Women overland riding suit - what are you wearing?
 

I used to have a "Bavarian piece of crap" that I bought years ago for touring. It started disintegrating from day 1. :censored:
I am after a touring suit, textile not leather, that would be more or less adequate for 4 seasons. I've been looking for a long time!

Am I the only woman to find that shops stock mainly rubbish for women? And why oh why oh why add baby pink everywhere???????!!!!! :taz:

Anyhow, if you have any suggestions. What are you ladies wearing on the bike when touring?

I like the Rev-it turbine jacket and pants in grey/silver, but no one this side of the solar system seems to stock any.

Hein Gericke used to have nice stuff for women once upon a time. But not anymore. And all is black black black (with the occasional sickening baby pink thrown in) , for god sake I am not going to my funeral, I want to have fun on a bike not look like I just buried my cat!!

I'm thinking maybe we should start a petition to manufacturers / stores to complain of awful suits and poor choice! And ask to ban baby pink!!! :ban:


Cheers,

I am many things but certainly am no lady!:rofl:
Everything seems to be unisex these days-
Look up "Rukka Air-Vantage"
To the human eye - it's black
To the sun - it's white :thumbup1: so highlky reflective and you don't 'cook' in there-
And as belt and braces when it's cold/chucking/poor viz, the Halvarssons Fluo jacket- sorry no pink!

Ha "unisex"!

Well if I had the body shape of a boy I would fit on unisex, but as I have more of a woman body shape!
The trousers won't get past my hips or if they do the waist is so huge there is no way I can keep the trousers up. They tend also to be 20 cm too long.

Then we have the unisex jackets. Where I am expected to be flat chested and have no hips. Hmmm...

I am more after a touring suit like there are so many for the guys. Not black, with vents, well designed for multi-season, with pockets, with a removable gore-tex or similar liner, to keep me dry when it rains. Why is it so hard? :(

Thanks for suggestion anyway! Keep it coming!

My wife and I had a hell of a time finding jacket and pants that would fit her. I finally found a set in Vancouver at a dealership - Olympia Womens AirGlide mesh in silver. They fit quite well except for the sleeves, which we've had shortened and the pant legs - they're just a little long too.

Recently we found a Tourmaster Transition2 Womans vented jacket that also fits her well. She also had the sleeves shortened on this jacket, which is also silver. There were some other colours as well, including tan.

No pink for her.

Ian

Overland clothes for Women
 

Hi Maria,
I am so with you on the clothes for women...what's up with that? I heard 20% of new riders are women so you'd think that the powers that be would be taking advantage of our stylish concerns! Of course, I'm in the US so maybe our European neighbors have more choices??? (please chime in ladies!)
So...I had to have something safe to wear and found the Rev'it line with the Siren Jacket and Sand Pants. The red jacket was for safety and sand pants were for the sun. Obviously, this is not my dream outfit. I loved the fit of the Dainese green textile jacket, but the pants only came in black. We're planning on traveling in the heat and I really didn't want black.
Does anyone know what Lois wore in Africa?
Sandy

...found one!
 

after 30 years of riding and the last 7 on a RTW I have had many problems with suits for the female cut! I am a typical female shape....and also shortish at 5'3".....
however after having the BMW rally 1 and 2 and also Hein Gericke....I have found THE suit. Well - its a suit that fits my riding which is mainly off-road, in the dirt, and it has to be suitable to cover ALL weather conditions as I am on the road all the time and can only carry one suit.
the new BMW Trailguard. yep - a BMW suit that actually fits the female shape and someone has actually thought about the differences!! It is comfortable and copes with all types of weather conditions and looks good too!

go have a look - yes its $$ but after 18 months of hard (very hard) wear and tear I have not had any problems. if you are wondering what we are doing and why we need such a durable suit go look at our website.

I am - at last - very happy with what I put on everyday and still feel like a female!!
cheers

Hallo Maria! Hey all.

Well I've never had a riding suit, always going for a miss match of whatever (mostly second hand) items I can get hold of at the time, depending on the trip, and its progression

I adore the two items I have at the moment, which are female hein gericke trousers that I got for £10 off ebay. They are fitted (I hate the beached whale look) and have zips below the knees to transform them into shorts.

The jacket I got was $50 (also off ebay) - by "First Gear". Very popular in the States. Apart from the pockets being designed by an absolute numpty the jacket absolutely ROCKS! I love it (fitted, warm, dry, cool). And in a year on the road in snow and a lot of rain it kept me 100% dry. Let me say that again - 100% dry! The liner jacket actually looks pretty cool as a day coat as well.

