The Trench: Joe Rocket’s latest all-climate offering

Our man Steve Blakeney over at Sullivans Inc., just sent us the latest offering from Joe Rocket and upon first glance, it looks pretty cool (or warm).

The Joe Rocket Trench is a combo bit of kit that features a mesh, armored jacket surrounded by a trench coat-length waterproof outer layer. The inner jacket also sports a removable fleece vest. Oh, and there is a rain pant included that’s stored in a pocket on the outer layer. When combined together, the three pieces look like an all-climate riding solution.

Here’s some of the details from Sullivans:

Trench coat (outer layer) features:

• 100 percent waterproof
• Waterproof pockets
• Reflective stripes and logos
• Adjustable cuffs
• Built-in straps that ca be used to secure jacket to legs
• Built-in storage straps for rolling up and affixing jacket to motorcycle
• Rain pan included and stored in integrated pocket.

Mesh jacket (inner layer) features:

• Grade A C.E.-rated protectors in shoulders and elbows
• Removable spine pad with pocket for optional C.E. spine protector
• Removable warm fleece vest
• Multi-point SureFit custom adjustment system
• Internal face shield pocket
• Snap Loops for attaching jacket to belt
• Reflective stripes and logos
• Available in sizes small through 3XL.
• MSRP is $249.99

Gear ethics 101

This story originally appeared in the Dealernews October 2010 issue.

As part of our ongoing coverage of the importance of selling gear — for you and your customers — we asked you to submit comments on how you deal with selling riding apparel and safety equipment. We wanted to know if you bring up the possibility of crashing when discussing gear. We asked if selling customers on good riding apparel was the ethical thing to do or just good business. True, you can’t demand customers protect themselves, but it just seems to be good common sense that they do.

We didn’t get an avalanche of responses, but those that did come in were well-thought-out. Two stood out, one from Art Elting, the owner of Country Rode Motowerks, a BMW/Euro store in Rochester, N.Y. The other came from Bob Henig of Bob’s BMW in Jessup, Md. Hmm, both Beemer stores. A coincidence you think?

Elting’s response is good because of its smart-alecky (smart-alecky always wins for me) nature and offers up why certain riders wear what they wear. Scooter riders (he’s also a Vespa/Piaggio dealer) seem to think they can’t get hurt because they don’t go fast. “Very bad mistake,” he says. Sportbike riders in full-face helmets with shorts and T-shirts? Unbelievable. And cruiser riders in soup bowl helmets, fingerless gloves and leather vests. Have to look the part, right? Wrong. BMW riders? Most wear gear. Most. The way he sees it, you can lead a horse to water, but. … You know the rest.

“We know many people who have had serious road rash, and [it’s] guaranteed, if they do ride again, they’ll wear proper gear. A year of skin grafts is not a walk in the park,” he says.
Henig’s response was more his overall take on wearing gear and the atmosphere he fosters in his dealership. “I firmly believe several things — that as dealers we are responsible for setting the right example for our customers, our employees and the general motorcycle population as well as those who don’t ride but see us out riding.” As such, he requires his entire staff to suit up head-to-toe if they’re on a dealership-owned bike. Techs must wear a jacket, boots, a helmet, gloves and a high-visibility vest on test rides. Service advisers must wear helmet and gloves when riding a customer’s bike around the building. Customers who demo bikes are required to be in head-to-toe gear at all times. Henig maintains a full size range of demo gear (boots are coming soon) in men’s and women’s sizes, and he allows customers to test ride gear off the rack. To press the point, he shares stories from other customers about how the gear he sold them helped save their skin, their bones and sometimes their lives.

“My staff is required to strongly suggest that while wearing all this stuff is not legally required, it is the smart thing to do,” he says. “We don’t need to be pushy, but we do need to be sure we educate them [about gear] and [tell them] that maybe their friends are not watching out for their best interests if they still wear jeans and T-shirts while riding today’s motorcycles.”

Did I choose these two examples because they meshed with my beliefs? Absolutely. I’ll never understand why some people dress the way they do when they ride. Should they have the freedom to do so? Yes. But they’ve also got the freedom to hit themselves in the head with a hammer or eat glass. Should they be forced to suit up by law? Probably not.

I suppose my question is why wouldn’t they? I’ve seen the aftermath of bad accidents as have most people who have been around powersports long enough, and it’s pretty ugly. Riding is inherently dangerous and gear won’t save everyone, but it’s all about minimizing the risk. So to the T-shirts-and-shorts-clad duo I saw riding two-up on the 405, I just have to ask why? If they don’t think of themselves, don’t they have families and loved ones to think of? I know this is a question that I will never get answered, but it’s one I’ll always be asking.

How do you sell gear? Let us know.

Dennis Johnson
Editor in Chief
dennis.johnson@dealernews.com

The Old Throw-Yourself-Downhill-Gear-Test: We Like It

Short of purposefully having a get-off on your motorcycle, what better way to test a new brand of riding gear than to throw yourself down a hill in (what looks like) the Silverlake area of Los Angeles? Arlene Battishill, the brains behind GoGo Gear and Scooter Girls, does in this little video she posted to YouTube.

 
I talked to her the day after she did this and she was still pretty shaken up by it, but I can’t help but find this endlessly entertaining. From what I’ve been able to surmise, Arlene is a pretty unique woman — who else is going to attempt to create a line of high-fashion riding gear for women from the ground up with no motorcycle industry experience whatsoever? So, if you ever get the good fortune of meeting her you’ll think, ‘Of course she threw herself down a hill to test that gear.’

Corazzo’s E-mail Newsletter — Great Stuff

I get a couple of e-mail newsletters and one of the best comes from Corazzo, the company that designs and

manufacturers riding gear aimed at the scootering crowds. I’ve been a big fan of Corazzo since seeing them at Dealer Expo a few years back. As a longtime scooter nut I was stoked to see that founder and president Bradford Duval the GLARING dearth of products that would appeal to the scooter niche — a very niche-y niche at that.

 

For some reason known only to them, some scooter riders feel perfectly OK riding around in shorts and T-shirts and sometimes flip-flops. Being a Safety Geek, I always want to let them know that the lowside they might take in some gravel sure ain’t gonna feel too good on bare legs/arms/etc. But I’m not an obnoxious Safety Geek so I just shake my

Roll Your Own Gear – Joe Rocket’s Hemp Jacket

OK, I’m sure we’re all a little tired of the obvious pot references when talking about products manufactured from hemp. If you haven’t been paying attention or have been too stoned to care (again with the funny stuff!) there are increasingly more hemp products available to retailers. To the list that includes paper, clothing, biofuel, concrete and health food you can now add protective motorcycle gear.

No this isn’t that same loose-flowing-hacky-sack-friendly schmatas  you’d see at the Renaissance Faire or a Phish concert. This is real, CE-rated armored gear from the good folks at Joe Rocket. Introducing the Hemp Jacket, a piece of gear the company calls “a true rider’s jacket” that’s been tested six ways to Sunday (according to the company).

Why hemp?