There can be no doubt that, with the introduction of new fabrics, fibres and technologies, motorcycle clothing has come a long way in recent years. These developments can make a huge impact on our riding comfort. Bike gear has become lighter, stronger, more waterproof, more breathable; and just nicer to wear, both on and off the bike.

Flip-lids are huge business these days. In the UK and, we are led to believe, in Europe, the Neotec is Shoei’s biggest selling helmet. And so the Japanese maker has put a huge effort in to ensuring that the new model improves upon its predecessor wherever possible. That a new Neotec was due was no secret, of course, because there is a new safety standard, ECE 22-06, and the old helmet did not meet it.

The Explore-R is a classic Rukka outfit. Now Rukka is one of the most respected and prestigious clothing brands in motorcycling. Their gear is not inexpensive, but most people accept that nobody makes better quality, more reliable, more robust motorcycle wear. Theirs is a reputation that has been built up over a period of nearly 40 years. Today Rukka, in modern parlance, owns the ‘winter commuting’ space. If somebody is facing a significant commute, 12 months of the year, and if money is no object, then Rukka is the brand to turn to.

Many years ago, it was very simple. If you rode a motorbike into the office, when you got there you took all your gear off, and put your work clothes on. If you had nowhere to change at work you might have tried to wear your bike gear over your work wear. But that’s rarely a nice way to ride.

Now this might just turn out to be the suit we’ve been looking for. We reckon it could become an important suit for us; and we suspect that it will become equally important to our customers. It has the potential to replace the much-loved Halvarssons Wien/Wish combination that has now been discontinued. The Held outfit has a lot going for it. In some ways, we think it could prove to be even better than the aforementioned Halvarssons suit; but importantly it is going to come in at under £650. Meaning that this is a suit that is going to work for a lot of people.

Bering is not the first name to come to mind when we’re talking about adventure riding gear, or indeed technical wear, per se. There’s nothing wrong with Bering’s quality, and the pricing is usually pretty reasonable. But we are not short of options in this sector; and with brands like Halvarssons, Held, Klim and Rukka we can usually meet most of our customers’ needs. But when the distributor showed us the Freeway suit, we did kind of fall for it.

The Gruven is a new-for-2023, mid-length, two-layer, laminated jacket. It is, in effect, a longer version of the shorter Naren jacket that came out in 2022. The other way of looking at the Gruven is to suggest that it is a laminated version of a jacket that has been in the Halvarssons range for many years: the Wien jacket. When the shorter Naren jacket first came out, we were not all that enthusiastic about it. It ticked a lot of boxes, but we were not massively taken with the way it wore. It didn’t always look great on. It didn’t have much presence.

Cards on the table. We have been a bit dismissive of the Fuel brand in the past. We felt it was a little ‘dressy upy’ for Motolegends. And although we we are not immune from the charms of gear that looks the business, authenticity is a big thing for us.

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.

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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.