I am pretty sure they do a suit called "Kilamanjaro", which you could look at. My jacket was from this design. They do it in yellow or purple (and black) I think. Check it out.

Good luck. And let us know.

Char x

hmm... BMW.... Well Lisa, I know your experience with them is different from mine....where should I start. Let's just say with the husband we used to have BMW bikes, BMW suits and I had BMW boots. I started as a very enthusiatic BMW customer.
We did about 24,000 miles around South America. Never, EVER EVER again will I buy anything with a BMW logo on it. As simple as that.
Not only the gear we bought was awful, sh*t poor quality, bad stitches breaking, very low quality zips breaking within weeks of buying the suits, leaking boots since day one, we also had shoddy repairs, in SA or UK, and absolutely dreadful customer services once you start complaining that the gear is actually faulty/poor quality....
Not fun to spend a year with leaking boots in very cold and wet Patagonia/Andes....

Anyhow, my dealings with BMW have been so dreadful that never again.

Hi Charlotte, hope your round the world is going ok? Shame you do not seem to have a blog! Will you do a talk next year at Ripley? (if you're back by then!).
I will check out First Gear suits. I got some kit from the US recently (MX boots and MX trousers) as I couldn't find any decent MX gear in the UK (especially MX Boots, but then that's another story....).

Cheers,

I've been wearing mostly Hein Gericke gear in the UK. Nice stuff and waterproof. I bought the grey jacket to handle the heat but had to go with black trousers as that was what I could get cheap on eBay.

I'm not an unusual shape, standard size 10-12 in most things, and found that the HG stuff fits as well as could be expected if you want to have the pockets and armour that this gear has.

Any sizes that were named for women often dont have pockets so that they look the womanly shape - just not practical.

I bought a pair of BMW City 2 trousers in gray for hot weather riding. Was hard to get the size right for the waist fitment but Medium seemed to do it. However BMW have a very strange idea of proportions as the knee armour was designed for a body with very very short thigh bones and long long shin bones - I had to trim 12cms off the armour for it to bend where my knee was. Eventually I chucked the armour altogether.

And now in the really really hot weather (35+ deg C) I wear a base layer underneath for comfort. Base layers work.

I also hate pink, never never ever wear it. Give me racing red:clap:

It really bugs me that there is better selection in men's wear (code name unisex) so I usually just suck it up and buy unisex gear cause i like the design better.
I am currently sporting the Rev'it Sand Jacket and Pants. The jacket fit seems fine and the pants are typically annoying with the low crotch and awkward fit in the thighs/hip area but I liked the suit so much I figured I could deal with this issues.
I have no experience with the Rev'it women's products but i will probably be looking into buying a pair of their pants for urban/street riding when i get back from South America. They seem to have a pretty good selection of women's fit gear.
I guess not that helpful but I find that European style brands fit tighter so the mens or unisex fit me better.

Clothing...
 

...always a difficult one. For the past eight years I have had a Hein Gericke jacket which I love and it's still waterproof. It's a men's one as although I'm not big (dress size 8/10), my shoulders are broader than my hips so women's jackets are too tight across the shoulders and down the arms. I use the men's trousers as they have good length and just resign myself to the fact that they are big on the waist.
When I'm travelling overseas (which is quite a lot), I wear leather trousers for a whole variety of reasons, including when I crossed Africa, mainly for the sheer comfort of wearing them for long periods. But I know they are not everyone's choice.:scooter:

gear for women
 

I have the Rev'it defender pants and jacket and I am very happy with the fit and comfort. The only issue is sleeve length, but that is my issue with any item with sleeves since I have shortish arms. The new Rev'it ventura looks cool too. I just got the Daytona ladystar GTX boots. Fab and makes me 2 inches taller too. So now I am a whopping 5 ft 3! Sara

I came across this the other day over on the dark side, and I thought it might interest you ladies:

Teiz Motorsports introduces first ever Women's motorcycle suit - ADVrider


apparently all still under design, but Teiz stuff is getting some good reports. Hope this helps somehow.

OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
1st thought: it's PINK! Argh. Pass me the bucket! Burgh! :censored:

2d thought: er.... it's a full suit... how am I supposed to have a quick pee? Oh! I have to get the whole thing down my knees... hmmm... I think I will pass on the pleasure!

Thought 3: another crap design by some male designer who hasn't got a clue.....

