Riding round southern France in my trusty Hiene Gerrike jacket last month caused me to sweat buckets – leading to dehydration perils. The proprietor of the ‘biker’ hotel I stayed in told me her husband wore a BMW Airflow jacket in the hot weather, so I turned to the source of advice and opinion, ukgser.com and then in turn dallied a while on the BMW clothing internet pages toying with the idea of splashing out over £800 on that strange BMW Rallye pro suit that makes you look like a Lego person while simultaneously emptying your wallet/bank account.
Luckily just one person on the UKGS owners’ site mentioned that he found such apparel unbearably hot in Morocco, and recommended another jacket made by a company I’d never heard of, Revit, so I headed to Bykebitz.co.uk and picked up the Revit air for 114 squids. Its such a light jacket, I could hardly believe it when it arrived. Today I took it for a short test this warm and slightly humid afternoon. It is actually cool. Unlike most motorcycle jackets, its designed to let the air in and it does it beautifully. Its comfortable and fits well and looks, well, ok.
It has CE approved armour at the elbows and shoulders and a back protector, though I wouldn’t mind upgrading this as soon as possible as this seems to be quite lightweight. So far I’d recommend it. I’m not sure how much abrasion protection it would supply but I’m quite prepared to believe that a hot jacket that causes you to lose fluid and feel uncomfortably hot is not entirely safe either.
Now the question is, can I find some good textile trousers that match. Trying to peel off my heavy leathers at the end of a hot day was something I refrained from writing about in my travel diary.
My last tour of any length was in Wales, almost two years ago now (gotta stop working so much :/), and I had the same issue – it was like 30˚C and in my cheap first bike suit I just sweated buckets.
After much searching, I’ve ended up with the Rev’it Cayenne Pro suit. It’s one of these with removable layers for both keeping warm and keeping dry. If you take them all out it lets air through quite nicely. I put some thoughts up here if you’re at all interested.
Rev’it seem to do a good job – I never go in to bike shops with the intention to buy Rev’it brand items, but I have quite a lot of their stuff now.
Yes, I’d never heard of them before. I will definately look for the trousers. Do you guys fancy a ride out to somewhere one evening before they start to get dark? The restaurant at Hertford Marina is meant to be ‘biker friendly’. Its a nice road out there but its a bit of a treck. There are other places I’m sure. M