my name is mwd

Although I’m sure you were expecting something intellectual about biotechnology, I’m afraid this post is about motorcycling. About a year ago, after much searching, and after spending too long being too hot/cold/wet in my first basic set of motorbike gear, I decided to splash out and get something better suited to doing long tours in a variety of conditions. After trying on lots of suits from different vendors, I opted for the Rev’it Cayenne Pro suit. Having ridden it for all seasons, I thought I’d finally write up my thoughts on it.

The headline result is, I’m very impressed. The suit comes in three layers: the outer layer, a waterproof layer under that, and an insulating layer under that. The inner two can be individually added and removed to suit the conditions, and after a little practice this can be done quite quickly. As a result, I’ve ridden in hot weather, cold weather, dry weather and wet weather, and the suit has been fine at all times. It’s got air vents on the front, sleeves and legs, which are sensibly designed so you can operate them quite easily with gloves on.

Actually, the whole thing shows lots of nice touches where they’ve thought about how it will be used. The zips for the inner layers are colour keyed, so you know what to zip where. The studs for snapping in the sleeve ends on the inner layers are not 180˚ apart, so you can avoid studding it up twisted round. Just little touches like this make it great to live with.

It comes with plenty of armour, thought the back armour is an optional extra (which I opted for) – Rev’it sell a lot of strap on back protectors, so I guess they’re hoping you pick those, but the unit for the jacket is well fitting, and as it heats up will mould to your body, but hardens on impact (so I’m told, I’m yet to fall off :). It’s also got seven external pockets, two of which are fully waterproof, and the others are water resistant. I’ve kept my phone and wallet in the waterproof pockets in rain and they’ve been fine.

A year on, other than being a bit less clean, it’s not showing any signs of wear and tear. I’m trying to think of some flaws, but none spring to mind. So, if you’re looking for an all year suit, then I can happily recommend trying the Cayenne Pro.