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Ride in Style - Show your vintage motorcycle riding gear

Edward

Bartender
Messages
25,062
Location
London, UK
Is the purpose to compensate for the lack of suspension?

That's my understanding. The kidneys aren't really supported by anything else, and can jiggle quite a lot otherwise. Also I believe they are intended to force a better posture, reducing lower back pain cause by a long time in the saddle. There's a whole debate of course in the modern era as to whether they are good or harmful, somewhat inevitably largely coloured by individuals' subjective opinions being presented as objective fact, as was ever the case on the internet.
 

Antique Indian Motocycles

One of the Regulars
Messages
129
Edward said:
Riding hats in particular are an interesting curio frozen in time with no obvious evolutionary replacement given that they have (across much of the world, anyhow) given way to a mix of the broad hatless trend and helmet laws.

Riding hats are curious indeed. They were pure functional to keep the hair dry and protect from wind. Most of them didn´t give a smart or cool look,too. Here are some guys wearing riding hats back in the 40s. Every newsboy cap or military styled with a visor looks more cool....
 

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Edward

Bartender
Messages
25,062
Location
London, UK
Edward said:
Riding hats in particular are an interesting curio frozen in time with no obvious evolutionary replacement given that they have (across much of the world, anyhow) given way to a mix of the broad hatless trend and helmet laws.

Riding hats are curious indeed. They were pure functional to keep the hair dry and protect from wind. Most of them didn´t give a smart or cool look,too. Here are some guys wearing riding hats back in the 40s. Every newsboy cap or military styled with a visor looks more cool....

Served much the same function as the leather flying helmet in the same period, really... (seems there was a lot of crossover or at least commonality between riding and flying gear in the early days). The problem with a peaked cap is that once you get any real speed up, you're apt to lose it to the wind!
 

Antique Indian Motocycles

One of the Regulars
Messages
129
When it´s getting colder, a good old leather jacket is my choice for blasting away the autumn leaves. Here you see original 1930s German motorcycle gear. The jacket was tailored around 1937 for MC Competition with extra heavy padding. CHXL HH. There´s a good story behind that jacket I will tell soon. Breeches are HH too in chocolate brown, as popular in prewar times. Boots are Italian HH.

“Ride in Style”

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marker2037

Practically Family
Messages
834
Location
Curacao/NJ, USA
Here's my old Davida helmet I used to wear, mostly on my Norton, although this pic was taken while riding on the Pacific Coast Highway Route 1 on my Triumph Tiger 800 during my cross country motorcycle trip from NJ and back (10,000 total miles traveled in 22 days).

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Yea, it was raining so I had to break out the rain gear during this shot. Underneath is a Dainese jacket.

This low-res pic from my FB is all I could find at the moment as my old pics are all on my old Macbook, which I seem to have lost the charger for.
 

tmitchell59

I'll Lock Up
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7,698
Location
Illinois

Motocann

One Too Many
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1,654
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San Francisco

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