Even Vanson Leathers in Fall River, Massachussetts, a maker of premium motorcycle jackets, including the US$1,500 model Arnold Schwarzenegger wore in Terminator 3, is making concessions. Its sales manager, Ken Hendren, said in a telephone interview that sales of brightly colored garments had risen only 10 percent the last five years and that three-quarters of what the company sells is still black. But Vanson has added retro-reflective piping to some black jackets and a glow-in-the-dark upper panel treated with a phosphorized finish to others.
Goldfine supplements his bright-yellow jacket with a pulsating taillight on his bike; on initial braking it pulses rapidly a few times, then less rapidly, and then stays on steadily as long as the brakes are applied. Too bad he didn't have some of this protective brightness 24 years ago when he was rear-ended by a car while he was stopped at a crosswalk.
"Looking back," he said, "it was funny to put my bike on the side stand and walk back to her and say, `Excuse me.'"
THE BUG FACTOR
As for looking cool, that's subjective. Goldfine, lacking a windshield, pays a price for giving up the camouflage of black leather.
"The high-visibility yellow garments become plastered with oil, bug stains and other road filth," he said. "To me this looks as authentic as faded denim or well-worn shoes. But most nonriders find this alarming. Several times when I've met someone, their eyes alight on the crud and their expression changes from friendly to a kind of nonverbal eeeeewwww."
Anyway, Goldfine said, when you show up on your motorcycle, "it's not what you wear that makes you cool; it's that you rode there."
RSS