Guide - Motorcycle Riding Gear Explained
This article is a result of my own research while getting into the world of motorcycles. Riding gear is an altogether different breed of clothing that takes some time to understand. I will elaborate on the more intricate details of riding gear and safety standards. There is a TLDR at the bottom but I suggest you read this article in its entirety to help you make an informed choice on what safety gear to buy.
Consider this article to be an introduction to riding gear. It’s a massive rabbit hole and there are more things to consider when choosing new motorcycle gear. This article is a good primer but I still suggest you do your own research and get gear specific to your needs.
Disclaimer - The brands I mention throughout this article are just some of the brands that sell riding gear. They are not recommendations. I only recommend stuff that I have used myself. You can find a list of riding gear I use and their reviews(in progress) on THIS page. In those reviews, I mention the pros and cons of that item and whether I would recommend them to other people or not.
This article is more about what features to look out for in riding gear rather than what brand to buy. I’ve mentioned some brands in this article so that people who don’t know any brands at all have a starting point to look stuff up. I have listed a lot more brands at the end of this article as well. Again, they are not recommendations since I have experience with only a few of them and that too with a limited number of items. Always do your own research before buying any gear.
Why you need riding gear?
Riding motorcycles is dangerous. I suggest you watch this video.
Viewer Discretion Advised: This video contains graphic imagery and scenes of gore that may be disturbing or inappropriate for some viewers. Please proceed with caution.
Anyone can make mistakes, no matter how experienced you are. Animals can come in from anywhere, anytime. Also, there are a lot of bad riders on the roads. You could be the most cautious ride on the road but someone else might be driving rash and bump into you. Distracted people riding on the roads while using their phones is common these days. People riding on the wrong side of road is sadly not uncommon as well. There could be potholes on the road. Water might cause a loss of friction. There are many more of such dangerous scenarios. So remember ATGATT - all the gear, all the time.
Try before you buy
A proper fit is very important for riding gear. It needs to be snug without being too tight or too loose. So always try to go to a store and try stuff out before you buy. Take a helmet for example. You need to wear it for a little bit and check that you don’t experience any pressure points. Similarly with gloves, you want a good snug fit but know that some gloves expand a little as you wear them regularly. Keep in mind that if you’ve never worn motorcycle gear, it will take some time to get used to it.
Urban, Touring or Off-Road
There are broadly three categories of riding gear based their usage scenarios. Urban gear is for city use and is usually lighter and more casual in look. Touring gear is usually more comprehensive with some extra touring specific features. Similarly off-road gear has some purpose built features. It’s not that one type of gear won’t work for another activity but it might not be as comfortable.
This article is more oriented towards urban/touring gear since that is what I am more familiar with.
Here’s a rundown of all the gear you need.
1. Helmet
A helmet is the most important piece of riding gear since it protects what’s most important - your head. So you want a full face helmet. 35% of all head impacts in motorcycles accidents are to the chin/jaw area[1]. So half face helmets are not as safe.
Here are a few common helmet safety certifications - ISI, DOT and ECE. There are more but for the sake of simplicity I will just cover these.
ISI - Indian Standards Institute
DOT - Department of Transportation (USA)
ECE - Economic Commission of Europe
FIM - Federation Internationale de Motocyclisme (Used in Moto GP)
For all intents and purposes ISI and DOT certifications are useless. They are self certifications as in manufacturers need to ensure their helmets pass the certification by themselves, meaning no third party tests. I don’t know how much I would trust manufacturers to follow up on it. FIM is the safest. It is the only one allowed in Moto GP. However, it is the most expensive and we don’t have a lot of options for FIM helmets in India. ECE is the certification you want. The latest one is ECE 22.06. It is very close to FIM, a lot cheaper but still pretty expensive when compared to ISI helmets. Since in India you need the ISI certification for a helmet, what you want is a helmet that is ECE 22.06 and ISI certified. For locking mechanisms, double D rings are safer than quick release buckles[2]. And if you plan to take your bike to the track, only D ring helmets are allowed.
