Since July 2014 we ride in Rukka Cosmic jackets and pants. The Rukka jacket and pants are a combination outfit and we have therefore moved them to the Jackets section.
Below you can read about our previous motorcycle pants and how they worked.
Pants are for some reason often overlooked. Jackets are seen as a safety requirement while pants are quite often considered to be of secondary importance. Strange as in a fall you will most likely be sliding on your ass… The first thing that will hit the ground will be your legs, followed by the same ass as above. We looked at various options. Again leather would be the best option, but after the Village People have been on TV I don't want to be seen in one. So what did we look at, what did we buy and did it work?
Sliders
They seemed a good summer jeans with Kevlar protection, sold in the USA by a company named Competition Accessories. I send them two e-mails, one directly and one via their website, with a few questions on sizing as they wrote on their website: "Especially on the smaller sizes you may want to consider ordering a size down if you want your jeans to be more fitted. We recommend reading the reviews to help with sizing". I just wanted to know what they mean with smaller sizes and who would pay for the postage if it didn't fit. They couldn't be bothered to reply, or be bothered to put the correct sizing labels in, so we couldn't be bothered to buy.
Heavy denim jeans with Kevlar and knee-protectors. Unlike Competition Accessories they answered my e-mail and we bought them. The jeans are indeed heavy denim, are comfortable and can be worn all day. No zippers, no removable liners and none needed. The Kevlar panels at the knees keep them warmer too and so far they haven't been a problem in 30 degree C plus days either. They can be easily made waterproof by fitting one of those old fashioned rain over pants. The 'modern' bikers will laugh at us but we're the last one laughing when they struggle to get the waterproof liner in while getting soaked... Rain over pants slide over the jeans and you don't even have to remove your boots. We also use the rain over pants when it's really cold as it keeps the wind off the Draggin' Jeans, making them surprisingly warm.
There are a couple of downsides to Draggin' Jeans. The knee protectors are useless. The velcro system doesn't work and keeps coming off and the pads themselves are rock-hard when it's cold making the jeans impossible to wear. The other problem is you can't get them anywhere...! In the end we ordered them online and found their women sizing different than most... and had to pay for the return postage ourselves.For some reason the blue jeans are lasting a lot longer than the black ones Mike had. Had? Yes, had! After a couple of months they were simply worn out to the point that the fabric started to tear in various places. The blue jeans are still fine.
DriRider has matching pants to the jackets we have. Again zippered ventilation panels, removable thermal liner and this time also a removable waterproof liner. It's sold as a 4-season pant. It's not. Even with all the liners, including the waterproof one, removed it's too hot for summer use. It is waterproof and comfortable when cold. It has knee-protectors and they are reasonably easy to get into. But that's where the good bit ends. Even in mildly warm days you can't wear it with the waterproof liner as sweat will be running into your boots. Wearing the pants without the waterproof liner is an option but when it starts to rain you will have to take off your boots, take off the pants, wiggle the waterproof liner in it. You'll be soaking wet by then and still have to get dressed again and put your boots on... pretty soon you'll be praying it won't rain ever again. Second problem is; where do you leave all those zippered off layers? You have to store them somewhere, and they are bulky. In the end we send them home.
