A good cheap source for protective gear ..
 

I had been riding my Hawk much more than my TBR7 lately, and so last Sunday, I decided to go for a long backroad ride on the 7. I have a new Dunlop 605 on the rear, and still running the stock front, which is about 1/2 tread. The State around here loves to pile the gravel on just about every road that's not paved, and they pile it crazy deep in spots. I had became pretty used to it, and got too complacent about it, and would catch myself looking at the speed O, and being surprised by the fact that I was running around 30 mph a lot of the time. I have also been very foolish in my riding clothes. I always wore jeans, and just any shirt, often as not sleeveless. I usually wore gloves, backroading. Well last Sunday, I was running on a road that the state had spread that gravel on, and suddenly the path I was running had a big ridge of gravel several inches high right to the left of me, and it was tapering towards the edge of the road, which was a steep creek bank. I tried to get up over the ridge, and thought I had made it, but then the bike went down hard . I was really hurting, but got my bike up, and was able to ride it home, even though the tip of the shifter was missing. I can tell that my clutch lever is just slightly bent, and the plastic bar end ( extension type thing, that I assume is just in the D version of the TBR7) was all scuffed, the bike itself didn't really get hurt. I have a lot of gravel/ road rash on my left arm, and on the side of my leg, but I have a really deep wound on my knee, that is pretty bad. Well , the whole experience has been a wakeup call. The blue jeans just shredded, like nothing. I have riding pants, but only wore them a few times, and I also had the matching jacket, which I wore a good bit, at first, but eventually I tore out every bit of lining from the inside of it to make it less bulky, and able just to was up, and stuff in a bag, or my helmet. I have made up my mind to be safer, and have ordered some new protection clothing. I have ordered more pants, and a new jacket, as well as a pair of leather chaps, even though I know they really ain't for dual Sports. In my searching, I discovered a seller that I think must get all of HWK brand returns, or possibly slightly flawed items. I ordered new ( listed as used) pants, jacket, and leather chaps for around $60 bucks. The seller has a remarkable selection of sizes, and styles, that's why I think they get all of HWK returns. Anyway I want to share this link if the seller. If your not familiar with eBay, you can just click to see the seller's other items. https://www.ebay.com/itm/134651089570
Most of you probably know , but I will mention that from what I have seen motorcycle jackets, and pants run crazy small, if you normally wear a large, probably get at least a 1x, or 2 x. I normally wear a 2 x coat, but ordered a 5 x so I can wear it over more stuff.

Dang with I knew about that earlier! I've got those HWK pants and the HWK winter/4-season coat. The coat is doing fine, but sees the least use of my gear. Pants needed to be replaced after about 1yr of use, as the velcro belt straps broke off and I need to hold them up with my hands if I'm walking around. I upgraded all the "armor" that comes included to CE2, as they claim they're CE-rated but aren't anything more than cheap foam.



But overall, I can't say anything bad about the HWK stuff, if you know you're not getting high-end gear.

When it comes to gear, there is obviously some compromises to be made, especially when it comes to budgets. That being said, BOCO - Buy Once Cry Once - will be a bullet you have to bite.

Plenty of guys here and on the Facebook group have the HWK jacket and pants and seem to be happy with them.

Me? I will spend the extra on a budget "big name" jacket and pants. Often I will scour revzilla for closeouts and sales around the end of the year or early spring to get some good deals.

The HWK is made of 600D mesh and has CE rated armor, so that's all good things. Where they tend to save is on the stitching, zippers, etc. So they may fall apart faster. What I would love to see is reviews on the jackets from people that have crashed, and how they held up.

I bought this:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B075K72Q3N...t_details&th=1

...and these:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09J8NM5LW...roduct_details

often riding gear with armor have very generic and loose-fitted locations for the armor. These items allow you to place your armor right where you want it and they stay in place better since the pants and jacket may slide around or rotate during a wreck. Most ADV riders, as I'm learning, prefer this type of approach. I have a pair of mesh pants with armor. when I wrecked on the KLR recently, the knee armor moved, allowing my knee to get a rub burn from the nylon rather than the padding staying in place.

This is true of riding pants far more than it is of jackets in my experience. Most jackets have strapping and buttons to help tighten up and locate the elbows. The shoulders rarely shift much, nor do the back protectors. The knee armor on most riing pants though... Yeah it just flops about.

I'm incredibly curious myself to know how they actually hold up after a crash as well, after all that other stuff it's really the only thing that matters. My next pair of pants will for sure be something of higher quality.



