[Video Transcript]
Hello! I’m RyanF9 and today we crash test regular jeans… versus riding jeans.
Our contenders have a few things in common. Both sport the typical 5-pocket design: hand, hand, wallet, wallet and pocket watch, just in case you live in 1885. And both have similar weighted denim – Icon was quick to brag about the 14 ounces in their riding pant, which is kinda funny, because the regular Wrangler is actually 14.5 ounces.
And that’s where the similarities stop! Our 200-dollar Icon Hooligan has TPU knee armour, backed with CE-level-1 D3O. Then the seat and knees are reinforced with aramid, which differs from Kevlar by a registered trademark and not much else.
Meanwhile, the 25-dollar Wrangler Relaxed Fit has jack shit. It’s just a jean.
Five torture tests today, I fully expect the Icon Overlord to win all of them but the question is… by how much? First is puncture strength.
Rambo’s BB-gun shoots at 500fps, or 550km/h to the ear of a motorcyclist. Not that any of us can go that fast, let alone in riding jeans. But if we did, what would happen when we hit a pebble, or a pointier pebble, or a downright-sharp pebble? Time to find out.
Well, looks like t he Wranglers did stop the BB but other two shots appear to have gone right through. Now I’ll fire the same volley through the aramid ass of our Icon Overlord.
S o it looks like the second and third shots went through. But the BB… nope , we stopped the BB. +1 for riding jeans.
Now we’re going to test abrasion resistance with a belt sander. I have 40-grit to approximate asphalt, and a 19kph spinning speed to approximate sliding. Wrangler’s going down first.
So , 3.5 s for the regular jeans. Of course Wranglers were originally designed for wrasseling cattle in the 1940s, so they’re probably a smidge sturdier than your average fashion pant. Time to see how the motorcycle jeans compare.
Alright, 7 s to get through the denim and the aramid abrasion layer. Nice. I can also say that these took way longer to heat up than the Wranglers. That’s the great thing about aramids… they’ll protect you from the friction heat of a crash.
So , +3.5 for the riding jeans, since that’s how many extra seconds they’ll buy before you start losing skin. Just for curiosity’s sake, let’s see how the riding pants slide in the zones without aramid .
Candid reaction: Hm, well that’s interesting. 2 s is less than the Wranglers got… looks like Icon’s riding denim isn’t anything special without its aramid backing.
I’m sure Icon would love for us to move on from that embarrassing result. So let’s take a good moment to contemplate failure … meanwhile I’ll doc 1.5 points, since that’s the number of seconds the Icon Overlord fell short of the regular Wrangler jeans when we tested the area without aramid.
Speaking of things without aramid… the Overlord’s stitching. No Kevlar, no nylon… in fact there’s nothing special in this thread except a shit ton of yellow dye. I reckon seam strength won’t be much superior to regular jeans.
Candid reaction: So , 15 cranks for the regular Wranglers and 32 cranks for the Icon Overlord. Notch another 7 points for the riding jean.
Now , impact is a complex phenomenon of physics. There are elements of velocity and acceleration, momentum and impulse, force and shock. So naturally we’re going to measure it with a sticker and a cantaloupe.
Candid reaction: Oooh… no protection from the Wranglers whatsoever. We blew past 100gs on the shockwatch sticker, and totally shattered our knee-cap surrogate. Gross.
Candid reaction: Wowwww, totally different story in the Overlord. Less than 100gs on the shockwatch sticker and much less damage to the cantaloupe. But was it less than 50 gs … ah, no, we did bust that sticker.
So , impact protection on the motorcycle jean was better. But by how much? Well I generate 105mph of club head speed, of course the first step is to change that into sensible units … (FFW) … and you’ll always remember the kinematic equation because it’s so fun, just plug and play really… (FFW) … solving Newton and dividing by gravitational acceleration, I get roughly 184gs into an unprotected cantaloupe. That means the Icon Overlord succeeded in cancelling somewhere between 84 and 134 Gs. We’ll split the difference and give it 109 points over the regular pants.
Now , let’s look at fire resistance. When everything goes to hell… yep… regular jeans are burning through pretty quick. I know the aramid fabric in the seat and knees of the Overlord has a larger heat capacity ... and indeed, it’s taking me longer to get through there. Nice. How about the regular denim … not much better than the Wranglers. And these TPU sliders? Oh that’s satisfying… D3O really does smell like oranges when you burn it…
So the motorcycle jeans were more fireproof, in fact it took about 4 seconds longer to burn through them than the regular Wranglers. Nice work Icon.
Adding it all up, our motorcycle jean was better than a fashion jean by 123 points. One BBs worth of puncture strength, 2 seconds of abrasion resistance, 7 seconds of seam strength, 109gs of impact resistance, and 4 seconds of fireproofing. Despite our totally shit scoring system, the conclusion is pretty clear.
Riding jeans are better than regular jeans.
Next week we’re back to our usual antics… subjecting a Bell Revolver to FortNine’s nine torture tests. If you’d like to see that, consider subscribing to our channel. Until then, thank you very much for watching, take care!