Its all done to the cut,grain, tanning of the leather, then the design and stitching quality and type. Its a specialist art, with some very skilled practitioners out there who have learnt through years of graft what is required to give you the best chance when you inevitably have a face to face meeting with the blacktop. Hate to say it, but like most things in life, you get what you pay for, a lot of 'race suits' out there would give you very little protection if you tripped over in the boozer on a Friday night, I have seen so many seams burst on impact and so called quality leather just burn through in yards, its scary that these type of suits are being sold to mostly ill informed punters. Then buying blind on look and price, you can get lucky, but mostly you are taking a huge gamble.
I've seen a run of the mill 2 piece alpinestar zips burst on both jacket and trousers on impact, and a set of sidi vertigo come clean off his feet! Ok it was a biggie - but if "decent" stuff we all wear due to perceived quality and reputation can fail like this, then I'd really have to do my research before I went off piste. Like you big believer in you get what you pay for and always get the best you can afford, because you never know.
When you look what happens to a car in an impact it's no wander leathers don't always do there job the forces involved are immense. I buy what I feel is the best I can afford and hope it will afford me some protection should the worst happen but I am a realist and don't expect miracles and just hope I never have to test any of it in anger !
Very true mate, what can you reasonable expect them to survive. Fair shout. But agree, best you can get within reason is gives you the best chance. Best doesn't always mean most expensive, but good quality gear isn't cheap
I agree to a point Jamie, but a lot of suits are bought on style/design first, brand name and price. You can go to a real specialist, get a made to measure suit for similar or not a lot more money, that will give you better protection. Sure you will not have the sexy replica name, but it will give you a good chance of coming out the other side with less issues. In my case my suit has survived several launches, the biggest was a get off around 120mph, I went a long way sliding before the tumbleweed routine, finally slowed down by a gravel trap, and not one part went through, a few sacrificial panels did their job, and were replaced. Do you get hurt, yep of course you do, fraction burns from inside the suit, bruising, muscle strain, all the usual issues, but that's better than skin grafts any day in my book.
Agree, I'm guilty of wanting them to look good as well as perform well, I think we all are but that's why I sold the replica eBay ones after looking them over, the wolf kangaroo one piece I have now is far better made that those you can see straight away and I am getting the Scott leathers who's quality is highly regarded. Problem is we can't see a 5 star crash test on leathers before we buy ... But car drivers must be protected... We however are not so important
Honda Repsol Gas MotoGP Leather MotoGP / WSB Suit Range Honda Repsol Gas HRC Biker Leathers MotoGP / WSB Suit Range : Honda Repsol Gas HRC Biker Leathers Honda Repsol Gas MotoGP Leather 1 Piece Suit MotoGP / WSB Suit Range : Honda Repsol Gas MotoGP Leather 1 Piece Suit
Sorry for the thread bump but have to thank blackDevil for sharing these links with the forum. I'm a R6 man but stumbled on this post by virtue of another members recent visit to the londonleathers site I am part of the small team of at londonleathers and I assure all that we take quality of our leathers seriously and always looking to improve with help of feedback Yes our supply comes from Pakistan as well, and admittedly initially quality was a bit average when we used 3rd party suppliers but now we invested on our own factory on location as the worlds main biker leathers manufacturing industry skill base (good and bad) is actually in Sialkot, Pakistan which is a fact We visit our factory on a regular basis to keep quality processes in check and as keen bikers ourselves would like to think we kind of know what we are doing and most definitely a cut above the average ebay stuff sold which reflects the price Happy to chat with anyone in the market for custom made leathers or replicas even, i'm usually sitting on the live chat on website during office hours Oh and we'll soon open our London office up to visitors on an appointment basis to come check out our leathers and get sized up over a coffee/tea Cheers Bernie
Got mine from scott leathers , made to measure £850 only place I knew of which you could be sure they fit well. Buying off the peg or ebay isn't great for everyone.
Yep they certainly look great and the custom route is the way to go for best fit, but i would say some of the latest off the peg size stuff we do now are snug as a bug, we call em monkey style suits, as examples check out the RTX Protech suit and cheeky Rossi Motogp rep...
Dont really rate the quality of the race rep suit since TIM italian mobile network is spelt TMI. Quite a lack of attention to detail there....
LoL sorry my bad for posting image of a factory reject , lack of paying attention on my account indeed! Rest assured they are correct on the website image now replaced with the 2pc road version...
