Some of you reading this blog
will not know the very colorful, yet terrifying, history of my motorcycling. So
I am going to relate the tales so that you will fully understand how KLIM sold
me a piece of junk. Well, maybe not junk in the sense that I have to just throw it out, but gear that is only suitable for warm weather use; in my opinion.
As a small child I was resilient
when I would occasionally go over the handlebars of my bike. I would have
nothing more to show for it than the scraped forehead and cinders embedded in
my palms. As I aged I realized I did not bounce back. I took what is
euphemistically referred to as the “dead cat bounce”. I am the cat.
When I took my adventure journey
to Tierra Del Fuego I bought the best First Gear pants and jacket they made. I
thought the jacket looked dorky. And the overpants were baggy and a bit ill
fitting. But the First Gear stuff was and is absolutely waterproof and comes
with insulated liners; and the jacket liner is waterproof and suitable for
casual wear. The stuff worked great and served me well. I managed to destroy it
all in two steps.
On a trip back from Ogallala,
Nebraska in August 2010 with my buddy Jim Dingman (readers will find that
Ogallala and Eat The Big Pig seem to be the common denominator of my woes) it
was over 102F rolling down I-80. So I strapped my First Gear Jacket to my rear
rack. I noticed nothing until about 2 weeks later when I went to put on the
jacket and found that I could not put my right arm in the sleeve because it had
been melted. Yep! I let the arm flap around in front of the exhaust some way
and destroyed the jacket.
So l went in search of a new
jacket. First Gear just could not leave well enough alone and changed the
sizing on their jackets. So I bought a Kilimanjaro jacket; and it was warm and
dry just like my TPG jacket had formerly been. And besides, I still had my
armored pants. You just know something bad is coming. Don’t you?
Well, in August 2011 I was riding
a sweet F800GS down I-80 on my way to….. Now wait a minute. I will give you one
guess. Right you are! I was riding to Ogallala and the Big Pig again when the
bike went into a tank slapper wobble and crashed on I-80 at 75 mph. I had on an
HJC helmet, my trusty First Gear TPG pants, and my damn near new Kilimanjaro jacket.
So, when I was done being rolled
down the Interstate I got up and turned off my bike, which had been pretty much
destroyed, but still running. You read that correctly. I got up. Then I lay
down and waited for the ambulance to come get me.
Well the guys in the ambulance
were all worried that I would die and such. I guess people falling off
motorcycles on the Interstate do not generally do well; and, they figured I
would be no different. My helmet and gear had some bad scrapes, but was all
intact. The heat from skidding about 200 yards down the asphalt had migrated
through the armor and melted the inner nylon on the jacket and pants - to me.
The EMTs proceeded to cut – not remove – cut - all my gear from my body
including, but not limited to, (that’s legal language ) my perfectly good
boots, all my pants and jacket, and then for good measure my genuine “Harvard
University” t-shirt, which was completely unnecessary.
I was so happy I was wearing
clean underwear, because that was all that clothed me. And we all know what our
dear mothers said about changing underwear. Mom was right on that day.
I will shorten this up now. The
doctors at the hospital in Lexington, Nebraska were good, but somewhat
disappointed because I was not seriously injured. I think they were planning on
a life flight to Omaha, or better yet harvesting my organs so someone in Omaha
could get a new liver. When I was
discharged I had on me only the tighty whities with which I had been admitted.
So I was going to need new clothes and eventually a new riding outfit.
So here is where I got taken by
KLIM. I am convinced my gear and armor saved my life, and more importantly my
exceptional good looks and manly physique. Therefore, I would spare no expense
when replacing the gear.
Remember what I said about the
fit on the First Gear stuff? Well when I went to replace things the fit was no
better on the high end First Gear stuff. And this
KLIM gear was all the rage. Plus it was obscenely expensive, so it had to be
terrific. At least that was my thinking. In July 2012 I went shopping at the
BMW rally in Sedalia Missouri, the Mecca of guys with disposable income looking
for the “look” in geeky riding gear.
For those of you with limited knowledge
of motorcycle riders in the USofA, Harley riders all wear black because they
are on the way to the funeral of a friend who was not wearing a helmet. BMW
riders look like florescent advertising. I have attached a picture of me in the
KLIM Latitude outfit I bought. Kids, we are talking about more than $1000 of
armor here. Just call me “Skywalker – Luke Skywalker.” And may the force be with
you.
Anyway, I talked to the KLIM
factory rep. He was working the BMW vendor area at the rally. I said I was concerned because there was no cold weather lining in
the Latitude jacket or pants. The reply was “all the real riders are putting on
this high tech (read expensive) layering and it will act as a cooling system as
well as keep you warm.” The fit was very masculine, meaning that it was tight. Everyone
said how well it fit, and I wanted to believe them, because I did not have any
good gear left. So I bought scads of KLIM gear and the layers.
The significance of the KLIM factory rep, as opposed to
retailers at the show, is that the guy had formerly been the rep for First
Gear. And I had met him at a rally in 2009. Of course he was giving me the scoop on how much tougher and better
the KLIM system was over competitors. Pure fiction.
In fact, this is the problem with
KLIM. They made the jackets too small so that they appear form fitting, and I
am not a big guy. In fact, I am downright skinny. Not only was the jacket too
tight to put any real layering under it for cold weather riding, but they put a
stiff, bulky, cheap piece of armor in the back which made it a pain in warm weather
too.
The first time I went out in cold
weather I knew the jacket was not a 4 season world traveler jacket. It was
cold. Not cool. COLD. I called KLIM and
complained. I made some comments on their website, which inexplicably never
popped up. And I threw money at trying to solve the problem by layering and
buying another inner jacket. But that meant I had to remove the back armor. And that
means I just defeated the purpose for which I bought this really expensive KLIM
jacket in the first place.
This is problem with the jacket.
It allows air to pass through the zippers, even though they are shielded and waterproof. The
venting is poorly designed and always allows air migration as well. No matter
what remedial layer was worn, the jacket was cold at any temperature less than
55F.
KLIM is a manufacturer of snowmobile
gear. One could reasonably assume they would know how to make a motorcycle
jacket with a quilted liner that did not get cold. Well they can’t, or at least don't. I will
never buy another piece of gear from them because in my opinion the product is
substandard for adventure motorcycle touring and priced well beyond superior
gear made by First Gear and probably some others. My friends, we are talking
twice the price and in some cases three time the price.
So this is what I did. I rode
around in the KLIM jacket for two winters, and then I gave up and bought a
First Gear Kilimanjaro. It is warm. It fits. And it cost less than half what
the inferior KLIM Latitude cost. That is what I will wear on this trip. I have
kept the KLIM pants because they did not leak and I can wear long underwear
with them. This is also known as “cutting my losses”.
My goal is to not
burn up the new jacket on the exhaust, or to have it cut from my body.
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