On the Road Again!

After a small and unplanned body surf up the road on the Europ Touring BMW K1200S in April. I finally got around to replacing the Suzuki jacket that I bought last year only a week or so ago. I am very disappointed with the quality of the Suzuki's jacket. A small spill at walking pace on a patch of diesel and the shoulder was all burst although not a lot of damage to the rest of the jacket where it had abraded on the road. The shoulder armour may have saved any bone damages but the bruising was across my body from shoulder blade to elbow. In the end I tried a whole load at Hein Gericke and the ones in my price range were not very nice or not available in XXL! On the way home from HG, we called in at Laguna's new shop in Ashford. There I fell in love with a Halvarsson jacket. Very nice material, soft and waterproof but the XL was simply a little too small and they didn't have an XXL in stock. They did say I could pay for it and they would order it and if it didn't fi...

Following on from Part 2 where I said that the jacket looked as though it was going to be a good buy. I still stand by that but after wearing it for the first time in what could be called winter weather, the jacket was perhaps a little thin.   Okay, it wasn't a real good test as I have removed the inner zip-out liner, but that was replaced with a Chilli heated waistcoat.  It's quite common when manufacturers up the sized to simply as a percentage to all measurements, so by the time they get to XXL, my size, the neck would be too big even for Mike Tyson. And Suzuki are no exceptions.  The padded neoprene insert in the from of the neck looks good, but there is simply not enough Velcro on the tag not on the jacket itself to locate it tight enough to keep put the wind. Something that is essential on a four-season jacket.  I'd say that the Suzuki Jacket is a two or maybe three season jacket. At the moment I am happy with the jacket, but if I am to ride in the win...

After a week of wearing the jacket every day to work and both days over the weekend, my initial impressions are that for the £99 price tag it is a good jacket to buy. On the few occasions when it rained it stayed dry inside and the two inside pockets, one each side of the main zip but curiously both on the left rather than one each side, worked well. One for wallet and one for phone. Neither leaked. Without the removable lining it came with I would have serious doubts that this is a "four season" jacket. I tend to remove the quilted lining from any jacket and wear something else as it gives more flexibility with the weather. One day last week we had a very cold start to the day and I was a bit chilled on the M20! That was a one-off and it has proved better as the week progressed. I also have a slight reservation on the main zip. It's chunky enough, and like all zips it has a metal tag to pull it with, but the elastic in the back of the jacket to keep it snug, does cause t...

Although I bought, or rather exchanged this jacket, a few weeks ago, today is the first time I have actually worn it on the bike.  With the "Indian summer we have been having recently I was happy to wear the Joe Rocket mesh jacket with the EDZ windproof inner shell under it when it was a bit nippy early in the morning.  Today, the forecast was for rain and so I dug the new one out of the wardrobe. I very rarely keep the linings in the jackets as it makes them less versatile when the weather changes. So I prefer to take a jumper or sweatshirt with me instead.  So, what was the experience like? Although it didn't rain, the road was damp on the way from home up to the M20. First impression of the jacket is that it is shorter than the normal jackets I like to wear and less bulky than the Buffalo it replaces. As a result it was a little parky on the way in with just a shirt and the EDZ. It has two inner pockets on the left side, one inside and one outside the main zip. On the ...

What started off as a suggestion by Nigel Jones, a fellow SOC Kent Centre member, to have a day trip on BH Monday seems to have turned into just Claire and me going over to France for the day, but on BH Sunday! The weather forecast looks good, so maybe the vented Joe Rocket might be the jacket of choice or perhaps it not, the new Suzuki jacket can be given its first outing as part of Devallwear. We have some Tesco vouchers left over from the Amsterdam trip and they had to be used by the end of August, so it was only natural that we used them. The sticking point could have been the 14-day restriction on booking on Eurotunnel, but this was smoothed over by Mandy in the reservations at Folkestone. Thanks Mandy. So we will be outward on the 0820 on Sunday and back on the 1850. As expected it will be busy in both directions as it is almost the last weekend of the kid's school holidays. We don't have much of a plan but we'd like to have lunch and perhaps get to the Jardins de Va...