Ladies motorcycle clothing | Women's bike gear

Good quality, ladies' motorcycle clothing is hard to find. The fact is that the motorcycle industry is male dominated. Of course, it is a fact that the majority of motorcyclists are men. This is where most of the money is, and so this is where the clothing manufacturers put their resources. Yet even if women only count for 15% or 20% of riders, that is still a substantial market. Despite this no manufacturer is going to put too much effort into gear for women bikers.

Commerciality aside, one of the reasons the manufacturers don't get too excited about ladies' motorcycle wear is that it is just so hard to get right. Women's shapes are more varied and complex than men's shapes. There are too many curves and other variables with women. Ask any tailor. A gentleman's coat is so much easier to tailor than a ladies' coat.

It would be too simplistic to term the motorcycle manufacturer's attitude as indifference. It is just about following the money. The problem is that most stores, confronted with limited display space on their shop floors, take the same view. It does not pay to give too many facings to women's jackets and pants, because they are harder to move, and will not enjoy the same level of sell through.

There are very few companies that specialise in the production of ladies' gear. There are companies like Motogirl, Black Arrow, Blackbird and Eudoxie, but these brands do not make technical wear. Yes, their clothing will be CE approved to ensure the necessary level of abrasion resistance of the outer fabrics, as indeed it has to be, but as far as we know there is no company out there that specialises in ladies' technical wear. And so the makers we're talking about tend to produce leather jackets, summer jackets or mesh jackets. They do not work with suppliers like Gore-Tex; they do not produce clothing with membranes. They manufacture gear that often looks great, certainly. But the specialists in ladies' wear do not make motorcycle clothing that you can wear in the cold and the wet. What they make is more about the aesthetics than their technical performance.

Yet this gear is out there. You just have to find it. You need to know what you're looking for. And you need to have the motivation and the determination to go out and source it.

And this is where Motolegends has a USP. This is the only motorcycle clothing retailer, certainly in the UK, and probably in the world, that is owned, and run, by a woman. That woman is Sara Linney. And Sara is a proper biker. She has ridden all over the world. She rides on track, in the mud, and on the road. She also just happens to be an ardent feminist who gets massively upset by the attitudes to women that she encounters throughout the industry. 

She is constantly on the lookout for ladies' wear that will work on the bike. How gear looks can never be totally ignored, but Sara is not swayed by pink stripes, purple flashes, or embroidered butterflies. She wants gear that does for women bikers what men expect their gear to do for them. To be comfortable. To keep them cool. To keep them dry. To keep them warm. And to keep them protected. She works closely with lots of the manufacturers, but she doesn't pander to any of them. If she thinks something will work, she will take it. If she thinks it won't work, she won't. 

In recent years, with the increasing popularity of single-layer, protective jeans, for example, she has worked with people like Rokker and PMJ to create high-rise jeans. Low-rise jeans might sell well on the high street, but they simply don't work on the bike. Leant forward on the bars,