In contrast to the position, say 20 or 30 years ago, the flip helmet is not spurned in the way that it used to be. If you commute or tour, then the case for riding in a flip is so strong that it barely needs making these days. But even if you are a leisure rider who only occasionally gets out at weekends, there are still many benefits.

My inspiration, so to speak, for this review, came from a comparison of adventure jackets that I read recently in a magazine. Now I am not a great fan of product reviews that appear in magazines. By and large, motorcycle journalists simply don’t know enough about gear and how it works. They usually don’t ride in the gear they’re testing. And they don’t get the kind of feedback that people like us get from hundreds of customers who buy it; and who then report back to us on their findings.

For as long as we have been associated with Halvarssons, a mid-length, drop-liner jacket has been at the heart of the Swedish company’s collection. Initially, there was the Prime. Then came the Wien. So popular was it that it was always said that the company was fearful of replacing it with anything dissimilar, in case they got it wrong.

For many years, Halvarssons has been one of our favourite brands here at Motolegends. Long have we banged on about the notion that the brand offers, say 80% of the functionality of Rukka, but at 50% of Rukka’s prices. And we still don’t think we are far wrong on this. But, like Rukka, Halvarssons’ forté is technical gear for commuting and touring, with maybe a bit of adventure riding thrown in for good measure.

Even though you may well be able to buy helmets accredited to the old 22-05 safety standard for quite a few years yet, from the middle of this year the helmet manufacturers will no longer be able to produce helmets to that standard. So over the next six to 12 months you will be seeing a lot of helmets being relaunched to the new, more rigorous ECE 22-06 standard. The new standard makes many more and much higher demands of a helmet in terms of its ability to receive an impact and protect the rider.

Klim does road suits, and what one might term ‘adventure’ suits. And in both, they have what could be called a standard offering, and a premium offering. For premium, think ‘feature laden’ perhaps. In the adventure category there’s the Badlands and then, one rung below it, the Carlsbad. In the road category, their top jacket is the Kodiak. Below it sits the Latitude.

The Switchback is a cargo-style, single-layer, well-vented, off-road trouser. This is the latest iteration, and I have to say that we are truly excited. We really rated the old Switchback. Strangely, when we placed our Klim order for 2023, we were told that the Switchback had failed to pass EN17092, and that it would not be available this year. But not only does it turn out that the Switchback has been produced; it is now rated AA under EN17092, as opposed to the single A of the previous model.

Henry Cole and his gang of merry helpers on The Motorbike Show get to do the kind of things many bikers would like to do. Try out exotic machines, old and new. Meet interesting folk who live for motorcycling. Travel the roads less travelled. Visit famous biker haunts. Sample different forms of motorcycle sport. Restore the occasional box of bits. And so on.

Looking for the best motorcycle jeans for men? We offer the highest quality A, AA and AAA rated single-layer motorbike jeans. Comfort, safety and fit are our priorities. See our best riding jeans, and buy in store or online from Motolegends, the UK’s leading motorcycle outfitter, with free shipping and free returns on all protective orders.

We haven’t always been keen to get involved in the motorcycle security business. Clothing is really what we know. And we do get concerned about making promises we cannot keep. A couple of years ago we sold a device called a Litelok. It was a pretty impressive and nifty product. It was light, and rolled up small so that it could be fitted into a pannier or top box without any fuss.

Here at Motolegends we sell a lot of Shoei Neotec 2 helmets ; probably more than anybody. Anywhere. We like flips, and we like Shoeis. But the Neotec 2 also just happens to be the right kind of helmet for a lot of our customers. If we were based in Chelsea or Shoreditch, we would probably sell far fewer. But a lot of customers are commuters, and a lot of them do big tours, both here and on the continent. And for that kind of riding the Neotec is the perfect tool for the job.

My wife and I are both keen motorcycle riders. But our work lives are a bit hectic, and so we don’t tend to get a lot of time away from the office. But things slow down in the run-up to Christmas, and the business we run together closes between Christmas and New Year, so that tends to be a good time to get away. We like biking holidays, but the timeframe means that we like to hit the ground running. We normally like to find somebody local who can sort out all the logistics, supply the bikes, book hotels for us and so on.

We potentially really like the Rimo-R. It is a two-layer, Gore-Tex, laminated, adventure suit. It has pretty much all the bells and whistles that a rider might want; with one key exception. It does not come with armour in the elbows, shoulders, knees, hips and back. Now, we kind of know why Rukka has done this, but we don’t think this is the right jacket for this type of treatment. Let us explain.

The Artemis is Klim’s high-end, offering for ladies. And although Klim has positioned the Artemis as an adventure suit we fail to see the basis on which it could not be considered equally appropriate for any kind of road riding or touring. In fact, we think it will work incredibly well on the road. It will be better in this role than any other Klim outfit, and indeed we cannot think of many other suits out there that can match it for versatility. New for 2022, the suit is an upgrade on its predecessor, with more venting, more abrasion resistance, more storage space and more mobility.

The Myrvik jacket and its matching Myrtorp pant constitute a new-for-2022 adventure suit. It will eventually replace the Mora and Malung. But let us be clear about what an adventure suit is, because there are lots of different kinds of suits out there that purport to be designed for adventure riding.

In this Rukka Coriace 2.0 review, we talk explain why this is one the most protective motorcycle suits on the market, but also why it may not be for everybody. Many years ago, Rukka produced a leather suit with a waterproof membrane that was laminated to the leather outer.

We are far from the world’s largest seller of motorcycle apparel, but we are probably one of the noisiest. We care about the detail. We like gear to work. And so we spend more time than other retailers talking with the manufacturers in an attempt to help them improve their products.

The Naren jacket and its matching Laggan pant constitute a new-for-2022 laminated suit. It will eventually replace the Vansbro/Wish combination that has been a favourite of ours for quite a few years. Like the Vansbro suit suit, the new Naren outfit has a two-layer laminated construction, which means it will never wet out in even the heaviest of downpours. Two-layer garments are just as waterproof as three-layer ones, but they tend to be more comfortable because, when you laminate a third layer to the fabric, it makes it somewhat stiffer.

We are not going to try and deny that, over the years, we have become what might be termed Rokker fan boys. Nonetheless, we don’t like everything the Swiss company produces. And as with most of the brands we work with, we tend to pick and choose the lines we like. We love, for example, their Urban Racer boots. We quite like their shirts. We’re not so taken with their gloves, but they do makes some very nice chinos. What they do better than anybody else, though, is jeans.

We first advertised the Cosmo/Avolo suit last year but, as ever with Held, availability was laughably poor. Yes there was Brexit, and yes there was the pandemic, but their distribution arrangements over here were totally inadequate, and getting hold of stock was nigh on impossible.