Hello! I’m RyanF9 and here’s some competent kit without the cow.
Vegan motorcycle gear is a … foreign … concept to a lot of people. Y’know y’all don’t have to eat yer dang boots, right?
Well obviously that’s not the point. Whatever mechanisms put a hamburger onto my plate, also put this leather onto my glove. And each year, more and more motorcyclists are choosing to opt out of that process.
Of all the riding gear, it’s most difficult to find a vegan glove. That’s because this is a small piece of kit, so even the cheapest manufacturers can afford to do at least the palms in leather, which is the best sliding material pound for pound and skin to skin. So when manufacturers do make a leather-free glove, it’s normally because they’re trying to be extremely cheap, extremely-well-ventilated or extremely lightweight.
Problem! The oober cheap gloves don’t protect for shit, so say goodbye to the 30-dollar Scorpion Skrub . Then my oober-ventilated glove, which also happens to be the otherwise-brilliant Five Stunt EVO, turned out to include trace amounts of genuine leather mixed in with the synthetic stuff, for no apparent reason other than that life is supposed to be hard for vegans. So that leaves our ultra-lightweight Alpinestars Scheme .
I got lucky at last, because this is a properly vegan glove and it’s also the most protective. The knuckle armour is a mixture of EVA foam and carbon fibre, all wrapped-up in synthetic leather. I don’t mind only getting a slider on the one side, because most crashes, especially lowsides, will have this outer edge of my hand contacting pavement.
The palm padding is equally well-placed. Everyone instinctually lands on the base of their hands, which is where I get more foam. The rest of this is doubled-up clarino backed with something extremely rare on gloves: Fabric gold AKA Kevlar, which means the Scheme can resist abrasion as well as leather and it can resist friction heat better than leather.
Each of these gloves is a featherweight 60 grams. That was why Alpinestars avoided leather in the first place – to shave weight – so I’m glad it worked out for them. With lots of mesh on the top hand and perforations on the clarino palm, this glove is definitely biased towards warm weather. I wish I could recommend a more versatile vegan glove but alas, the Scheme is the best I know of.
Next we have vegan boots, which would also be a tricky find if it weren’t for Sidi.
See most manufacturers have been hung up on leather ever since horsepower came on four legs. But Sidi jumped on the Lorica train early, which is a type of synthetic leather made from weaving strands 1000 times thinner than silk.
What results is a material that kinda feels like plasticky cowhide, only a lot more uniform. It’s also lighter, more water resistant and stronger than leather.
Sidi split with brand-name Lorica a few years ago, so this is actually an in-house doppelganger called TechnoMicro. Same features as Lorica, and Sidi claims it’s more breathable and softer than leather as well.
Bullshit!
Synthetic leathers have their benefits, but Sidi is promising too much. No way is TechnoMicro more breathable and comfortable than cowhide … in fact I find it noticeably stuffier and slower to break-in.
But your main priority should be the strength claims anyway, which are legitimate. On a long slide or a big tumble, TechnoMicro does have more abrasion and tearing resistance than leather.
It also lasts longer. And it also doesn’t last longer – let me explain.
If you take good care of your leather, which means shading it from the sun, moisturizing it and whispering love sonnets in its ear, then leather will be in better shape ten years from now. But if you don’t do any of that stuff, TechnoMicro will last longer for you, since it won’t crack or degrade under low maintenance.
For what it’s worth, the boots I have here are Sidi’s Mag-1 and X-3 . The Mag-1 I recommend – it’s a lighter and softer version of Sidi’s top-of-the-line race boot – hardly less safe and way more comfortable to wear. But the X-3 failed at pulling off the same trick. It’s a softer version of their top-of-the-line MX boot, the Crossfire, except it’s much less safe and therefore not worth the dollars saved.
Also be careful when buying Sidi boots because not all of them are leather-free. The more casual touring boots and riding shoes tend to use leather or a mix of leather and Lorica, which obviously ain’t kosher.
Next we have jackets, where there are loads of vegan options since anything budget, anything touring, anything adventure, anything weatherproof – it all tends to be textile.
But much of it doesn’t slide that well. So if you want leather safety without leather cruelty, go for one of these three materials:
First – welded-ceramics. Basically they’re tiny plates fused onto the textile’s surface. Kinda like grandma’s pottery, except this stuff is happy to gring along at 300km/h without burning a hole in your ass.
You’ll typically find welded ceramics on high-end adventure touring stuff. Like this Alpinestars Durban , which happens to be my new favourite ADV jacket. It’s very customizable.
This rear cargo pouch comes off. The sleeves come off. And the whole jacket comes off, leaving just the fleece-lined Gore-Tex liner.
A-stars says the Durban was built to “take on the world.” But we all know it was really built to take on the Klim Badlands, which is the current king of the hill. Not-so-coincidentally, both jackets use welded ceramics. The Klim is safer overall with its thicker armor, but this Durban is slimmer and lighter. Plus I think I look better in it.
Our second material to find is ballistic nylon. This is a basket-woven fabric, just like your grandpa’s Panama Hat except it’ll stop a bullet.
Just kidding – ballistic nylon was originally developed for flak jackets but it’s not actually bulletproof. Anything over 800-denier does have amazing sliding resistance though. I picked an Icon Wireform jacket to show off ballistic nylon because – rather uncommonly – its whole chassis is made from the stuff.
The Wireform also has Icon’s usual suit of D3O armour, plus a liberal use of neoprene on the cuffs and satin in the liner. That results in both a comfortable and a warm jacket, great for riding April through October and for killing off the old Icon Contra, which did the exact same job as this new Wireform, but not as well.
And finally, you should watch for plastic sliders. Normally called TPU, these specific ones are named DFS because Italians are wacky. Same principle though – a hard shield with great abrasion resistance.
I chose the T-GP Pro Textile jacket to showcase sliders because it’s the sportiest non-leather option that Alpinestars makes. It also got CE-level 2 elbow and shoulder armour since the last version, which is a huge safety benefit.
But the back armour is a shitty foamie – as is always the case with Alpinestars you’ll have to upgrade it. You’re looking at A-stars’ race fit, which doesn’t leave much breathing room and that might explain why the inner thermal liner sucks. It’s terribly thin, not terribly warm, and I can’t help but think that a waterproof liner would have been more useful.
Now, can I find a vegan jacket that captures the style of classic leather?
Yes and no. This is the Icon 1000 Oildale , which is a lot like that Wireform with its D3O suit of armour and satin thermal liner, except the exterior is made from resin-coated canvas. The dull fabric grounds the glossy resin with a certain earthiness. And the material has unique characteristics, resulting in a patina that varies from one jacket to the next.
In other words, it looks like leather!
But, the moto world is lagging behind your average Trader Joe’s when it comes to labelling vegan stuff. Because even though Icon makes no mention of leather, I’m pretty sure these zipper pulls and button flaps are cowhide. It makes up maybe 2% of the whole jacket… maybe you could be 2% cruel for the sake of style? Okay probably not.
And finally, vegan pants use the same materials as vegan jackets with one exception.
Kevlar! The stuff is soft and flexible like denim so you’ll often find it in riding jeans. This Scorpion Covert is the cheapest and most comfortable way to get a full lining of Kevlar, which protects from abrasion but also absorbs the heat from a motorcycle crash.
That’s why those new miracle denims – like the Dyneema denim from Saint – are a bad idea. They might withstand abrasion like leather, but without a Kevlar lining the friction heat can literally fuse the denim to your skin.
So get a good ol’ Kevlar lining – chunky, scratchy and stuffy on a hot day, but worth every minute of it.
And that’s it for my favourite vegan gear. Thanks for watching.