An explanation of the CE testing regime, at least as it pertains to riding jeans

Motorcycle jeans: The good, the bad and the ultra-protective



By David Booth



All motorcycle protective gear is, by definition, a compromise. The accommodation in question is simple, the trade-off always some form of balance between protection and comfort. No one (sane at least) gets dressed up in a Dainese one-piece to ride three blocks to 7/11 for a pack of smokes. Likewise, it’s been a long time since a bathing suit was considered adequate protection — stand up and take a bow, Rollie Free — during a land speed record run on the Bonneville salt flats. Proponents of ATGATT — All The Gear, All The Time — may claim that safety should be the only criteria that counts when it comes to protective riding gear, but, in fact, the number of motorcyclists still riding around in in obviously inadequate riding gear — not to mention shorts and sandals! — is all the proof you need that there’s more to convincing bikers to don armour than just life and limb.



Nowhere is that balance between comfort and protection more obvious than in riding jeans. After all, the entire raison d’etre for the riding jean — the market for which has exploded in the last five years — is to add a little comfort, not to mention fashion, to an otherwise uncomfortable motorcycle riding pant. Leather sweats and textiles itch, hence why the Holy Grail for motorcycle riding garment in recent years has focussed on some variant of the decades-old denim.



A number of solutions have been proposed, from different materials — everything from Kevlar to something called ultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) — in different arrangements. The good news is that all, to obviously varying degrees, proven more protective than jeans of old. A modern riding jean, again to various degrees, can be a fairly protective garment, capable of both absorbing impact and resisting abrasion.



The bad news is that it's very difficult to actually tell how protective the pair of pants you planning on buying really is. In point of fact, the very standards that we’ve long trusted — the now ubiquitous European CE standards put in place to allow motorcyclist to judge the protective ability of the garment he or she might be shopping — are now such a source of confusion that it’s hard for anyone not a materials engineer to determine what jean actually offers the necessary protection and which don't. What does it mean when a jean is said to be able to “slide” for eight seconds? Can we believe a manufacturer when they claim their jeans have better abrasion resistance than leather? And how much protection does an AAA rating translate into when you’re sliding down the road on your ass?



The reason for the confusion is that there are actually two CE rating system — the older EN13595 regs and the newer, as of 2018, EN17092 standards — and while both purport to set minimum abilities for protective ability, how they rate the garments they test, how they label them and, indeed, how they actually test abrasion resistant is so different that, well, even dedicated motorcycle journalists who’ve spent hours trying to decipher European hieroglyphics, er, testing procedures, still get confused.



For instance, the older 13595 test uses something called a Cambridge test which was just a fancy name for a belt sander spinning 60-grit sandpaper at 18 miles per hour (30 kph). Basically, a sample of the material to be tested is dropped onto the moving abrasive and is abused until a hole pokes through. Obviously, the longer it takes, the more protective the jean. Though the time to puncture is not meant to specifically compare to how long the jeans might survive in a real-world slide down the road, the Cambridge test, as some of you may have guessed, is the source of the manufacturer’s advertising when they claim that their jeans can endure so many seconds of “sliding time.”



The newer 17092 system likewise tests abrasion resistance, but uses something called a Darmstadt machine which is basically a rotary grinder. Like the Cambridge machine, it pummels the jean materials against an abrasive surface, but, unlike the earlier tests, it doesn't do so until failure. Instead, it spins the test subject at three different speeds for a specific time and then, if there are no holes, the material is given a pass. Survive the fastest and your garment earns an AAA EN17092 rating, the second fastest speed, an AA designation and, you’ve probably guessed this by now, the slowest speed, an A badge. And again, like the Cambridge results, though the Darmstadt test is not supposed to be represent actual road speeds the fact that AAA testing is conducted at 707.4 rpm — which is equivalent to about 75 mph ground speed — hasn’t prevented some brands from quoting the “speed” for which their garments are approved. The AA designation, by the way works out to be about 46 mph while the base A rating is about 28 mph.



So, which is better? Is a jean that can resist the Cambridge machine for eight seconds — roughly what Resurgence claims for some of its lined jeans — better than something rated AAA of the Darmstadt gizmo?



Unfortunately, it’s impossible to know, as there’s been no direct comparison. The earlier tests used rougher grit abrasive — which might better simulate particularly rough pavement —but the new test incorporates much higher velocities. Which is more representative of real-world crashing is simply impossible to know.



Both standards have their limitations. For instance, an eight second slide time sounds pretty darned impressive — especially, if as I mentioned, you think that translates into a real-world crash experience — but the truth of the matter, even if you were to slide along the tarmac for eight seconds (and that would be a high-speed crash indeed), chances are you wouldn’t do so on just one portion of your body. So, while yes, a long slide time on the Cambridge machine would seem to be a desirable trait, the chances that you’d focus all your interaction with bitumen in one spot is hardly realistic.



