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HOT & HUMID weather jacket recommendation needed

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Just ordered the FIrstGear RUSH Air jacket. Most places priced at $229. MotorcycleGear.com has it for $169. Lowest price I saw. Could not find the KLIM Induction on sale anywhere. Also ordered an Alpinestars Nucleon back protector because the FirstGear only comes with a pad, not a protector.

If the quality is as good as my FirstGear Kilimanjaro then I will be a happy camper.

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FirstGear Rush Air Jacket ~ Sale
  • Waist-Length Mesh Jacket
  • Poly Mesh Main Construction
  • Abrasion-Resistant Impact Panels
  • Waterproof / Breathable Removable Liner with Color-Coded Attachment Tabs
  • Soft and Durable Rolled Neoprene Collar and Cuff Edging
  • One Zippered Chest Pocket
  • Two Zippered Hand Pockets
  • Internal Map and Media Pockets (On Fixed and Removable Liners)
  • Back Storage Pocket for Removable Liner
  • Two-Way YKK® Front Zipper
  • Front Zipper Features Retainer Strap at Top
  • Two Forearms Take-Ups
  • Waist and Cuff Adjusters
  • FirstGear’s Standard Conjunction Zipper with Pant Side Included
  • Reflective Accents
  • CE Level 1 Knox Elbow and Shoulder Pads
  • Pocket for optional Back Protector (sold separately)
  • Five-Year Warranty

Realistically I will remove the "waterproof/breathable" liner and probably never see it again. I've got a KLIM Gore-Tex rain jacket that I keep in my top box for occasions when I encounter rain. I'd rather toss on Gore-Tex over a mesh jacket than wear a liner under the mesh jacket.

The ONE feature it does not have, that I will seriously miss, is a wrist pocket. Those come in very handy as I store a garage door remote in each of my jackets wrist pockets. I may take it to a local seamstress to see if a pocket can be adapted???
FIrstGear RUSH Air jacket arrived YESTERDAY. Amazingly fast shipping.

Not sure when I will get to test it ... we are licensed foster parents and there was an emergency drop off at our house yesterday. We now have a 2.5 month old baby boy living here. Probably for most of the summer? Hopefully he will be allowed to live with a family member.

But I did get a pretty good chance to inspect the jacket. It is pretty much what I hoped it would be. Stripped out the rain liner and tossed that on the upper shelf in the closet... never to be seen again.

The FirstGear RUSH Air is petty light weight but materials are not cheap feeling and construction is good. Literally only 2/3rds the weight of my Klim Apex Air jacket. Both are cut to the waist shaped jackets. Lots of mesh on the RUSH Air to allow air to flow too. Construction looks very good. Nice details to the jacket, microfiber inner collar is very comfortable. I really like the curved collar above the zipper, no hard corner/stiff fabric to poke into skin. I wish the main body zipper was a 2 way zipper, it is not. But the zipper does have bottom protector and a fastener at the top to keep the fob from flapping. Good pocket details.

I'll give detailed photos and description at a later date after things settle down with the new baby.
 
Hello Melensdad. This post may be too late to help, but I've been riding with the Klim induction jacket for a month now and I really like it. Lots of airflow, rugged feel.
 
Hello Melensdad. This post may be too late to help, but I've been riding with the Klim induction jacket for a month now and I really like it. Lots of airflow, rugged feel.
I seriously like my KLIM gear but didn't could not find an Induction jacket on sale anywhere. If I had seen it on sale I'd be riding with one today.

I found a FirstGear Rush Air jacket. Not as nice as the KLIM stuff, but a nice light protective jacket for hot humid days. Here is a link to my initial review of the FirstGear Rush Air jacket --> https://www.nc700-forum.com/threads/review-firstgear-rush-air-mesh-riding-jacket.17037/

Most days when its not terribly hot I ride in a KLIM Apex Air jacket but it is not breathable enough for seriously hot/humid days.
 
Frankly there are a lot of decent choices. Amazingly (or not), some of the cheaper ones have equivalent construction and materials, and come with decent if not top-notch armor. Usually they throw in liners that are purported to be waterproof. Better off not using those sweatboxes though, I use external rainwear instead because the jacket itself doesn't get soaked and it's easier to swap on and off for temperature and precipitation changes.

I snagged a unused Pilot that was just what I was looking for. At the time Pilot was moving their business (they specialize in racing suits) so I was looking for an eBay vendor. Instead I found one from a private party for $28 shipped because the guy had ordered the wrong size and forgot to return it... it just sat in his garage never used until he was doing some spring cleaning a couple years later. Only the features I wanted and a perfect fit for me without any armor slop, sports length, not overly branded or busy-looking, and not a bunch of pockets to block air flow but just enough. Several years later and maybe 40,000 miles I still haven't got any complaints.

