New mesh jacket and pants

[Eiron]

I previously posted about my cold-weather FirstGear Rush Tex jacket and HT Overpants. Now I've received my new mesh jacket and pants for summer riding.

Because of the high cost of gear, I decided to give Wicked Stock's reasonably-priced gear a try. The jacket is their hi-viz Waterproof Textile Jacket. This jacket is an amazing value!! It comes with two removable liners: a full-sleeve PU-coated waterproof nylon liner and a quilted thermal vest liner. For only $80 this one jacket could take care of the entire year! The sizing is a bit more snug than the FirstGear Rush Tex jacket, but when you remove the two inner liners it still has plenty of room for extra layers underneath. I got the Large (5'9", 185 lbs) and there's enough room to be comfortable with no restriction at all. The two liners are pretty compact, so throw them into your storage box and this becomes an excellent three-season jacket. Construction is very good and fit is reasonable; not quite as good as the FirstGear jacket, but I can't complain at only 45% of the Rush Tex's cost. My biggest "nit" is the lack of adjustability for pad locations. They're where they are, and that's that. A smaller "nit" is the lack of interior pockets inside the main jacket body. There are two extra interior pockets in the thermal vest, but since I bought this as a summer jacket I don't plan on using all three layers together. (The waterproof liner zips into the main shell and then the thermal vest zips into the waterproof liner.) Venting looks awesome with a huge mesh chest panel and two rear vent zippers behind your arms. (It's still too cold here to give it a try.)

The pants are their grey Mesh Riding Pants. At $70 these are also a good value. Again, construction is very good and fit is reasonable. The same "nits" apply here. There's some adjustability to the knee pads, but hardly any and it's not as good as FirstGear's system. Buy them based on leg length so that the knee pads end up in the correct location! Even though Wicked Stock says these are not overpants, I bought these exactly for that purpose. I sized them up two sizes and ended up having to exchange them because they were too big! One-size-up fits over my jeans without any binding. The leg zips are significantly shorter than FirstGear's and stop around mid-calf. The tail zip on both pieces fit together perfectly. The tail zips are about 25% shorter than FirstGear's. Again, for the price difference it's an acceptable concession. I'm looking forward to using these this summer!

[Marshallscottw1]

Hope you stay warm or cool in all that.

[fish]

Looks like the summer riding is going to be hot at a stop or low speeds.....only mesh is small chest patch. Which is the last place I'd want winter Colorado air trying to get to my body's central core area... (liner or no)
Leave off the black and go full hi viz for safety.
Fish

[Eiron]

Hope you stay warm or cool in all that.

LOL, me too!

Looks like the summer riding is going to be hot at a stop or low speeds.....only mesh is small chest patch. Which is the last place I'd want winter Colorado air trying to get to my body's central core area... (liner or no)
Leave off the black and go full hi viz for safety.

I'll find out soon enough. It's definitely lighter weight than the FirstGear Rush Tex jacket, so I'm hoping it stays cool enough this summer. And I'm keeping the Rush Tex for late fall/winter/early spring riding. I agree that there should be more hi-viz in both jackets. They both have about the same amount of black/yellow ratio, just placed differently. The FirstGear gets bonus points for reflective bits -- the Wicked Stock has none.

[fish]

Hope you stay warm or cool in all that.

LOL, me too!

Looks like the summer riding is going to be hot at a stop or low speeds.....only mesh is small chest patch. Which is the last place I'd want winter Colorado air trying to get to my body's central core area... (liner or no)
Leave off the black and go full hi viz for safety.

I'll find out soon enough. It's definitely lighter weight than the FirstGear Rush Tex jacket, so I'm hoping it stays cool enough this summer. And I'm keeping the Rush Tex for late fall/winter/early spring riding. I agree that there should be more hi-viz in both jackets. They both have about the same amount of black/yellow ratio, just placed differently. The FirstGear gets bonus points for reflective bits -- the Wicked Stock has none.

Most mesh and hi viz combo I could find was this Firstgear.
Have owned two of them (when no longer eye-watering bright I buy again), both year end's at $99.
Yep - love the reflective strips all over....and the long tail. Replaced all the pads with the primo orange stuff.


Fish

[Eiron]

Most mesh and hi viz combo I could find was this Firstgear.
Have owned two of them (when no longer eye-watering bright I buy again), both year end's at $99.
Yep - love the reflective strips all over....and the long tail. Replaced all the pads with the primo orange stuff.

What's considered "end of season" for a mesh jacket? (The Bell Qualifier helmets all seemed to drop in price around December.) The best price I've seen on the Mesh Tex since last August has been $179, so I decided to finally buy the Wicked Stock jacket now since it's $100 less.