The newer 17092 ratings likewise have their limitation, namely that unlike the older 13595 system, they don’t test to failure. So, once you’ve attained an AAA rating, that’s all she wrote. In other words, there’s no way to determine if one AAA-rated jean is more protective than another. The old Cambridge test might not have provided realistic simulation of a real-world crash, but at least it offered a relativistic comparison between products. This seemingly arcane point is actually of great interest because while many of the new-generation of “single-layer” jeans — which weave the Kevlar or UHMWPE into the denim — have gained AAA acceptance, none seem nearly as capable as traditional “lined” jeans (where the protective Kevlar layer is separate from the denim) at resisting the Cambridge machine’s abuse. As a result, it’s worth noting that some manufacturers claim that no single layer jean can match the abrasion resistance of a lined pant. Others, of course, beg to differ.



After countless hours of research, I’ve come to two conclusions. First, most experts in the field believe the older test is more rigorous than the revised version. More specifically a Level II rating in the older EN13595 system probably means the jean is tougher than something rated AAA in 17092. That said, a triple A rated jean is still going to be a robustly protective piece of kit.



The second is that, all things equal, a lined pant will be more abrasion resistant than a single-layer jean. That said, I’d also tell you who manufactures the jeans, the quality of the specific material used and the armour included at knee and hip probably matters more than how many layers of material there are. As you’ll soon read in the product test portion of this review, I’ll take a single layer Resurgence or PMJ jean over some of the lesser lined trousers I’ve tested.



One final note that may surprise is that the best of riding jeans generally out-perform many, if not most, common textile pants. Indeed, rare is the traditional textile pants that can meet the CE’s new top AAA rating (AA is typically the top end for textile pants and A even more common). The PMJ Deux, one of the jeans in this test, easily manages a top AAA rating and it’s but a single-layer weave of denim and Twaron — a Kevlar-like para-aramid developed by Akzo back in the ‘70s —originally developed for bulletproof vests. Jeans have come a long way baby.



Jeans on test



Over the course of the last eight years, I’ve had occasion to test as many as dozen different reinforced denim pants including the top-of-the-range models from Held, Rev’It, Klim, Draggin’, Resurgence, PMJ and others. Some were quickly rejected for some obvious reasons — the Draggin’ jeans because their armour seemed subpar, the Klims and Held because they were so baggy at the knees there was no guarantee the knee pads would be in the right place if you did crash. Others, like the Rev’Its, were simply outpaced by new technology. The only three I’ve kept are a couple of pairs of Resurgence products — an older pair of lined Café Racers and a newer set of not-yet-available-in-Canada New Wave PEKEV Ultra Motorcycle Jeans — and PMJ’s Deux.



Resurgence Café Racer



The older Resurgence’s were bought as the result of the most visual of prompts. Riders Choice, my favourite apparel store has a display of a pair of Café Racers that it claimed had been part and party to a 200 kilometres crash that luckily didn't result in any immoveable objects being hit. Even if there was the normal amount of bench-racing exaggeration in the speed of the get-off, the disparity in the totally-destroyed condition of the outer layer of denim and the comparatively-pristine condition of the inner liner turned me into an instant customer. The dual-layer Resurgences, at the time, boasted an eight second slide time — the company now claims 10.83s — something the wearer of this jean had sorely tested. They also came with D30 Level 1 hip and knee armour as standard equipment, making them, more or less, state of the art at the time.



As for more mundane — but no less important — considerations like comfort, they were revelations. A mesh inner liner protected skin from the comparatively abrasive Pekev material, the jeans were a fairly normal cut which mean a good compromise between comfort and the all-important consistent placement of the knee armour. Incredibly well constructed, they’ve stood the test of time and are still my go-to jeans in the right climactic conditions.



That would be spring and fall because, thanks to their dual-layer construction, they provide more insulation than normal jeans. That said, their weakness — and this speaks to the compromise I started this review with — is that, in the heat of summer, they can get more than a little clammy. If you’re actually planning, on any given particular day, to crash your BMW s1000RR at that reported 200 km/h, then, by all means, said sweatiness is not your primary concern. Indeed, the only reason I not to wear the Café Racers in favour of some other brand with less abrasive resistance, is when the mercury hit a pore-opening 30 C or more. Like I said, the comfort/protection balance is a personal choice and my perspiration quotient in Resurgence’s Cafes is sorely tested in the heat of a Toronto summer. Their only other fault is that, while D30 was the very best of viscoelastic body armour five years ago — that might have been because they were then the only supplier of viscoelastic body armour — I’m not as fond of their knee pads as I sued to be. Oh, they’re plenty pliable and comfy when seated on a bike, but their decidedly curvy contour can become bothersom when walking around. There are decidedly more comfortable armour alternatives out there, though I have yet to test whether they are as impact resistant.



