Nobody doubts the fact that, right now, all the growth in motorcycling is coming from the adventure sector, and the reasons for this are manifold. The adventure bike is the bike that can do anything. You can commute on an adventure bike; in fact, there's probably no better kind of bike for the job. A modern adventure bike is a lot of fun if you just want to go out for a quick blast at the weekend. And, of course, if you have ambitions to travel further afield, there's no bike more capable of covering the ground, more comfortable to be in the saddle of, or more able to cope with a mix of terrains.

As with most things in life, everything in motorcycling is a compromise. And so when it comes to riding the bike, everyone has to decide what’s most important to them. Buy a sportsbike, for example, and everyone will think you're an exciting and dangerous individual. But you'll scare yourself half to death, get back ache, and accrue speeding fines as though they’re going out of fashion. You will never be able to properly see what's behind you. And you'll have to master the art of trying to look cool whilst walking about in a leather suit that causes you to stoop like the hunchback of Notre Dame.

There are many boot manufacturers out there, and choosing the right boot for your requirements can be a little bewildering. Many people end up buying a boot at their local bike dealer because it seems to fit okay, and the guy in the shop said it was very popular. But if you're a serious rider putting in high mileage, and if you're looking for the highest levels of protection, comfort and durability then you've not done your homework if you haven't tried on, and looked into, a pair of Daytonas.

The X-SPR Pro is Shoei's race helmet. It's the helmet worn by their sponsored riders in series like Moto GP, WSB and BSB. It is designed specifically for racing, although Shoei always knew that it would also prove popular with deep-pocketed, sportsbike riders. Frankly, it is not the kind of helmet that you would expect Motolegends to be ranging. And indeed, even though the helmet has been on sale for a few years now, we have not offered it before. And that's because we're not really a sportsbike kind of company. We don't sell race leathers, even two-piece race leathers. We don't sell race boots. And we don't sell racing gloves.

The doors first opened at Shoei in 1959, although initially the company produced multi-purpose safety helmets. Their first motorcycle helmet was produced in 1960; just three years later they produced their first helmet for racing, although this was still an open-face helmet.

We did a video review some years ago about the best motorcycle helmets that money can buy. And it wasn't, for various reasons, difficult to conclude that the two brands that stood head and shoulders above all the other makers were Shoei and Arai. And we'll go over some of the reasons for coming to this conclusion in this article. Ultimately, we couldn't come to a definitive resolution, and so we copped out a little. Our verdict was that, whilst the two makers were in a league of their own, Arai clinched it from a protection standpoint.

Recently, we did a review of what we considered to be 10 of the best summer, motorcycle jackets. Our definition of a summer riding jacket being anything without a waterproof membrane. This being a necessity, obviously, to prevent overheating in warmer climes, or when you're working hard off road. And so we thought it appropriate to follow up that review with one about riding trousers that are similarly suited to hot-weather riding.

It's that time of year. Summer is technically here; although it still doesn't feel as though the new season is yet in full swing. But the temperatures are moving up. Occasionally, one might even suggest it's hot. Now that it's a bit warmer, more of us are venturing off road again. And lots of people seem to be setting off on adventures to foreign lands. And so a case can be made for putting your waterproof gloves in a pannier, and wearing a proper summer glove instead.

There can be no doubt that motorcyclists are turning their backs on full-height touring and commuting, motorcycle boots in favour of shorter, easier-to-wear, ankle boots. And it's not difficult to understand why. Now back in the old days, motorcycle boots were all tall. Whatever kind of bike you rode, whatever kind of riding you did, you bought a pair of calf-length boots. But that was when we all wore leather or textile suits. The bike might have been the only form of transport many people had, and not everybody was flush enough to have different riding outfits to match the conditions, or a stable of different bikes.

Based in the middle of Surrey, Motolegends is fortunate to be within an easy ride for many motorcyclists. If you live in Surrey, Hampshire, West Sussex, Berkshire or the western half of Kent you can probably be here inside 90 minutes at the very most. Of course, we're not far from the great metropolis either, although it's going to be an easier hike from west or south London than it is from north or east.

Long have I been convinced of the benefits of a stretchy, woven belt for anchoring a pair of motorcycle jeans at the correct height. Most motorcycle belts are thick and heavy leather affairs. They're consistent with the 'tough guy' aesthetic that many of us bikers, somewhat delusionally, still cling to.

The new-for-2024 Belstaff Brooklands heralds a long overdue update to what many people would consider to be the coolest and easiest to wear jacket in the entire Belstaff waxed cotton collection. It was in the range even before the Italian Malenotti family acquired the ailing British brand back in 2004.

The Crosby jacket has been in the Belstaff motorcycle range for quite a while, although it was not around in the olden days before the brand was rescued by the Italian Melanotti family, whereas styles like the Trialmaster and Brooklands were. But that does not alter the fact that the Crosby has long been the most wearable and practical jacket in the company's waxed cotton collection.

The Belstaff Trialmaster goes back a long way. Some say it was first introduced in 1948; and certainly that's not implausible. In fact, it was Barbour that first created the long, four-pocket, waist-belted, waxed-cotton jacket. That jacket came about in response to a request from submariner Captain Phillips, who, during the war, asked Barbour to create a cut-down version of their one-piece, Ursula suit that had been created specifically for crews of U-class submarines.

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The Kemi jacket, and its matching pant, are new for 2024. Let's talk first about the jacket because, as ever, the jacket will usually be the deciding factor when it comes to buying a suit. Not always, but often. We'll then talk about the pant, and conclude with a view about the Kemi as a suit, and how it stacks up against other Rukka suits, and perhaps against similarly priced suits from other manufacturers.

In 2019, when Arai introduced the 'Rapide', they changed the way we thought about retro helmets. It was the first truly modern, retro-styled, full-face helmet. In 2023, the Rapide was relaunched as an ECE 22-06 helmet, and its name was changed to Concept-XE. For a number of years prior to the Rapide's launch we had petitioned the major helmet manufacturers to produce a high-quality, retro helmet. And that was because, whilst there were lots of retro helmets out there, most were little more than over-priced, novelty pieces. Some of them looked great, some had fabulous graphics, but most simply didn’t work on the bike in the way one expected a modern helmet to.

Maybe, at times, we here at Motolegends can be a bit black and white about things; a bit purist. Perhaps it's our desire to cut through all the nonsense, to cut out all the noise, and to help people understand what kind of gear they do really need, and the gear they don't really need. And so we do sometimes get aerated when people bang on about adventure suits, as though it's a type of suit in its own right.

This is the first in a new series about motorcycle clothing. Today, we are going to talk about jackets. In future reviews, we will cover helmets, boots, gloves and riding trousers. Now the idea here is to help those who are perhaps more recent converts to motorcycling. There's a lot of gear out there. And if you're new to all this, the choice can be a touch bewildering. Browsing the shelves of your local motorcycle megastore won't necessarily help, as rarely are the sales assistants going to care enough to want to help you find what's best for you. Surfing the internet will bring you into contact with lots of people who want to sell you stuff, and with lots of people who want want to air their ‘honest’, but often totally subjective, opinions. But nobody is going to go to great lengths to explain how anything works; and in truth you can waste many hours watching videos, and end up none the wiser.

Okay, let me remove the suspense from a subject that is going to be hotly debated, I suspect, for many a year to come. I don't want anyone to think that I have gone all soft, or politically correct, but I can reveal the result of our deliberations now. And it's that the best helmet here is going to be the one that fits you best. That may sound like a bit of a cop out, and that's not normally the way we do things here at Motolegends. We are not afraid of taking sides, but hear us out.