Update on my purchase: they came in yesterday and the Noru riding jeans do have integral knee pads. A nice and unexpected feature. No other padding though for those wanting more protection. But for $60 I finally have pants that fit me again.
Pants Recommendations on Pants Needed
- Thread starter Daboo
- Start date
Living the dream.....now where's that celery at?
OP
OP
@jdmccright - congratulations on getting jeans that fit! It's not as easy as most people would imagine.
I got my three pairs of jeans over the last few days. I ordered mine from Cycle Gear...easy returns, since two of them were the same jean in different sizes.
The ones I had high hopes for are the REV'IT! Sand 5 H2O Pants. I had ordered them in a LG Short and a Medium Short. Not a bad pant at all, but definitely not designed to be an "overpant" at all. I couldn't get the Medium size on at all without removing the thermal liner. The Large went on...but it was a struggle and only in my underwear. Materials and workmanship looked great.
The surprise was the Revit! Lombard RF pants. They're in a 34/30 size and fit like a glove. A very comfortable glove. They're not cheap at @$230, but some of the design features seem like they are worth the price.
First off, they are AA rated for abrasion resistance. That means they are tested by an independent lab that simulates a fall at @45 mph. FWIW, the A rating is simulating a fall at 28 mph and the AAA is at 75 mph. There's even a B and a C rating. A really good explanation can be found at Revzilla. https://revitsport.com/en-us/pages/ce-certification-explained. And I even came across a place that explained what it meant when there's no rating.
The Revit! Lombard pants have 15oz of Cordura blended with denim and something called Coolsmart that will help keep you cooler in hot weather. Seams are triple-stitched. The armour is SEESMART flexible armour in the knees and hips. Surprisingly, I don't notice it, and when I check to see where the knee armour is either when on the bike or standing, it is always where it should be. That's novel to me. As for the 15oz of Cordura and denim, I didn't know denim came measured in ounces, but I learned something new.
Sometimes you end up making your choice, not only on features or price, but simply can I get it. This is what I frequently encountered. I wear a 34 or 36 inch waist, depending on cut and with a 28 inch inseam, a 30 inch inseam is about what I try to find. I think the lesson there is to plan ahead.
Additional thoughts. Skip this if you're bored.
I got my three pairs of jeans over the last few days. I ordered mine from Cycle Gear...easy returns, since two of them were the same jean in different sizes.
The ones I had high hopes for are the REV'IT! Sand 5 H2O Pants. I had ordered them in a LG Short and a Medium Short. Not a bad pant at all, but definitely not designed to be an "overpant" at all. I couldn't get the Medium size on at all without removing the thermal liner. The Large went on...but it was a struggle and only in my underwear. Materials and workmanship looked great.
The surprise was the Revit! Lombard RF pants. They're in a 34/30 size and fit like a glove. A very comfortable glove. They're not cheap at @$230, but some of the design features seem like they are worth the price.
First off, they are AA rated for abrasion resistance. That means they are tested by an independent lab that simulates a fall at @45 mph. FWIW, the A rating is simulating a fall at 28 mph and the AAA is at 75 mph. There's even a B and a C rating. A really good explanation can be found at Revzilla. https://revitsport.com/en-us/pages/ce-certification-explained. And I even came across a place that explained what it meant when there's no rating.
The Revit! Lombard pants have 15oz of Cordura blended with denim and something called Coolsmart that will help keep you cooler in hot weather. Seams are triple-stitched. The armour is SEESMART flexible armour in the knees and hips. Surprisingly, I don't notice it, and when I check to see where the knee armour is either when on the bike or standing, it is always where it should be. That's novel to me. As for the 15oz of Cordura and denim, I didn't know denim came measured in ounces, but I learned something new.
Sometimes you end up making your choice, not only on features or price, but simply can I get it. This is what I frequently encountered. I wear a 34 or 36 inch waist, depending on cut and with a 28 inch inseam, a 30 inch inseam is about what I try to find. I think the lesson there is to plan ahead.
Additional thoughts. Skip this if you're bored.
- Material - this really makes me wonder about what I'm getting. Cordura is Cordura and when I bought my TourMaster and Olympia pants many years ago, it was the gold standard. Mesh material always made me wonder. No one really would come out and say it would hold up in a crash. Maybe the best they'd say is that I should always replace my gear after a crash.
When I look at the material in the Sand 5 pants and my HWK pants, ...I'm not seeing a lot of difference. I think Revit! uses some nice proprietary name, but both are on the same kind of material weight or thickness as KLIM pants. The Sand 5 pants ran @$400. The HWK pants cost about $80. Hmm...
How much am I paying for a "name" and how much am I paying actually for improved quality? Will the HWK pants melt on my skin in a slide?
I've seen several places now that rate mesh pants pretty low. Basically, they say the mesh material is there to give the armour pads something to be sewn to. That's comforting. - Armour - There's a lot more for choices out there, but at least you have the CE rating system to fall back on to. Or do you? The HWK pants (purchased about 4 years ago) have "CE" rated armour. They even say they have Cordura. But their CE rating on the pads says, "TESTED PREN1621-1 CE". You can't find "PREN1621-1" on the Internet. And as for the "Cordura", they have a tag on the inside of the pants for the washing instructions that says "CORDURA", but no trademark symbol next to it. I suspect the Cordura is like the CE. Meaningless. But!!!...I only paid about $80 for them.
- The abrasion resistance testing on riding jeans is well worth exploring for yourself. There are some riding jeans that are sold with no mention of their rating. This is not something you leave out of your advertising or product description.
I'm taking a hard line on this because of what happened when I had my accident last June. Or rather what didn't happen. My wife tells people that my riding gear protected me and she is firmly convinced that it is worth spending the money on that instead of an ER visit. (I think God had something to do with it too, even if it was directing me to buy the riding gear I was wearing.) But she is right in one respect. I never would've thought I would be in an accident that day at 70+ mph. And I never would've thought I'd walk away from that accident. The riding gear is important.
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