Black leather has traditionally been the safest and most dangerous clothing you could wear on a street bike.
With its durability and toughness, thick genuine leather has protected many a rider from the dreaded road-rash when they performed an unintentional dismount.
On the flip-side (no pun intended), black leather is very difficult for other drivers to see in the darkness of night. So the chances that you'd need that thick layer of cowhide tended to increase with the opportunity for some mobile-phone addicted distracted cager to bump you from behind increased.
While it's great for keeping your skin protected when you're skidding down the asphalt, it's also hard to see for other drivers who cross your path in the night. The solution to this biker's paradox has arrived in the form of the H2Protec leather jacket from Triumph Motorcycles, Ltd. Made of thick, quality cowhide and concealing within a set of CE armor (minus a back protector), the legendary motorcycle marque has added a special reflective quality to the piping that glows bright white when struck by artificial lighting. Even an led camera flash from a Motorola Droid brings out the special reflective quality (see photos in this article).The H2Protec looks like plain black dyed cowhide under normal lighting. But let a set of headlights hit it, or the aforementioned camera flash, and you've got a glowing outline that the characters of Tron would be proud of.
Out of the box it's a fairly stiff article of clothing, but with a few days wear the leather does what quality leather was designed by God to do (aside from keeping the insides of a cow contained)…the places it's supposed to bend at start bending with ease and the whole affair molds itself comfortably to the wearer.
The Triumph leather H2Protec jacket looks like a classic black leather biker jacket. The leather is genuine cowhide, and it looks great whether it's being worn on the ride, at the local pub, or just out for the morning commute to work.
At a retail price around $450.00, it's not cheap, but it's also some of the best protection you can put between your skin, the pavement, and other drivers. And with the new black reflective dye technology, it's now a great preventative measure.
Other drivers will wake up and wonder if you're wearing rope lights instead of sleepily running you down like a stray coyote.