Helmets are usually made of one of three materials - ABS, Polycarbonate or Carbon Fibre. All three have their pros and cons. Polycarbonate is considered to offer better impact protection than ABS and Carbon Fibre is usually the lightest and offers the best strength to weight ratio.
Some other features to look for in a helmet are internal sun visors and pinlock compatibility. An internal sun visor is a really practical and useful feature especially in the sunny Indian weather. It eliminates the use of sunglasses. One downside is that in order to fit the sun visor, the manufacturer might have to compromise on the foam at the front of the helmet. I don’t have any data about how much of a difference that makes for safety but having used a sun visor, I can say it’s a really useful feature to have.
A pinlock is a thin film that attaches to the inside of the primary visor. It creates an air tight chamber that doesn’t let the visor fog up which is really useful in some conditions. Some helmets come with a pinlock film pre-installed and you can buy it separately for some other helmets. But not all visors support pinlock, so be on the look out for pinlock compatibility when choosing a helmet. There are multiple pinlock variations and each visor supports different pinlock models.
One more thing you can look for is availability of different visors for your helmet. A clear visor is the most common out there but you can also get them smoked or mirrored. Each of them have their own pros and cons so do your own research and get what you need. A default clear visor is a good one to have since if works during the day or the night unlike smoked/mirrored visor which have visibility issues in the dark. Helmets these days have quick swap mechanisms for visors so you can also carry multiple with you. In my opinion, a clear primary visor with an internal sun visor gives you the best of both worlds.
Always check for availability of spares for your specific helmet like visors, pinlock and internal liners.
Brands - MT, Axor, SMK and Royal Enfield.
2. Jacket
You want a jacket with CE level 2 protectors for shoulders, elbows, back and chest. A mesh intake and outlet is really important in India’s hot weather. A jacket to pants connection zipper is nice to have since you can connect you jacket to your pants which will prevent it from sliding up in case of an accident.
Brands - Rynox, Viaterra and Royal Enfield.
3. Gloves
We always use our hands to break the fall. Get CE certified gloves with knuckle protection and sliders for scaphoid/palm protection. A pinky bridge is nice to have. You can either get full length gauntlet gloves for touring or if you can also get some shorter gloves for city use.
Brands - Rynox, Viaterra and Royal Enfield.
4. Pants
Get pants with CE level 2 protectors for knees and hips. Some pants also have a tail bone protector. Again, a jacket connection zipper is nice to have. Make sure they’re compatible with each other. Some mesh for airflow is desirable. If you plan on going for tours I’d suggest full riding pants with abrasion resistance and armour. If you want them for daily use, you could get riding denims with protectors. There are also denims these days with kevlar weaved into them for more abrasion resistance.
Brands - Rynox and Viaterra
5. Boots
Human feet are really complicated and a foot injury could be really hard to heal from. Get CE certified riding boots with toe, heel, ankle(both sides) and shin protectors. Full length riding boots could be cumbersome for daily use. You could get casual riding riding boots with ankle, toe and heel protectors. Some boots have a steel toe box which people argue might squish your toe in case of an accident, so consider that when you’ve choosing new boots.
A little more about CE certification for boots. Certification to EN 13634: 2017 is the one you want as it is the specific standard is for “Protective footwear for motorcycle riders”. A lot of other boots, for example the Raida Explorer Boots, are CE Certified to EN ISO 20345 which is a standard for safety footwear for general purpose which is not exactly what we want for motorcycle boots. There are 4 components to this EN 13634: 2017 - height of upper, abrasion resistance, impact cut resistance and transverse rigidity. There are 2 levels of certifications for each component so when a shoe is labelled as 2 2 2 2, it means that it’s certified to level 2 in all 4 components. There are also some other optional tests like WR(Water Resistance) which could be mentioned under the rating label if applicable.
Here is a rating label from my Raida TrailCraft Motorcycle Boots.
Royal Enfield makes some casual riding boots that can pass off as normal boots but most of them are not CE certified. They also have a line of shoes in collaboration with TCX which are CE certified. Clan is another company that sells CE riding shoes for daily wear. Raida makes some CE certified shoes as well.