Some of the armor, like others said, fit quite loose in the pocket, so I used the old cheap foam ones they come with to make a sort of frame for each good armor piece to sit on, and duct taped them together to keep them from shifting around too much.



Always been curious about the motocross hard-shell armor, just not sure how to implement it with the other gear. Would it replace other CE2 armor, or supplement it? Like if you had that chest/shoulder piece, is that good enough quality to take out your back and shoulder pads in the jacket to make it lighter and easier to store?

I saw this thread and thought, "Nah, I don't need any of that stuff." Then I actually looked at BillHilly's link and am now 50 bucks poorer. Even in the pictures I get the idea this stuff is fairly light duty. But it's cheap and I can't imagine it wouldn't serve me all right. I bought my Templar in March and STILL have yet to take it on any real trails. Can't wear out what you don't use. But I am going. Sometime. I swear!

When we were kids, we wrecked out bikes on the farm pretty often, and never really got hurt, but after what happened to me, it woke me up. I am not one to go to the doctor, but I probably should have. I have been doctoring myself up at home. The jeans offer nearly no protection. I will be wearing protective clothing from here on out. I will also run slower in gravel, especially the fresh deep stuff. I had just built up too much confidence, and was going too fast to properly control the bike ,once an unforseen circumstance came up. I remember just before the accident, looking at my speedO, and was running over 30 mph. I don't know exactly how fast I was going when I laid it down, but I figure I was still going close to that speed, because with the gravel being all the color, it was nearly impossible to see the trouble ahead, especially when you are going 30 mph, which doesn't sound fast, but it's too fast in that kind of gravel to dependability, and safely control a bike, if an unforseen condition occurs.

The knee armor is tricky as the position of it has to change to work with the leg as it bends into a riding position. Even if you secure the knee armor in place well, it will always be out of place when you straighten your leg. The natural reaction of a person flying through the air or being spilled on the ground rolling is to keep your legs bent, so for most scenarious it works out well.

I wouldn't personally replace any CE armor with hard armor, especially not level 2 armor. That said, there is probably a good compromise to be made for real dual sport riding since the mesh is great for protecting against road rash, but not so great at protecting you from rocks and trees. Vice versa for the hard armor, which helps you bounce off boulders and logs when you mess up - and provides protection against impalement.

Bil Hilly: I ended up buying another jacket and a pair of chaps. Thanks for the info. I hate when they put fresh gravel on like that.

I get a lot of my stuff from Motorcyclecloseouts.com

This is great. They actually have decent quality brands too for huge discounts.



I don't want to post the actual photo here, but this is a link to a Motojitsu post showing what gear can do. Even if the bones don't break, it's not a fun time.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0F...fCq3jYNa2T-77G

Some 40 years ago I woke to see lights going past my head. As I was on a gurney going down a hospital hallway. Lacking protective gear that day, me and a Yamaha lost a fight with an Oldsmobile but both lived on to ride some more.
Now many years later, I retired my full leather suit but still have a full set of MX armor and jerseys. I don't feel like wearing quite all that just to follow grandkids down trails so I expect some lighter duty pants will do. Probably.

Side note, apparently when you are 60 years old rash rash takes a hell of a lot longer time to stop looking horrible than it did when you were 20 or 30. Yes, sh#t happens.

Wife was ragging on me to get life insurance, so I did. Then she said "But this is 'accidental death', not regular life insurance." My reply was that did she really think somebody with as many scars as I have is really going to quietly pass away in bed?

Didn't quite go well. Package arrived. Black large solid jacket turned into a large black and red "mesh" jacket. Not what I wanted but kind of OK for warm weather riding I guess. I can live with it, didn't really need a jacket to start with.
Black pants arrived as a black small ladies jacket. Hmmm. My wife is almost a small but has no interest.
So I had to complain. They offered a partial refund. I counter offered that they just send the pants I ordered the first time which were all I REALLY wanted to start with. Haven't heard back yet. If they do send the pants I think I'll send the small jacket back to them in a flat rate envelope or something. I have no use for it.

Wife got this somewhere and gave it to me when I got home form work today so I have this to wear now.
https://i.postimg.cc/ydQzvprv/shirt.jpg

I got my items yesterday, and was pleased. Everything was still sealed in plastic, and appears to be new. I am a little surprised at the heaviness of the chaps, which seemed to me to be a pain to get into, but it may just be the fact that my knee is still not healed up. The chaps are 2 separate leather pants legs that lace together in the back, and have zippers running completely up the inner leg from top to bottom, and the front of the chaps have a belt, and buckle. They would definitely be tough, but may be a lot of trouble dealing with.