Cycle Leather

Riding a motorcycle can be rough on your hands.  Sun, wind, and rain, not to mention road grit, pebbles, and insects can play havoc on the your fingers at the best of times.  The best way to protect your hands while enjoying your rides is a good pair of leather motorcycle gloves.

Motorcycle gloves come in a wide variety of styles, colors, and material options.  Perforated and fingerless designs work well in warmer weather, providing the needed margin of protection while not overheating your hands.  Lined, insulated, and gauntlet-style gloves are ideal for colder weather or when the weather suddenly takes a downturn.  I always carry a pair of unlined gauntlet style leather gloves in my saddle bag even in the summer, it doesn’t have to be winter for you to get pretty uncomfortable from rain blowing up your sleeves.

Motorcycle safety is a subject that is often overlooked or taken for granted by both new and experienced riders alike.  Such things as wearing proper motorcycle safety gear (a leather motorcycle jacket, and a helmet at the least) and practicing emergency procedures can make the difference between going home and going the the hospital, or worse.

 Sign up for a Motorcycle Safety Course.  They will teach you important skills such as counter-balancing, maneuvering, obstacle avoidance, safely starting and stopping on loose aggregate.  I recommend this even for experienced riders if you have never done it, you may surprise yourself and learn something new.

Buy a few good books on Motorcycle Safety, and actually read them from cover to cover.  Refresh again in the spring before the regular riding season starts.  Motorcycle safety cannot be over-emphasized, a mistake on the highway can do a lot more that damage your bike, it could seriously damage you.

More to come… Ride Safe

Several states now offer free courses for both novice and experienced riders.  These courses are invaluable to the young or new rider just starting out, as they teach not only riding technique and the mechanics of basic motorcycle operation but, most importantly, proper safety and emergency procedures.  It is vitally important that you have some sort of training on how to handle unexpected occurrences on the road before they occur, and that is what many of these courses teach.  In our opinion, these courses are as important for the new rider as any other proper safety gear, such as a good leather motorcycle jacket and a DOT approved helmet.

Another great bonus of these training courses is that, in addition to being free, many of them also supply the motorcycles for you to learn and practice on.  Refer to your state DOT website for course availability and locations.

Motorcycle gloves are among the most important accessories for riding a motorcycle on the open road.  This is easy to understand once you have been out riding down the highway and had a pebble from a passing car or truck peg you square in the knuckle, Ouch!!  But you don’t want your hands all sweaty and hot on a steamy summer day either.  A great compromise between comfort and protection are fingerless leather gloves.  Fingerless gloves provide the needed protection to the knuckles, yet still leave your fingertips free to manipulate the controls and vent excess heat and moisture.  Some even have pads on the palm and heel of the hand to reduce fatigue on long trips, and perforations across the knuckles and back for even more airflow. 

Leather motorcycle clothing can also protect riders and passengers from the hot surfaces  present on an operating or recently operated motorcycle.  The engine and exhaust system get extremely hot during operation and often can remain quite hot for some time after the bike is turned off.  Exposed skin, or skin covered only by thin clothing, can sustain serious burns in a matter of seconds from contact with these surfaces. 

 Leather chaps will protect the rider’s legs from accidental contact with the engine and/or exhaust while riding and also when mounting and dismounting the bike.  Passengers should also wear leather chaps since, depending on the model of motorcycle, the exhaust system and muffler are often routed quite near to the passengers legs as well.  

If a motorcycle goes down at highway speed, or even moderate speed, the rider can slide for a considerable distance on the road surface before coming to a stop.  This sliding and or tumbling causes damaging friction, much like exposing your skin to sandpaper or a grinding wheel (not a pleasant thought at all).  Exposed skin can suffer devastating damage from exposure to the road surface, cotton shirts and jeans also offer very little protection before being torn away or shredded.

Leather motorcycle jackets and chaps provide a barrier of protection between the riders skin and the harsh road surface, absorbing impact and abrasion.  The tough leather jacket, and padding underneath, will wear away on the road surface, absorbing friction and giving the rider time to slide to a stop before the road surface reaches their vulnerable skin. 

Nobody ever climbs on their bike planning to be involved in an accident before reaching their destination or returning home, but accidents do happen - and if it happens to you, I guarantee you will be thankful you were wearing leather. 

That would be ’Unidentified Flying Road Debris’   

But seriously, if you’ve been riding more than an hour, I’m sure you are familiar with the pebbles and road debris that can be kicked up by passing vehicles and vehicles you may be following from time to time.  Wearing a leather motorcycle jacket and leather chaps protects a riders skin from these usually small, but potentially injurous missiles.  The toughness of the leather and padding will help to deflect and absorb the impacts of these objects.

And let’s not forget about ‘bugs’.  Impacting a large, hard-shelled bug at highway speed and be quite painful on bare skin or thin clothing.  And that’s if it is just an ordinary bug, you also run the risk of impacting a bee or wasp, which puts you into a whole new category of pain (I can tell you from experience).  Depending on the location of the impact, this can pose a serious safety and/or control risk to the rider operating the motorcycle.  The thick, resilient protection afforded by leather can easily absorb these impacts unscathed, sparing you the pain and risk.  For obvious reasons, we also recommend wearing a helmet, with a face-shield, and gloves.

If you thought that donning a leather motorcycle jacket and maybe some leather chaps and a helmet were all the protection you would ever need while cruising the highways on your motorcycle, think again…

A Canadian inventor has been granted a patent, by the UK, for an Electromagnetically shielded motorcycle seat.  Apparently, tests have shown that motorcycles generate massive amounts of EMF (ElectroMagnetic Field) and ELF (Extremely Low Frequency) radiation, which can penetrate through the motorcycles seat and into the riders groin and torso.   Some studies have indicated that extensive, long-term exposure to these types of radiation may be linked to numerous health problems including cancer. 

The inventor claims that steel or even lead are not sufficient to shield riders from this hazardous exposure, but the highly processed materials in his patented design can.

Should you be concerned?  Click here to read the complete article and decide for yourself.