PMJ Deux



My solution for the heat of summer is a pair of single-layer jeans by Italian clothier PMJ called Deux. Made of a material called Twaron — that Kevlar-like para-aramid developed by Akzo back in the ‘70s for bulletproof vests — interwoven with the cotton denim, they are AAA rated in the latest CE testing and are said to be good for something over four seconds. Both ratings are a poke in the eye to those who claim that only multi-layer riding jeans can provide adequate protection.



The benefit of single layer construction is immediately obvious. They’re noticeably lighter than the lined Resurgence Café Racers and breathe more easily when the temperature spikes. They are also, when you remove the hip and knee armour, as comfortable as any regular ‘fashion’ jean I have worn. Many riding apparel companies claim such like-normal-jeans comfort for their riding pants: In my experience, the PMJ Deux are the only ones in my experience that deliver on that promise.



The armour PMJ uses is also extremely comfortable. Thinner, more pliable and less contoured than the D30 products so many other manufacturers use, the ImpacTec hip and knee padding is more comfortable than their D30 equivalents. They are noticeably thinner, however, and whether that impacts their impact resistance, I have yet to experience (Thank you Lord). That said, the ImpacTec armour is rated CE Level I, the same as the D30 resurgence uses.



The downsides of the PMJs are two-fold. The first is that they’re Italian in the very skinniest sense of the word. I ended up with one sized larger in the waist to accommodate their snug waistline and they still felt like they’re painted on. The upside is that these close quarters mean you know the knee armour will remain in its place. The downside — and there’s really no way to say this politely — is that your junk can get squeezed if your bike, like my adventure-touring V-strom 1000 XT, has a forward sloping seat and you like to (really) brake late in corners. That said, the thing I would like most improved in the Deux would be to have the knee armour removeable from the outside rather than having the to, as with most riding pants, reverse the legs to gain access to their pockets from inside. I really did mean it when I said that, with armour removed the PMJs are as comfortable as anything from Levi or Gap. I quite often ditch the armour and wear the PMJs as ‘dress’ jeans on a night out.



So, Resurgence Café Racers in the spring and fall, then PMJs in the summer and when I need an (armour-less) fancy pant after a long ride on the bike. Done and dusted, right?



Resurgence New Wave PEKEV Ultra Motorcycle Jeans



Not quite. Though not available in this market — they’re made for the British market where bikers seem willing to pay a premium for top-quality protective gear — Resurgence also sells a single-layer jean, the New Wave constructed of something it calls PEKEV Ultra, basically, like the PMJs, a weave of abrasion-resistant PEKEV with cotton. According to Resurgence’s home page, they are also rated AAA by EN17092 standards and according to Resurgence.net, boast a “CE Abrasion rating” time of 11 seconds.



And they are almost as comfortable as the PMJs. Indeed, for those thick of either waist or quadricep, their slightly looser — but still fashionable — cut will probably make them more comfortable even if their weave of cotton and PEKEV is little heavier and coarser than PMJ’s Twaron and cotton. Because the units I tested use the same D30 inserts as the lined pants, I didn’t find the armour as comfy as the PMJs. However, Resurgence is starting to offer D30 “Ghost” armour inserts that are both thinner and flow more cooling air. They too are rated Level I, though they are probably not as protective — D3O’s technology page appears to show that the Ghosts transmit about 20 per cent more force than its standard thicker armour — as the Café Racers. But they are truly jean-like when worn and, precious family jewels rejoice, they’re not quite as tight fitting as the Italian cut.



Their main downside is that a) they are not, as of the time you’re reading this, available in Canada and, unless this article results in an unexpected demand, Resurgence Canada has no immediate plans to import them and b), in the UK, they cost 299 pounds. That would seem to make them a $460 pair of jeans if they did make their way to this side of the pond. That said, the same site currently sells the Café Racers for 245 pounds which are on sale at Toronto’s GP Bikes for $251.98. Judge for yourself how expensive they might be if they were available here. The PMJ Deuxs, meanwhile, are $349.95 at Blackfootonline.ca



As for a final verdict, I will stick to my previously noted combination of lined Resurgence Café Racers when its chilly outside and the single-layer PMJs when the temperatures get all climate-changey. If two pair of expensive riding jeans isn’t an option, then just decide which you find more uncomfortable — heat or cold? If it’s the latter, then buy the Café Racers. If its former — and you wouldn’t not mind if your biking jeans pass as dress pants — the get the PMJs.