If someone comes up with something significantly higher in abrasion resistance during long slides that isn't priced like Klim I might spend the money when this begins to look too hammered from the off-road wrecks ; }
 
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Frankly there are a lot of decent choices. Amazingly (or not), some of the cheaper ones have equivalent construction and materials, and come with decent if not top-notch armor. Usually they throw in liners that are purported to be waterproof. Better off not using those sweatboxes though, I use external rainwear instead because the jacket itself doesn't get soaked and it's easier to swap on and off for temperature and precipitation changes. . . .
Yup, I hate the internal liners too.

Outer jackets with pit zips can do multi duty, provided a level of wind and light thermal protection, provide much better rain protection than a liner too.

I've got a KLIM Gore-Tex Forecast rain jacket that is always in my top box. https://www.klim.com/Forecast-Jacket-3333-001
 
I picked up the Speed and Strength Midnight Express dirt cheap, about 70 bucks IIRC.

I do not know how abrasion resistant it really is but it held the pads nicely and it lets a lot of air through at speed. At a dead stop it might as well be leather though.
 
On my 2012 I fiddled around with a National Cycle Deluxe Deflector system and eventually got it working pretty good for me. It was smaller and allowed more air around my torso while keeping my helmet in clean air and taking wind pressure off my torso. I liked it much better than the stock screen but not as well as the Madstad system.
I'm on my 3rd NC Deflector screen starting on various bikes in the 80s. NC have been around forever. The quick set mount hardware however is much better than the wrench mounted system. My 2019 C125A has the latest screen.
I have Fieldsheer silver jacket/pants that work great in hot weather. The jacket has a liner and is well ventilated. Silver vs black; no contest.
 
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I have the Joe Rocket Phoenix 5.0 mesh jacket. Living in Texas, I need something that breathes (100 degrees about the last 10 days) and offers protection. It's a great piece of kit at $169 and has all the padding you need. I need to work on this summer's annual moto trip, the first one that I used this jacket on and I was almost begging for drizzles on the road. There is nothing like having the rain go into the jacket, soak your shirt and then when you push through the rain, the wicking effect of the wet shirt out in the sunshine is marvelous.

The jacket also comes with a waterproof liner, but I didn't bring that with me. I had my rain gear for true gully-washers.
 
I have the Joe Rocket Phoenix 5.0 mesh jacket. Living in Texas, I need something that breathes (100 degrees about the last 10 days) and offers protection. It's a great piece of kit at $169 and has all the padding you need....
Some of the Joe Rocket stuff has padding but not actual armor. Some JR has armor, some not. I noticed the same thing with Harley Davidson brand jackets. Padding but not armor.

I ended up with a FirstGear Rush AIR jacket. I came with elbow & shoulder armor and a pocket to add my own back armor. I installed an Alpenstar back armor piece. There is a review somewhere here. I'm happy with it.
 
Some of the Joe Rocket stuff has padding but not actual armor. Some JR has armor, some not.
Every Joe Rocket jacket I've seen has elbow and shoulder armor, though many jackets like ones from other companies uses a foam back insert rather than actual armor – though the Joe Rocket one is larger and probably more protective than most. Still, getting a back protector that really breathes like some of the Dainese and Alpinestars lattice designs greatly improves air flow.

I've only been riding for a few years, but as I understand it Joe Rocket actually introduced the world to mesh jackets.
 
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I ended up with a FirstGear Rush AIR jacket. I came with elbow & shoulder armor and a pocket to add my own back armor. I installed an Alpenstar back armor piece. There is a review somewhere here. I'm happy with it.
My FirstGear Mesh Tex was my only mesh jacket for about a season and a half, and I still have it as a backup. I bought a full set of D30 armor for it and it’s quite good. The main selling feature of the Klim was the improved mesh. I figure the FG polyester mesh is likely to melt in a slide - and who knows, maybe the Klim as well. Mesh is a definite trade-off generally.
I agree on the Kilimanjaro 100%. Great cool/cold weather touring jacket. Love mine.
 
My preference is also to have NO COLLAR on a mesh jacket.
 
Every Joe Rocket jacket I've seen has elbow and shoulder armor. . .
That was not my experience but it may be that way now.

There are several levels for rating armor. There are track rated. Street rated. Non-street rated.

Some companies have actually used CE armor that is not rated for street motorcycle use in street motorcycle garments.
 
There's no "it may be that way now" about it. Since at least 2007 the Phoenix line has had removable CE armor.
I don’t know their product lines but I know what I’ve personally seen in shops. I know my local Honda dealer has non-armored Joe Rocket jackets.

I went to their website and found a current jacket in their mesh lineup without CE armor. I didn’t look at their other lines or at all their mesh jackets. I'm not trying to argue or prove anything but it is what it is. There are all types of padded jackets on the market. Some brands use "armor" that is not CE rated, but it is claimed to be protective. It is common, across many brands of mesh jackets, to not include back armor of any type.

For another example look at the padded HD jackets. I pick on HD because some of what they sell is rebranded & HD logo products from other companies at jacked up prices. Most of their riding gear is non-protective or only minimally protective.
 
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