I received my Rukka Airpower 3 jacket from Adventure Motorcycle Gear one week ago. I was very excited when I saw the box on the porch last Friday. As soon as I put the jacket on, I new I was in for a treat. The jacket comes in two parts: the main body and a waterproof/insulating liner. The liner is really interesting – it combines a three-layer Gore-Tex liner, and adjustable insulation. The insulation value is adjusted by blowing into a tube which inflates the liner. How cool is that?

What immediately struck me is how comfortable the jacket felt when I put it on –even more so without the liner. The fabric on the jacket drapes very comfortably and has a soft hand – It did not feel like I was wearing a highly protective motorcycle jacket, but a jacket I might wear about town. It is much softer then the mesh jackets that I have felt in the stores - in fact it is not really a mesh at all –but a woven Dupont Cordra that breaths. This is replacing my seven year old First Gear Kilimanjaro, which is much stiffer, and bulky feeling, even without the cheesy fleece liner that came with the jacket. Now don’t get me wrong, the First Gear was and is a great jacket for the price, and served me very well, but it is just not in the same class as the Rukka. Kinda like comparing a Honda Element with a Lexus RX.

The Outer fabric is a woven Dupont Cordra that breaths. To put this to the test, I went on a six hour ride on Sunday, including some off-road riding in the Uwharrie National Forest. It was a hot and humid day, typical for North Carolina in July. Woohoo! I had never owned a mesh type jacket, and the ventilation was amazing! I was still wearing my Motosport pants, heavy duty Cordra, hot and leak prone, and I was, well, cool on top, hot below. I felt so much better, and was cooler at all speeds, but in the direct, overhear shun, I no longer felt cool in the spots where the ventilation came through, but all hot everywhere else. Even the Armor is vented so that they are not hot spots.

Speaking of Armor, the Armor used looks and feels like a combination of soft and hard armor, making the jacket more comfortable and easy to get on then hard armor. It looks like it would be much more protective then the soft armor in my First Gear Jacket.

In the off-road section of my ride, I found the jacket much cooler then an unvented jacket, but not as cool as just a jersey and roost protector. No surprises here. As long as I was moving right along, things were fine, but when Islowed down or stopped, the sweat poured on.

On the way home, Massive storm clouds loomed ahead, so I stopped and zipped in the liner. This was the first time I had done so on the road, and it did take a minute or two to get in in, zipped and snapped in place. Practice will make this faster. I imagine that if I get caught off-guard and am putting it on in the rain, I could just pt on the liner, zip it up, and then put the jacket on top, without mating them together – both sets of zippers are available. When is started raining I traveling in the 5-75mph range, and I stayed nice and dry. The temperature also dropped quite a bit, and I was quite comfortable. I wanted to see what would happen if I inflated the insulation, so I puffed away. I could feel the jacket stiffen up a bit – the manual that came with the jacket stated that over inflation added stiffness, not insulation, so I attempted to add just the right amount, but I was not sure how much is right. I imagine that time will tell. Anyways, a few minutes later and I was overheating, so the insulation works. All through this, a nasty rain storm did not get me wet (well, except for my old pants).

That’s all for now. I should be getting the pants soon; I needed a long leg size that Adventure Motorcycle Gear, the US importer, did not have in stock, so they are coming from Finland. More about those when they arrive.

Posted by Chris Witzgall at 2:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted by chris at 10:27 AM
June 24, 2003
Maxxis 6006 Tire Review
In the never ending search for the ideal tire, I have considered many. Maxxis has made the 6006 tire for some time now, but never in a 140/80 18 specified for the KTM Adventure R rear. One look at a picture, and you see it fits somewhere in-between the mostly dirt tires like the Pirelli MT-21 and the Metzeler Karoo, and mostly street tires, such as the Matzeler Sahara 3. I started talking about this size with Maxxis' marketing rep last year. He told me that they were planning on producing the larger size. Since I was eager to try them, I of course offered my services to test them out.

A few weeks ago, they took me up on my "offer" and sent me a set, saying "Tell me what you think". I must have been one of the first to get a set, as I got them only a week or so after the rep told me they came over on the boat from overeas. Since I knew they were coming for a few weeks, I decided to put them to the test in the Gatineau Dual Sport ride, and mounted them a few days before. They went on with about the same amount of effort - I am no great tire changer- as others. The tires they were replacing were Metzeler Karoos, which as I have previously commented, are very capable tires, but they just wear out too damm fast!

I had almost 200 miles on the tires when I started out on the trip, all of it highway, and I had another 440 miles to go before I could see how they faired in the dirt. As it turned out, those 440 miles were for the most part wet and miserable. HA! Test # 1 completed, and they worked very well in the rain. Mind you, I was not pushing them like they were sport tires, but I felt that the grip in the numerous twists and turns on the way up showed that they can handle the rain. Noise was not unlike other similar tires, I wear earplugs religiously, so noisy tires are not my biggest concern

On to the dirt. This ride was a dual sportin' tire tester's dream. We did fast dirt farm roads. We did sand. We did mud. We did rocks. And we did everything in-between. So how did they fair? Well I was concerned right off of the bat as the front end was considerably more squirrelly then the Karoo (after you wear in the Karoo, new ones can be bad too) At lunch time I started thinking, ok, run a Karoo up front and the Maxxis in the back. Then someone asked me what tire pressure I had up front. Duh! It was at least 25 psi, maybe more. So I dropped it to around 19-20psi, and whala! No more front end shake.

So now, as a package, the tires were performing very well. We went through some great sandy loom sections, and I felt like I had a set of true knobbies on. granted it had rained the day before, but the rear hooked up almost as well as a new Karoo. The thing is, I could never have had a Karoo with this much tread showing after riding 650 miles on pavement and then 100 miles on dirt!

Mud was up next, and I was a bit worried that I would be reliving some great mudhole front end slides on the stock Sahara 3 tires. I did the smart thing, and slowed down when hitting mud, but in a particular deep no-way-but-though-the-stuff fifty-foot section, all was well.

On Sunday, I got to ride more of the same. Ther was one section where I was following Bryan Flannigan around some great twisties. I can only assume he was familiar with them, because I think he forgot that he was on his adventure and not his last sport bike. I was able to pretend I was a sport bike rider for a bit, and the tires did not give up my charade.

We all know that the faster you go, the hotter the tire gets, and the quicker they wear. It also holds true that the lower the air pressure, the hotter the tire gets. Three quarters of the way home, I noticed that I had not put some of that air I removed back in. I am sure this affected tire wear adversely, but, when I got home, I estimate that I had used 50% of the useable tread. Since that was done in 1450 miles, 300 of which was offroad, I think we have a winner. Throw in the fact that they are cheaper then the Metzlers or Continentals, and you are looking at a sweet new offering for the KTM.

Posted by Chris Witzgall at 12:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)