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July 10, 2011
What not to wear
I walked into a store in San Francisco a while back...about a month or two ago...and I bought some motorcycle riding gear. The store is called Cycle Gear at 1500 Harrison Street. They were nice and friendly and helped me pick out some gear. I got a jacket and some pants. Ran me about $480 with taxes. But, it worked. It kept me warm when I was riding. Sometimes too warm, but at least I wasn't freezing cold when I rode any more, and that was my goal.
The jacket was OK. The jacket was a BILT brand jacket. It served the purpose. The thing I could never understand was that they said that the shell wasn't waterproof, but the (inner) liner was. And I was like? Seriously? That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. But they assured me the shell wasn't waterproof but the liner was. This makes no sense. If anything should be waterproof, it has to be the shell. Not the liner.
The pants were OK as well. They were made by FirstGear. The thing I didn't like about the pants was that there were two zippers, one for the liner, and one for the pants. At first, this didn't seem like a big deal, but if you ride every day like me, it's a huge deal actually. It's a royal pain to always have to deal with multiple zippers. Just sucks.
The other problem was the knee pads...they bothered my knees. Never felt very comfortable. I tried adjusting them, but nothing helped really. The knee pads always bothered me.
And I'd had these pants and the jacket for about a month and then one day, I was zipping up the jacket, and the freaking zipper came apart in my hands. Ditto for the pants. A day or two later, and the liner zipper just fell apart. I took the gear back to Cycle Gear, and they were nice enough to refund my money, but buyer beware. I'd stay away from this gear. I had it about a month and it all just came apart like crap.
I still need to buy some cycle gear, but I can promise you it won't be BILT or FirstGear quality. Never again.
Posted by Rob Kiser on July 10, 2011 at 11:13 PM
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