6. Base layers
Base layers are what you wear closest to the skin. They help wick moisture away in the heat and help you keep warm in the winters. There are three base layers you can get - upper, lower and a balaclava.
Brands - Rynox
Elements of safety in Protective Garments
There are 2 elements to protection in garments -
Abrasion resistance - A garment can be made of either textile or leather. Textile is cheaper but leather has better abrasion resistance. Purpose made modern textiles have good abrasion resistance as well. What’s important in hot climates like India is ventilation. Jackets made entirely of leather or textile will cook you in India’s heat. They should ideally have mesh intakes and outlets for good airflow.
Impact protection - All riding gear has armour/protectors for impact protection. Always look for protectors with CE certification. It’s a European safety standard. There are 2 levels of CE armour - level 1 and level 2. CE level 2 is safer and can withstand more impact.
Garments can be rated Class AAA/AA/A/B/C depending on the amount of abrasion resistance and impact protection they offer. It’s a bit difficult to find garments rated like this in India. We usually just have garments with protectors that are CE certified. Some garments may have all the protectors possible or be missing a few and have pockets for adding them later. You can buy protectors separately but make sure that your jacket or pants has pockets for them and that they fit properly.
Summer vs Winter vs Rain Gear
Depending on the weather, you might want different gear. For the summers you want a textile jacket with mesh lining that facilitates good airflow. For the winter you want to be as covered as possible. And for the rain you want something waterproof. A good compromise is getting a mesh/textile jacket for the summer, wearing winter liners underneath when it’s cold and putting on rain gear on top when needed. This is mainly for jacket and pants.
You could do the same with gloves. You’d want perforated or mesh gloves for the summer but you can put waterproof over gloves that go on top of your regular gloves. You could also get winter gloves specifically if you plan on riding in cold climates. There are waterproof gloves available as well. Same with boots, you could get rain covers for them or get waterproof boots. Some boots are labelled as water resistant and some as waterproof but I’d take it with a grain of salt. What you can do is get waterproof socks. I have a pair from Rynox that works really well.
Another thing that you can get for the summer is a cooling vest. I have used a passive cooling vest from brrf which works decently well.
TLDR
All of this info maybe seem a lot, so here’s a toned down tldr.
Get a full face ECE 22.06 & ISI rated helmet. Get a riding jacket with level 2 protectors at shoulders, elbows, back and chest. Get riding pants with level 2 protectors at the hips, knees and tail bone. Get CE certified riding shoes with protectors at the heel, toe, ankles(both sides) and the shin.
Here is a list of some brands that make motorcycle riding gear - Rynox, Viaterra, Raida, Scala, Royal Enfield, Korda, Aplinestars, Shima, Klim, Dainese and Revit. There are also some other helmet brands that offer ECE 22.06 rated helmets but might not have ISI certifications as they are imported. Helmet brands you can look in to - SMK, Axor, MT, Royal Enfield, AGV, HJC, LS2, Shoei, Arai and Scorpion. These are not recommendations. I’ve just listed them so if you don’t know any brands at all, you can use this to look stuff up. There are countless more out there. Do you own research about the specific brand and the specific product you wanna buy. Use this article as a reference on what features to look out for.
Conclusion
I hope this article helps you find the perfect gear for you. For example, some brands have also come up with airbags for motorcycle riders. But they are not as common here in India yet. There is also casual riding gear available abroad which look just like regular clothes but again, they aren’t as common in India There is a lot more to riding gear and safety in general. There are also exceptions to the things I mentioned. So consider this as a starter, do your own research and cross verify before you buy. Feel free to text me if you have any queries, I’d be happy to help. I’m open to suggestions and feedback as well. You can find information on how to reach me on my about page.
You can also find a list of riding gear that I personally use with reviews on THIS page
Riding gear doesn’t make you immune, so always ride cautiously. But it does help a lot in some unfortunate circumstances. Remember, ATGATT and Ride safe!
References
[1] - Where’s the most likely place your helmet will take a crash impact?
You can look up the original research paper that this article is referring to as well.