Cycle Leather

If you make an investment in a really nice motorcycle jacket, you’re going to want to keep that jacket in the best possible condition. The following are some easy tips to keep that leather jacket looking brand new.

-Do some work beforehand. When you get the jacket home, apply a basic waterproof and conditioning treatment. This extra step will mean you won’t have to worry so much about stepping outside in the rain. And with this treatment, you can add years to the jacket’s life.

-Treat wear and cracks right away. Loose edges can easily be treated with a small amount of rubber cement. If you merely have worn spots, another quick solution is beeswax and mink oil. As an added bonus, this concoction helps stem potential stains.

-Switch to the big guns. If your leather jacket really needs work, you might have to switch to a more professional level treatment. There are plenty on the market, including brands such as Lexol and Snow-Proof.

-Become friendly with a tailor. If your jacket suffers a serious rip or wear spot, no amount of product can restore it to its previous state. In this case, call up your local tailor and see what he/she can do for you. You’d be surprised at the wonders a creative tailor can do for your clothing.

If you are a dedicated motorcycle enthusiast, you know it can be a tricky thing getting your wife or girlfriend interested in the lifestyle. If she is expressing some irritation at all the time you spend riding with friends or fixing your hog, it might be time for a grand gesture.

And that grand gesture can be ordering her a pair of pink motorcycle chaps. If she’s up to the challenge, pink chaps tell her that you want to include her in your hobby.

But beware—don’t order her a pair unless you know she’s actually interested in sharing this lifestyle with you. If she has no interest in the sport, the gift will be essentially meaningless.

Also, if the woman in your life is interested in charity, pink chaps are a fantastic way to express her support of breast cancer research. They would even make the ideal outfit for a female motorcyclist group entering “Relay for Life.”

A week or so ago, I wrote an article on Women and Motorcycles in which I mentioned Bessie Stringfield as one of the women who pioneered womens motorcycling, today I would like to expand on her story a little. 

Born in Kingston, Jamaica and brought to Boston as a child, she was orphaned at age 5 and later “raised by an Irish Lady”, whose name is not mentioned in her biography.  “She gave me what I wanted” said Bessie, “and even though good girls didn’t ride motorcycles, when I wanted a motorcycle at age 16, I got one”. 

From the beginning she was a natural, without any former knowledge of riding, she taught her self to ride the 1928 Indian Scout.  This was to be the only Indian she ever owned, although she did own 27 Harley Davidsons over the course of her lifetime and once said that as far as she was concerned “Harley was the only motorcycle ever made”.

Within a few years she began her adventurous campaign to travel anywhere fate led her by tossing a penny on a map and then just going where it landed.  Along the way she became a carnival stunt rider and participated in hill climbing events.  She even entered and won a flat track race disguised as a man, then was denied the prize money when they learned she was a woman.

Being a black woman on the road in those days was not an easy life though, and her deep Christian faith got her through many a lonely difficult night.  “When I couldn’t find black folks to stay with, I would just sleep at a filling station on my bike”, using her leather motorcycle jacket as a pillow and resting her feet on the rear fender.

She of course worked for the Army during World War II as a civilian motorcycle dispatch rider and made 8 solo transcontinental tours delivering messages between domestic bases.  Racism was an ever present danger in those days and she was even run off the road once and knocked off her bike by someone in a pickup truck.  She always downplayed these events saying, she had her ups and downs.  Such was the bravery and spirit of this unstoppable woman.

Bessie Stringfield was so instrumental in the breaking down of barriers to women and African-American women in particular that when the American Motorcyclists Association opened the Motorcycle Heritage Museum in 1990, Bessie was featured in it’s inaugural exhibit on Women in Motorcycling.  And she was officially inducted into the Motorcycle Hall of Fame in 2002.

I was reading an article in a popular Car Magazine the other day (I won’t mention the name) in which one of it’s contributing editors was expounding the virtues of vegan-ism.  Basically, she was saying that if we ‘all’ quit eating meat entirely, we would eliminate more greenhouse gasses from the environment (methane and carbon dioxide mainly, from the raising of cattle, pigs, and chickens) than all of the cars and trucks on the road contribute.

Don’t get me wrong, everybody is entitled to their own beliefs and to expound the virtues of those beliefs, it is a free country after all.  But then a thought occurred to me, right after thinking about how much I would miss steak, hamburgers and fried chicken.  Where would we get our leather?   Animal hides from the cattle industry account for over 80% of the leather used for motorcycle jackets, and other motorcycle leather and accessories. 

Sorry vegans, I love my leather jacket too much to give up my steak, wink.

Since the days of the old west Saddlebags have been an important part of our traveling gear.  If you were going to be going very far on your horse and you knew you were going to need to bring something back, you made sure to take along your saddlebags. 

The same holds true of our present day two-wheeled ’steeds’.  If your gonna’ be going very far (even to the local store, lol) and you’re gonna need to bring something back, or take something with you when you go), you need a good set of saddlebags.  The plastic or fiberglass ones are ‘ok’, but for classic style and versatility - you just can’t beat a great set of genuine leather saddlebags. 

Not only do they look great, but they will stretch and conform to odd sized cargo like a plastic or fiberglass saddlebag never could.  And with proper care and conditioning, they can have an amazingly long life. 

Anyone who has ever ridden in the rain or cold weather knows the value of a good pair of motorcycle gloves.  They not only protect your hands from the elements, they also help to relieve fatigue and pressure on the palms and pads of your hands on long rides.  Styles and materials are as varied as the people who wear them, lined and unlined, with and without fingers, with gel pads, with Velcro, the list goes on and on, each with their own advantages and applications.  For materials, there’s real leather of course (cowhide, goat-skin, lamb-skin, pig-skin, buffalo…), as well as pleather,  cordura, and various rubberized, and waterproofed fabrics. My personal preference for fair weather riding, is a nice pair of unlined and perforated soft leather gloves with elastic at the wrist.