I’ve always felt most comfortable with at least three wheels underneath me.
I guess the die was cast when my first motorised toy was a kid was a 70cc Honda trike. Yep, one of the infamous death machines. I survived, obviously, and I still have the little Honda to this day. I did, however, eventually graduate to bigger quad bikes before I later left the dirt behind and started racing cars.
At some point I joined the two-wheel party, although never in an overly serious way. I’ve owned a couple of semi-sporty road bikes but never tried to ride them really hard. These days I own two bikes. Well, one bike – a 350cc BSA from the mid-1960s – and a 50cc scooter for ripping around Fremantle.
Neither go very fast and, as unwise as it actually is, I’ve fallen into the trap of being a little relaxed on the gear front. I’ll generally throw my old (but still in very good nick) Alpinestars textile jacket and gloves on when taking the Beezer for a burn around the Serpentine Dam, but had left my days of protective pants behind me and opted for jeans.
I won’t even get started with what gets worn on the scooter on a hot West Aussie day…
When KTM invited me to Spain for the 30 Years of Duke celebration, I quickly realised my existing riding wardrobe wasn’t going to cut it. It was time for an upgrade.
So, my friends at KTM put me in touch with their friends at Alpinestars. And boy am I glad they did.
As well as my old gear had held up, technology obviously moves on. That was obvious as soon as I was getting kitted out in my new swag. Given I was off to do pretty serious motorcycling, I wanted good, leather gear that would be suitable for both road and track.
For a jacket I went for the Atem V4, based purely on Strett Cull – who sells Alpinestars gear through his long-standing Cully’s Yamaha dealer in Perth – telling me it was the best jacket for what I was off to do. A whole lot of protection, but comfortable enough for long stints on a bike when you’re not used to long stints on a bike.
The Atem V4 has been a staple of the Alpinestars range since 2020 and Strett’s description was perfect. I’ve tried the odd leather jacket, at lower price points, and always found them tough to wear. Hence why I always reverted to the old textile faithful. But I’ll happily keep using the Atem V4 from now on. Even the styling, in the grey and black I went with, is aggressive enough to fit in on track (particularly when turned into a two-piece suit), but not over the top that you’d feel out of place on a more casual ride on an older/less aggressive road bike.
Of course, when aggression is required you have the option of zipping the Atem V4 to a pair of suitable Alpinestars leather pants. In my case, I went with the Missile V3 pants. I was a little worried about going for leather pants. In the days I did wear protective pants, I always went down the kevlar jeans path. With leather, I was worried about a) looking much better at riding than I am, and b) being horrendously uncomfortable.
But, the word from KTM was that we needed full leather gear for track work. So I was forced down the Missile V3 route. Which turned out to be a good thing.
For starters, there is nothing uncomfortable about these pants. It appears that stretch was a real focus from Alpinestars when developing the third version of the Missile and for a relative noob (who is also still carrying a little off-season ballast) it showed. The curious thing about a press launch for a motorcycle is that you get dressed and then go and sit in a media briefing for a half hour or so. Even then, the pants were comfortable. Handy to know if you’re adding a coffee stop to your ride. The only disappointing thing about the pants was the state of the knee sliders after a heap of track work. I mean, they were absolutely perfect. Not a scratch on them. Not at all the fault of the pants themselves. But terrible for my track cred…
My preference of staying reasonably upright was a factor when it came to my choice of boots. I went with the gore-tex version of the SMX-6 V2 based largely on both comfort, and what my expectation of the riding experience would be. If I thought I was going to be in knee and toe scraping territory, I would have gone with the ‘standard’ SMX-6 V2, with its replaceable toe sliders. But knowing that I was going to be taking a more relaxed, conservative approach, even to my track work, I was happy to take both the comfort, and the weather protection, of the gore-tex boots. Realistically, those two factors are most important to me – and I’ll get a lot more use out of them. These boots are perfect for the sort of Sunday cruising I do on the old Beezer. But the SMX-6 V2 design meant I had more than enough protection to get through my Spanish adventure.
Weather protection proved to have some importance, too. While out touring the mountain roads on the 990 Duke, we endured a stint riding through snow and ice. I’ll be honest, it was a test that my otherwise brilliant Alpinestars SP-8 gloves didn’t pass. My fingers were frozen. Not really the gloves’ fault, though, as the experience was the same for everyone else in the group that wasn’t wearing specific winter gloves. My toes, however, were warm and dry. As they were when we were splashing around a sodden Almeria circuit on the 1390 Super Duke R later that same day.
The trip to Spain, and my re-introduction to proper riding gear, was food for thought. I’m not sure I’m about to start suiting up like I want to win the Isle of Mann to ride my scooter to the shops, but I’ll be taking a more diligent approach to my weekend warrior work from now on.
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