G’day. Usually when I review something here on Daily Bikers you can be 100% sure that it is something that a) I want b) is high quality and c) I have paid for with my own money.
Times they are a changing. By that I mean, I have been given a VikingCycle Asger Motorcycle Jacket to review for nothing. That’s right, nix, nada, zilch, zip and zero.
Motorcycle House are a fairly large sized online company with a standalone site in Australia, UK and the United States.
Now, I’m not sure what that means but I guess it means that they are pretty big and they mean business. Which is evident in their clever use of PR and reaching out to motorcycle bloggers in those three countries and offering up free wares in return for a review.
It’s a tried and tested PR trick. You check out a bunch of bloggers in your niche market and target country and you offer up freebies in return for reviews, building quality backlinks to your site which is great for SEO and will help with Google returning quality search results to their sites, when someone searches for Mens Motorcycle Jacket. Check it yourself, google ‘Mens Motorcycle Jacket’ and see what you can see on Page 1 of Search Results. I see a paid Ad for Motorcycle House as the top result followed by BikeBiz and Revzilla.
Anyway, just to be clear this is me being brutally honest about the fact that I didn’t chose this jacket, and I didn’t pay for it.
Doesn’t mean I’m going to tell you it’s completely awesome either, I will still call a spade a spade, and the company has provided no caveats about what can and can’t be said, so props to them there for being transparent too. Now about this jacket….
Cleverly they are basically selling the same jacket in all three stores at around the same price relevant to your region;
Australia listed for $89.95
United Kingdom listed for £85.36
United States listed for $79.99 USD
But we all know that if you live in the UK then $90 of our AUD equals roughly half that in British Pound Sterling. Same goes for the States, but all I am pointing out here is that at least they offer the same product at around the same price to each of these countries levelling the retail field pretty much.
You pay for what you get with this jacket. Now I am not saying it is poor quality, quite the opposite actually, it is a very good looking textile jacket at a really reasonable price.
Fit
I chose a Large as I am sort of tall and lanky, around 6’2” and weighing in at 80kgs, so I’m not a huge bear of a man but I’m no runt either and typically I find that jackets are way too lose around chest if they are long enough in the arms, or if a little short in the arms, then a good fit around my chest.
The Asger is the latter of those two options. It is a comfy, fitted cut in that it tapers at the waist while remaining fairly snug around the bits where you move the most.
I found the Large to be perfect fit, but leaving my monkey arms a little exposed – but trust me this is pretty normal. I swear my arms are borrowed from a form of Praying Mantis.
Style
I kind of liken the style to a streetfighter look about it. It may be a cheap jacket but with it’s styled panels and use of black, grey and white materials it actually looks pretty cool.
It isn’t heavily badged up to the nines either. It has cool looking armour protection that could be mistaken for cosmetic implants a friend pointed out, although I think he was being ridiculous.
Function
Pros:
Very easy to put on and take off. The liner is a simple small gauge zip that goes right around from the right side to the left side sealing it in nicely.
The straps that tighten the arm cuffs, not sure what they are called but the remind me of Dunlop KT26s. You remember them? They were a sneaker/runner that had velcro laces. This was considered the ultimate in laziness at the time but it did indeed turn out to be very functional.
Well the Asger kind of adopted that thinking with a very wide arm cuff that with gloves on, makes perfect sense. It is so easy to grab the cuff and tighten or loosen/remove it via this huge velcro strap. It just looks a bit low-fi.
Cons:
Now the bad news. While the ‘thermal liner’ is removable, the whole jacket has a soft wind breaker material lining which isn’t. This means it seals you in even with all the venting open I found very little air to be getting inside of this sealed section. I can’t moderate my own temperature thanks to my friend MS, so this was a real problem for me.
Even on a slight day around 26 degrees Celsius, I felt totally trapped inside it, unable to breathe. My temperature rose and rose until i had to unzip it. I couldn’t really understand that a jacket would have such a design flaw, but it does.
A great summer jacket it is not. But that is my only gripe and it could be a case of my health being the problem, not the jacket.
Features
Taken directly from their website.
- Padded collar
- Front & back exterior padded panels for extra protection
- Tri-Tex waterproof fabric provides breathability
- Exterior polycarbonate armor for shoulder protection
- Complete adjustability with Velcro & zippered wrist cuffs
- Waterproof seams
- Zippered front closure
- Lower back kidney belt
- Adjustable side waist straps for a comfortable fit
- Zip out polyester quilted inner liner
- Zippered vents: 2 on chest and 2 on backside
- 5 Pockets: 3 exterior zippered pockets, 1 interior zippered pocket, and 1 Velcro interior pocket patch
- Extremely comfortable with full adjustability for different riding positions
Summing it all up
For the money I’d say you can’t really look past this jacket if the styling appeals to you. It’s well made, looks the goods, caters for almost all seasons wear in Australian climates and will only set you back $89.
Not bad by a long shot.
Until next time crew, stay upright and subscribe below for weekly updates.