[k2apache6.0]

You'll be making WhiteNoise jealous with that jacket

[WhiteNoise]

Welcome back to the fold K2 Where you been? That was a long ride

About the Jacket, haha! Jealousy doesn't last long
Seeee....you know I own one

image.jpeg (140.63 KiB) Viewed 4413 times

Firstgear indeed and best bought on Sale. More mesh coverage than any other jacket I know (of).
It's a basic jacket that's lightweight and comfortable. Color is right In the dead of Summer I zip out the liner. Plenty of airflow, it's Great...
However this one is Not about super protection so keep that in mind. Armor is weak to med at this price point but You can upgrade it as fish mentioned he did.
Mine is about 5 or 6 years old. What bugs me? The elbow armor floats around. There are no adjustment straps above or below the them. I really like having that feature. Time passes and I haven't replaced any of the armor always thinking I'd buy the newer model (same jacket updated) or another brand altogether. It's a challenge to find the perfect combination. It seems we forfeit one feature for wanting another. It's difficult to find a "Cool Safe Mesh" jacket at a reasonable cost (not @ $275 & up) imo.

In the meantime, know that I'm spoiled by this wonderfully vented "Pop-Yella" mesh jacket. It's a winner among many.
(I will continue my search as sales spring (ahhh Spring)

[fish]

Welcome back to the fold K2 Where you been? That was a long ride

About the Jacket, haha! Jealousy doesn't last long
Seeee....you know I own one

image.jpeg

Firstgear indeed and best bought on Sale. More mesh coverage than any other jacket I know (of).
It's a basic jacket that's lightweight and comfortable. Color is right In the dead of Summer I zip out the liner. Plenty of airflow, it's Great...
However this one is Not about super protection so keep that in mind. Armor is weak to med at this price point but You can upgrade it as fish mentioned he did.
Mine is about 5 or 6 years old. What bugs me? The elbow armor floats around. There are no adjustment straps above or below the them. I really like having that feature. Time passes and I haven't replaced any of the armor always thinking I'd buy the newer model (same jacket updated) or another brand altogether. It's a challenge to find the perfect combination. It seems we forfeit one feature for wanting another. It's difficult to find a "Cool Safe Mesh" jacket at a reasonable cost (not @ $275 & up) imo.

In the meantime, know that I'm spoiled by this wonderfully vented "Pop-Yella" mesh jacket. It's a winner among many.
(I will continue my search as sales spring (ahhh Spring)

Noise,
You're a trim young dude - while my somewhat grander self...... has no trouble supplying the beef behind the elbow pads in this XXXXLT Firstgear.....esp. when using the larger orange Klim D30's. (which I transfer from jacket to jacket as the weather changes - so it's a one-time investment) (that's a XXXXL HJC)

Himself....

[Eiron]

It was warm enough yesterday to try out the mesh combo. It worked very well, but I'd say the tailoring/cut does not fit my out-of-shape body quite as comfortably as the FirstGear stuff. All of the jacket pads stayed in place, but one knee pad wandered a bit after a few off-and-on errand stops. Airflow was good over my jeans and long sleeve shirt, and I appreciate the large chest mesh area for maximum airflow. I'm undecided on whether or not I prefer pass-thru pockets or self-contained pockets. Both the jacket and the pants have their own self-contained zippered pockets, so gaining access to anything in your jeans pockets is more of a challenge than with pass-thru pockets. For only $150 for both pieces, this combo is a huge safety upgrade over my leather jacket and heavy canvas pants.

[fish]

It was warm enough yesterday to try out the mesh combo. It worked very well, but I'd say the tailoring/cut does not fit my out-of-shape body quite as comfortably as the FirstGear stuff. All of the jacket pads stayed in place, but one knee pad wandered a bit after a few off-and-on errand stops. Airflow was good over my jeans and long sleeve shirt, and I appreciate the large chest mesh area for maximum airflow. I'm undecided on whether or not I prefer pass-thru pockets or self-contained pockets. Both the jacket and the pants have their own self-contained zippered pockets, so gaining access to anything in your jeans pockets is more of a challenge than with pass-thru pockets. For only $150 for both pieces, this combo is a huge safety upgrade over my leather jacket and heavy canvas pants.

Eiron, just wondered.
Do you really have a job delivering home heating oil on a scooter!?
Fish

[Eiron]

LOL, no, I had several empty barrels that I was giving away to friends for rain barrels (it was illegal to collect rain water on your own property here in CO until the law was changed in mid-2016). I got the desire to deliver one on the PCX just for fun. One Harley rider did a double-take.

I'm actually working at trying to get my custom knife business to be self-sustaining. I get to combine my manufacturing engineering and design skills with my artistic creativity to make functional works of art.

[paulcoup]

Nice work. Looks like a "forged in Fire" episode...

[Eiron]

Thanks! The steel I use is excellent knife steel but poor forging steel (so no Forged In Fire episodes for me!). I order the steel in sheets and draw/cut/shape the knives all by hand.