The Allround boots are the “entry level touring boot” when compared to the Pro Touring boot. This “entry level” boot seems on par with the top touring boots from quite a few other manufacturers.

Avon has generally been a tire for the cruisers of the motorcycle world, and in the super sport market? Well, there’s been a bit of skepticism in the local ride community. Avon’s ignored the raised eyebrows and has encouraged everyone to try their latest wares, and there are a few good reasons to.  The first? …

The rain has transformed the construction zone’s dust into a thin sheen of mud across the road surface.  No road tire should ever have to put up with this sort of abuse.  Even through these conditions Avon’s new Storm-ST’s are demonstrating exceptional composure.  Eventually the construction zone fades into the rear-views and we’re back to the…

  When Alpinestars offered up of any of their boot line for testers I went for the SMX.  Why? I could have gone with their flasher GP inspired offerings, but one word, “Gore-Tex”, drug my eye across their web page.  A thin layer of this magical material sold me on the SMX from the get…

Some things are very difficult to transfer from the abstract to functional reality; protection is one of those concepts.  All too often the thought “I should wear more protection against falling down and going boom” translates to, “I’m encapsulated in hot uncomfortable unwieldy amour and the only people who want to hang around with me have a misunderstood transformers fetish.” …

Summer is a twisted hell for protection-minded riders. Dry roads and warm nights make you wish you could ride 24 hours out of the day, but the daytime heat will cook the fully-wrapped in a single red stoplight. Thankfully, for those willing to trade a modicum of safety, comfort is available. The Icon Super Duty gloves are designed…

As the stream of sport bikes disappear in my mirrors, I shift my weight, look through the corner, and tip in. As the VFR and I rail through the corner–respectively offering peg feeler and knee slider to the pavement gods.  I have only the manic grin on my face and euphoric surge of endorphins to confirm that I have…

When Brenda from Bitchin Gear dropped off a sample of the Podium Tank Purse we knew we were in trouble.  With no women currently on staff at our small operation we were left with no choice but swallow our he-man like pride, go metro-sexual and test the Podium.  Luckily, the sample came with a blue…

San Francisco-based MAD (Motor Adventure Destination) Maps, Inc.’s Adventure America: Best Road Trips Volume 1 is, as their press release puts it, “a consolidation of the company’s regional maps onto on national map”.  We have another description for it as we sit on the cusp of a new riding season plotting and scheming this year’s…

The rain is torrential, the light at 4:30PM absent and traffic apocalyptic, as if one of the four horsemen, plague most likely, had become a herd of mindless lemmings.  Despite the lashings of rain and the abuse of horns, I decide to lane-split my way onto the Lions Gate Bridge, a bottleneck that is to…

Not since the Rocketeer slipped on a jet pack has a backpack this cool and well designed for transport graced a human’s backside.  Of course the transport in question is a motorcycle, and the backpack a stash for your everyday commuter needs, but past those qualifiers the statement still applies to Axio’s Hybrid.

Let’s try a game of word association; the first word is “winter”.  Now let’s try a second word, “gloves”.  That should have been enough to conjure up an image of bulky, clunky accessories with more in common with something astronauts use for extra-vehicular activities than the subtleties of riding.  That is no longer the case…