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Messages
17,475
Location
Chicago
I've seen the damage in motorcycle crashes on the job.
I have seen a beautiful biker babe with both sides of her face ground off (half helmet). Dead dudes in full gear wrapped around light poles.
While I fully support the right to wear whatever you want on/off the bike, I am never without a leather jacket and full face helmet, even on the hottest days in the baking sun. I do not mind sweat- helps to break in the leather and make it buttery soft.
Bones have a tendency to heal just fine, skin grafts look nasty and are very painful.
Man I could never be a fireman. God bless you man. Takes serious guts and the type of courage I can't even pretend to have.
 

sweetfights

My Mail is Forwarded Here
Messages
3,301
Location
Canada
I'm the same way but it's funny. If a jacket is too tight to zip it drives me absolutely nuts. There's something about being able to zip it even if you don't. Like a guy with a huge thick head of hair but chooses to shave it off. The option is always there. LOL.

So true.
I am the exact same. I may rarely zip up but I have to have that option.
 

Edward

Bartender
Messages
25,069
Location
London, UK
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Perhaps. But that's also like the kind of guys who insist on wearing motorcycle jackets but don't ride. Whatever floats their boat.

Meh. Nowhere near as bad as those poseurs who run about in an Irvin or an A2 and have never even sat in the cockpit of a plane! ;)

I rode my bike for years in nothing heavier than a flannnel shirt. I'd only wear my leather jackets, almost exclusively, off my bike. I don't equate a leather jacket with someone riding an m/c anymore than someone wearing a B3 flying a B-52.

Certain styles that might once have been a 'motorcycle jacket' - Perfectos, D-POckets, Cafe racers, all the classics - are, and have been since the 70s, really, no more exclusively motorcycle jackets than are MA1 styles for pilots. By this point, a 'real' motorcycle jacket is more about functionality rather than whether someone wears a jacket which is made from leather on a motorcycle. Course, with the advances in underlayer protection these days, it's getting to the point where you can pretty much wear anything as long as you have the high abrasion resistant stuff with the CE panels built in and you won't have to worry so much about road rash other than whatever happens to that nice tweed suit on the top layer...


Maybe the guys riding in head to toe leather have googled "road rash pictures" and decided they would rather avoid it...
It only takes one time!

True. and at that, most accidents, statistically speaking, happen within a mile of home - typically the sort of distance that many folks who might be minded to wear protective gear for a longer run don't think it worth bothering for.

Leather is okay in autumn / winter but yeah, I don't understand how can anyone wear a leather jacket on a bike in summer. I see a lot of people wearing a full leather getup even on the warmest days. Makes me wonder how it doesn't kill them. Can't imagine being boiled in that brazen bull is much worse... Used to ride a lot in winter which is when a warm leather jacket becomes essential. That's what got me into leather jackets, actually!

Certainly been interesting to watch the developments in warmer weather bike gear in the last ten years - kevlar and the really thin, flexible armour that's available these days makes quite the difference in the heat. Course, a lot probably has been down to climate too. I remember years ago discovering that when I went out in a leather jacket that was a little too warm for the Summer day, and fast feeling the benefit of it (and even wishing I'd put on another layer) when I got pillion on the back of my dad's bike at fifty mph.

There are vintage examples out there: ETSY LINK


Made in Toronto also and I just realised that it's in fact an original Score.

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Notice how the label is also at the side.

For me one of the best designs from Dave is the Arrowhead Pullover Racing Jacket

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Interesting designs, but definitely styles more for the racetrack than off-the-bike wear. Interestingly, though, that pullover style would I think be great for allowing better chest protection for modern racewear, but I suppose it'd now be considered long superceded by the one-piece race suit.
 

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