(sight)....
I would put a icon of smiley banging its head against a wall but could not find any! so only this: :(

Thanks anyway Giacomo for the post! Meant no offence to you! Maybe we should actually get the italilans on board. They know how to design sexy clothes.... why they don't get working on MC clothe sofr women????

ummmm ... I think the designer (teiz) is a woman!

ah you're right colebatch. It's a girl!

A full suit like that may be convenient for guys commuting to work so you can wear a suit under it. Or for an hour ride on a sunny sunday ... but cannot see it working for touring....

A soon as it start getting a bit hot, can't remove it unless you remove the whole suit, which means wearing trousers under it...

And the peeing detail: She said remove the suit! Imagine that: after miles of looking for a spot to pee , you stop to go behind a bush (the only one in the area). It's raining. You remove the whole suit, which means removing the boots as well in order to get the legs off (hard to remove an MC trouser with the boots on...).. after 15 mins of gymnastic you can then put back your boots and rush for the bush.. while getting wet with the rain. 5 mins later redo the whole thing in reverse.... Jeez would not like to have one of those when you have an upset stomach!!!!

One Word
 

Aerostich

Hi I'm new to this, just using Selous Lap, while he cooks tea lol :innocent:

He told me to go look at lidl as he has a few bike jackets and have lasted fair 'few' 5+ years, also I am on a limited income.

There I managed to get a Lidl Woman's bike jacket black & Silver, was £50 got it for £30 woman's size & cut really comfey and im rather large up top so thought it might be too tight but was just right, including wearing thicker undergarments for winter.

I then got my mit's on over trousers from there, but have taken the lining out as I got too hot in the trousers, the leg is just right as is my wast, & I have had 3 kids now all gone the youngest is 21.

So I would suggest you look at Lidl & Aldi, I personally would not buy the helmets but the bike gear was a good buy & price.
If I get 5 years out of a jacket that works out at a £10 per year.

I love love love this thread! I see that even now, 7 years later, women are STILL having a difficult time finding gear.

I am in the early planning stages of a world tour and trying to find riding gear that is going to work for my purposes (mostly mesh that will layer well) and am having a heck of a time!

Tried on the Olympia Airglides this weekend and felt like I was swimming in them. Tried to squeeze into a pair of Rev'it Airwaves and that didn't work either (not to mention the puzzling zipper on the inner thighs???). I currently wear the Joe Rocket Alter Ego pants which are great but are black and very hot in warm weather. And need some repair work after melting the pant leg on my exhaust a few months back... Considering the Olympia AST jacket as part of the combo... But it's enough to make my head spin!

Not to mention the frustration of not having access to a variety of brands, and not being able to try gear on before buying is very stressful!

Toronto doesn't have too many choices, huh?
 

Hello!
It can be really difficult. Especially when you don't have access locally.
There is a somewhat close option for you, ~500 miles so probably a 2 day ride at most. Revzilla is in Philadelphia and they have the best selection for mid-high end women's gear. If you can spend a weekend to ride down, I highly recommend it. You'll have access to more gear than you ever thought existed!

If you want some personal recommendations, give me some idea of what size you and body type you are and I can give you a couple of ideas too.

Joanne

I have a Revit Tornado. It is light weight, waterproof, removable liners and armor. It was quite expensive but well worth it. I took all of my measuerments and transfered those measurements into the men's sizing. I am almost 6' tall, with unusually long legs. I had to order the tall or long sizes for the pants, and a regular size mens jacket. What I like most about the tornado is you can make it a one piece if you so desire by zipping the pants and the coat together. because I am a woman, I like to keep it apart so that I can use the restroom without too much of a problem. It is water proof with the liners in so there is no need for a rain suit. I am quite comfortable wearing shorts and t-shirt under the suit in the heat. I agree that Rev-it and other manufacturers need to start catering to the female population.

Funny enough, Ride Magazine (June edition UK) had a feature on women gear and how difficult it is to find good fitting gear:
Few women interviewed and complaining. Then RIDE went to the manufacturers about this issue.

Response from manufacturers and shops as to why there is hardly any choice in the shops: not enough demand/sale!!!! Flipping unbelievable!:taz:

If they bloody stopped trying to sell us miles of crappy bonding black leather gear and offered a good choice of well cut and well designed Corduroy in sensible colours..... (no vomit pink!)....

It did not cross their mind that they don't sell much because there is nothing on offer on the shops??? Doh!

And the funniest bit was that, there was, in this magazine, a big feature on the best jackets (several pages)... guess what? It was only boy gear.

Sorry ladies, but in the MC world we still don't exist!

And don't get me started on finding motocross gear for women...