I’m a rider of the ATGATT school of thought — All The Gear, All The Time — and I follow this to its illogical extreme: I have replaced nearly all my standard jeans with motorcycle jeans. I wear a pair of now-discontinued moto jeggings nearly every day of my life, and I’ve rarely wanted for more comfort. Moto pants can look and act just like regular pants, but with a bit of extra protection.
When buying pants, you’ll find armor in two areas: The hips and the knees. Hip armor is generally small and borderline unnoticeable, while knee armor has to have a slight bent to it in order to accommodate your knee — this is the pad that’ll annoy you. Luckily it can be improved upon in the aftermarket, by simply buying your own pads.
Buy jeans for their abrasion resistance, their comfort, and their closeness to whatever look you’re going for. Mens’ jeans are almost always early-2000s-level baggy, while womens’ jeans are invariably 2014 skinny — if anyone knows where to get a moto-rated cargo jogger, please tell me — but there are still options within these two camps. There are faux-chinos, faux-cargo pants, even some real “Star Wars”-looking pieces. Consider all this when shopping, consider the pants’ comfort and where their armor pockets are located, but ignore the armor.
This is because, for the utmost comfort, you’ll almost always swap the armor yourself. CE1 pads like Rev’It SeeSmart or D3O Ghost are hard to find in off-the-rack pants — the former patented by a single brand, the latter simply new to market — but they make a world of difference when added in. They’re lightweight, they’re comfortable, you may well forget they’re there. Like above, the best armor is the stuff you’ll actually wear, and you’ll wear thin pads like these.
Of course, like jackets, you’ll be dealing with the A/AA/AAA protection rating scale here. This again includes abrasion resistance, and I again follow the same breakdown: My A-rated jeggings for the street, my AA-rated ADV gear for highway hauls, and a AAA rating for the most intense riding. Moto gear always has a tradeoff between safety and usability, and navigating that tradeoff is the duty of every individual rider. A full leather race suit would be safer for riding to the park than my jeggings, but it’d certainly be less comfortable once I get there — if I even do make it, without cooking in traffic first.
