[hkdman]

Hello. Just returned to riding after a 10 year break (used to ride during my wild college days!) Anyway, back when I rode, I never concerned myself with proper gear (other than the helmet) As I am now older, I find that my skin is worth more now than 10 years ago! Anyway, I have recently bought an Alpinestar textile jacket and plan to also buy some alpine star riding pants….I am getting a lot of conflicting stories about whether or not leather is better than textile. The guy at Cycle gear was adamant that I needed leather…but I don’t know..is it that much of a difference? Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

[AzN LogiK]

I’m a leather guy myself. I guess just how much you’re willing to pay for a medical bill in case something happens. My skin is valuable to me also, and so I invested in leather.

[Ben]

In my opinion leather is great, but for most riders textile is fine. If you plan on regularly hitting triple digits like the guys do at the track, then i would say you should DEFINITELY get leather. But if you are like most riders and the fastest you will go is around 90mph then textile is more than adequate.

Make sure you get gear with hard armor as well, you don’t want a broken elbow!

Ben
~Best Beginner Motorcycles Admin

[megaspaz]

I have to go with leather as well. With perforated leather you get the ventilation plus maximum skid/armor protection. Plus you’ll feel like a sexah beast…

j/k on the sexah beast part… sort of…

—
If there’s anything more important than my ego
around, I want it caught and shot now…

[acidpope]

I went with all textile. It will be enough for the speeds I intend to be going, plus I think it just looks badass.

[WendySkeleton]

I guess they both do well. It’s just that leather has that cool factor.

[six-shooter]

Mesh textile gear is about all I can stand in the summer… when the temp is in the high 90’s (which is pretty typical here during the summer), even with vented leather, I feel like I’m roasting. Textile gear generally is cheaper as well. I’ve always heard that both will protect you, but textile will only protect you once before needing to be replaced. Luckily, I haven’t had to test this out, so I can’t tell you how true this is.
During the cooler months, I ride with a leather jacket.

[Jiriki]

i have a leather jacket and textile over pants… I might get leather pants eventually, but cordura holds up pretty well in a crash (against road rash).

Textile = 1 use, leather = crash & keep riding… so that might offset your cost if you are going to be pushing really hard.
I haven’t seen any leather overpants, so if you plan on wearing other clothes underneath, you may be forced to use textile.

In the 90mph range, you should come to a stop before both leather or cordura burn through. As such, I’d say that you should be more concerned with with armour than with material. My pants have a somewhat dinky knee protector and nothing else. A lot of leather pants have knee, shin, hip, etc protection.

Oh yeah, I got a really nice Shift jacket that fit great, but their pants sucked. Since I have a mismatch in gear manufacturer, I can’t zip my jacket to my pants which can be annoying if you are tucking aggressively. So yeah, I’d say forget about leather/textile and look more at:
1. does it have good armour?
2. is there a good jacket/pant combination from the same manufactuer?
3. Do I need to wear real clothes underneath these pants?

[Rab]

One good thing going for the newer textile jackets (apart from the high-vis. colors), is that many of them have a rain-proof barrier so you don’t need to don a PVC rain jacket (which is essential if you don’t want to ruin your leather jacket).

I wear all textile right now but I think an armoured leather jacket would definitely offer better protection.

[Author]

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