My reply, whenever people ask, “Aren’t you hot?” is “Yes I am.” But my favorite reply to any question about wearing Aerostich gear on a hot day came from my friend John Chase. Thirty years ago, we were riding back roads and cross-country dirt trails heading diagonally north-west from Phoenix Arizona toward Yosemite National Park in California, and trying to ride about as close to an as-the-crow-flies route as possible. The route-chart guide for this journey was privately developed by an old desert-explorer rider named Allen Naille, who was an Aerostich customer. He ran one of those leased-from-the-park-service ‘concessionaire hotels’ on the rim of the Grand Canyon, and had a bunch of cool ‘Lucky Explorer’ Paris-Dakar bikes. (Alan, if you are reading this, I’d love to hear from you.)
At that time colorful Aerostich and Aerostich-type armored textile gear was still uncommon. Our route hopscotched across the west, stitching together two lanes, dirt roads and two-track trails. In some sections getting gasoline was a problem. One section required us to detour about twenty miles up a dead-end road to a little copper mining town where there was a single small gas station. This combination C-store gas-station was just a worn-out metal building with a couple of small windows and selection of old worn-out tires on the roof. There were broken and/or junked cars over to one side and the entire town looked like maybe it could be movie set or a perfect place for some strange cult to hide out, except it was actually all there to house workers who were paid to remove underground veins of copper at as low a cost as possible. Every soul there (three hundred?) will leave the place as fast as they can, the moment the mine closes.
As we were filling our tanks under a blazing hot sun a rough looking biker guy rode up on an older stripped-down chopper looking as if he’d just ridden out of a scene in one of those awful biker B movies made in the 1960’s. A rusty, greasy shovelhead, I think. He leaned the unmuffled machine way over onto its sidestand at the pump just ahead of the one John and I had just been sharing. As he got off and turned toward us, I could see strapped to his right thigh a holster carrying a well-worn 45 cal revolver hanging low on a wear-burnished leather cartridge holding gun belt. Hard to miss that kind of big hog-leg riding accessory.
John and I were standing there sweating in our colorful Cordura-Gore Tex armored nylon Aerostich suits, almost ready to go, but both our helmets were still hanging from our bike’s handlebars as this rider turned directly toward us, and said in a disapproving challenging voice: “Hey, why are you wearing all that stuff?”. He might have waved a hand gesturing at the helmets. I instantly felt a little shot of adrenaline, and didn’t know what to say. But without missing a beat my friend John gave this guy his widest toothy smile and replied in a serious, sincere questioning voice: “Because I fall off mine all the time. How do you stay on yours?”. Silence. Then the dusty gun-toting outlaw chopper rider from Central Casting smiled and let out short laugh. A brief friendly conversation followed.
Scene: Two riders in the middle of nowhere, standing under a broiling sun beside two beat-up dusty rusty gas pumps, sweating inside their armored sci-fi outer space Martian astronaut riding suits. Just another relentlessly hot Arizona summer day talking casually with some broken loner 1880’s cowboy-outlaw-biker who’d just ridden up on an old-school oil-dripping exhaust-belching hardtail chopper. Wearing a well-used Colt revolver. Another proof that you really do ‘Meet the Nicest People on a Honda’. On every other motorcycle, too.
“Aren’t you hot?” You reply while smiling: “Hell yes I am,”, or, if you’d prefer to reply a bit more like ‘Forrest Gump’ might, then after a pause to consider this question, you use your slowest most serious and earnest voice: “Yes I am.” It works every time. People just want to know. They ask only to somehow reassure themselves that you are the idiot, and they are not.
Mr. Subjective, 5-2021
The Best Aerostich suit for riding in Every Weather?
For our first fifteen years, all Aerostich advertising was headlined: “ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY RIDERS CLOTHING” with the smaller sub-headline: “COOLER THAN LEATHERS”. Every suit came with a detailed four-page Owner’s Manual, and part of it explained how to dress in layers for varying temperatures. (Hot = shorts and a t shirt. Cold = base and insulating layers) Today riders still receive an updated version of this guide with new Aerostich gear. We now offer several completely different types of armored riders gear. Leather. Waxed Cotton. Synthetic textile.
Basically, all the synthetic textile models, the Roadcrafter Classic, R-3, AD1, Darien and the ‘light’ versions of these suits, wear slightly better in warmer conditions, with the ‘lights’ being a bit cooler-wearing than the regular versions, and the lighter colors (tan, gray, Hi-Viz) also being a bit more comfortable when it’s hot and sunny. In extreme heat conditions all can still be very cool if you add ice to the outer pockets, but this is seldom necessary. (Note: Water from pocketed liquifying ice flows to the outside through the needle holes around the perimeter of each pocket, not to the inside of the garment.) When it’s over 95ºF the suits work best when all the vent zippers are closed. Especially in desert areas. This helps create a slightly moist internal micro-climate which is healthier than exposing your skin the desiccating/dehydrating wind blast. (Which is why for countless centuries Semitic and nomadic peoples living in the world’s hottest desert areas prefer wearing hot-looking long robes and tunics.)
For cooler rides, and in order of their warm-ness, first is the waterproof leather Transit suit. The next warmest wearing (this is a tie) is the Falstaff and Cousin Jeremy waxed cotton suits. And like the synthetic textile models, this gear also has a wide comfort range thanks to multiple zippered air vents. Both the Corium leather and waxed cotton are relatively breathable if the ambient humidity is not super high. You’ll freeze in the synthetic textile models if the temps drop into the 60’s (ºF) and you are just wearing a t shirt and shorts, but worn this way the Transit, CJ and Falstaff will still be pretty cozy down to the 50’s (ºF).
– Mr. Subjective, 6-2021
Depending on if you feel like busting some chops (if not, “I’d rather sweat than bleed” is always good), you can use “Yes, but I’m not a wimp.”
When I get asked that question my response is: “BECAUSE I LIKE ALL MY BODY PARTS WHERE MY MOTHER GAVE THEM TO ME”
The best one I heard and it’s not original to me is when asked by the cruiser crowd why are you wearing all that stuff is a friend said “It’s because I’m allergic to asphalt!”
My favorite answer is, “Yes I am but I’d rather sweat than bleed.”
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