably perhaps somebody commented that I was being elitist. Nonsense, I just felt that a hoodie in a Halvarssons jacket would alienate a lot of potential buyers. Personally, I’ve got nothing against a hoodie, provided it is not being worn by some South London, hammer-toting, pavement-mounting, scooter rider!

New from Halvarssons for 2020, and scheduled to arrive with us at some point in March, is a pant called the Zion. As Chris explains, it’s a bit of a hybrid. In its camo colourway, it looks like it should be an adventure pant, and with a removable waterproof membrane, this might reinforce such an impression. But, with no vents, this is no off-road pant.

This video review is somewhat of a biggie; both in terms of the subject it tackles but also in length. The subject matter is single-layer motorcycle jeans. Now, for some reason, we’ve always been big on riding jeans. Must have something to do with the kind of bikers we are. But, in recent years, we’ve become the poster boys for single-layer jeans.

You may not even have noticed that the Crosby disappeared from the Belstaff line-up for a while, but now it's back. It is made from a new fabric that has been produced for Belstaff by British Millerain and, of course, the jacket is now fully CE approved. The Crosby has long been a favourite of ours here at Motolegends. The shorter Mojave is sportier. It can be worn on the street, and nobody would ever know that it was actually a proper biking jacket.

We’re somewhat late to the party as far as video reviews are concerned, and we’re having to play catch up. Which is why we’re recording reviews every single day of the week. We’re reviewing a lot of existing products, but as new stuff arrives into the warehouse we’ll be reviewing all of that too.