Bewildering Selection/choice Of Gear

Returning to motorcycling has proven to be a much bigger learning path than I ever thought it would or even could be now I know it's been a long tme as sold my last bike in about 2000 arthritis in both knees and the cold and damp in the UK made riding very painful but now living in a place where we have a real summer and riding in winter is not required so back into the fold we came .

First thing was to get a helmet and wow names that have never seen or heard of and some of the styles well never felt the need to look like an escapee for Star Wars so normal looking full face for me next was to locate somewhere fairly local that stocks and sells helmets not too hard and they have an online shop so could browse at leisure from home and settled on an LS2 Rapid11 ..... FF353 in REd/White measured my head like they show and got a size and very nearly ordered online from an Ebay vendor but decided to visit the shop and try it on first. Boy am I glad I did as the size the tape says I need did not agree with the helmet as that size was too tight.

Now that am in the shop am hit with the bewildering selection of gear on display not only are there god only knows how many helmets but suits, jackets, leggings, boots and dozens of different gloves again makes and styles that have never seen before. For a glove I like a short one of lighter weight to give some feeling used to wear MotorCross or Trials gloves my local shop had a box of gloves about double the size of helment box and thought it was a decent selection but am now faced with a wall of gloves. Left with just the helmet as at that point did not have a bike yet.

Ok so a couple of weeks later and now have a bike although cannot use it as it's not registered but that is in the pipeline so time to get it ready and sort out more PPE gloves especially so a trip back to the shop to face the wall of gloves ............... Never took much notice of makes before just bought was fitted and felt good but now everything must have it's brand blazoned upon it this is the first time that I stopped to really look at gloves and well after the first quick look and almost suffering cardiac arrest at the price stickers !!

Now this shop/dealer does a lot of off roading stuff so there are gloves clearly aimed at that and their name suggests that they also are into racing and there are gloves clearly aimed at the race track. I need general use gloves next shock is just how small most of their customers must be my choice was severly restricted by what they actually have that I can get my hands into and nope I am not that large a person but folks around these parts must have small hands that's for sure. Eventually found that in these modern gloves that Size 10-11 or 2XXL-3XXL is needed depending upon the brand and style eventually got a pair of Bogotto leather gloves with knuckle and finger joint protection in 2XXL size which cost me nearly half the price of my helmet am dreaded looking for boots .

After browsing online for a jacket and deciding that the cost of a decent motorcycle one was way beyond the budget if was off to ebay.UK and see what I could find after checking what chest size is now needed as it's much larger that it used to be, heck just tried on my ole denium cutoff that went over my leather jacket and struggled to get it on over just a T-Shirt , ended up buying two vintage leather bike jackets one is made by Wiese the other has no brand showing oddly enough both are coloured Black, Red, and White and the pair cost me a fraction of what a new one of comparable quality would.

Plezier

 

Although am English am not in the UK even though to get some stuff have to order it from the UK as some stuff it seem is just not available here in Bulgaria and that does explain as to why some of the makes/brands are new to me as they may not be avialable in the UK. Reading a post on here about reflective stickers on helmets has enlightened me as to why my new LS2 Rapid 11 has a little pack of them in the box have not even removed the film of the visor yet.

Plezier