I thought very few leather jackets/trousers/suits on sale were actually CE approved. For most leather bike kit, the only parts that have CE approval will be the armour or possibly an integral back protector. While there may well be a lot of cheap and nasty kit out there, I don't think that paying more necessarily gets you quality. I suspect that a lot of people pay over the odds for kit just because of a fashionable brand name, where the underlying quality doesn't justify the price. Same for bike kit as for any other "designer label" e.g. jeans. And it wouldn't surprise me if a lot of the different brands use the same far eastern sweatshop sub contractors to manufacture the products with their labels. If I was going to spend money on made to measure leathers (where you couldn't just send the item back and swap for a different size), I'd want to go to the company that made them and get them to measure me, rather than sending a list of measurements I'd taken or got my other half to take and hoping for the best.
Pingping, reading a tape is not hard to to do. Knowing the start and end points is the hard part. Just like going to St Ives would have been a problem to some last week. You need to know where you are going.
Having had other items of clothing made from measurements I took myself, which did not fit as well as I'd hoped, I'd be very reluctant to spend the wrong side of £500 on bike leathers based on my own measurements. Knowing exactly where to measure is critical (is the waist measurement on/above/below the navel; how high up the neck would should neck circumference be measured, do you measure everything while stood still like a dummy, or do they need measurements (e.g. arm lengths, across the shoulders) while sat on a bike or crouching reaching forward as if on a bike, what if any assumptions do they make about whether you're wearing a back protector underneath, are ankle zips intended to go over/under boots (which boots?) etc. etc.
It's bad enough with double-cuff shirts. You can't even fit your watch in so that you can read it. I have ordered some made-to measure shirts and they take the watch into account, but things you buy off the peg never do. I agree - if you're measuring yourself, you're doomed to fail. You need to be a professional measurer.
Surely that has to be a joke? When I measured myself, for example my thigh, I put the tape around and then went through the range of movement to find the largest length. That's what I wrote down. Then I told the chap that the measurements were tight and that I would wear a back and chest protector.
BKS took my measurements while I was 'in the same position as I would have been riding the SF'. Good job I don't embarrass easily And if your not happy with the finished product they'll adjust free of charge in the first year , or if you eat too many pies. Anyway waiting anxiously for your finished results -
There are plenty of places offering good make and good quality secondhand / hardly used leathers for £300 - £600...............easier to buy one that nearly fits and get it altered........ ............however, if the OP is the same size as me, he can buy my one piece for a helluva lot less than what it cost me.......... .............er, I dunno......I might still try to get into it.............
How measurable is 'tight'? one persons tight is another person constricting, and anothers comfortably snug.
He asked me to measure the diameter of body parts. I measured them. I didn't cut of my blood supply and i didn't add and extra inch in slackness. It surely can't be considered that hard to go and measure something? A centimetre is a centimetre.
That's fair enough, if he asked you, and gave you, the descriptors against which too benchmark. More clarity than ' I told him effectively measurements were tight. ' Hope they turn out good for you.
I think the directions were pretty clear. The larger muscle groups are measured when in a position of greatest diameter.
Those poses don't take into consideration the bike you will be riding.............unless of course its a Harley.
