The gear compromise on an adventure bike off-road

On the road, I settled the gear question for myself long ago. There I wear a three-layer laminate and cope surprisingly well even in high temperatures. The reason is simple: on the road you're almost always rolling, the airflow works for you, and your body does very little. It only gets uncomfortable in traffic jams, and those are the exception on my tours.

Off-road, that equation flips completely. Enduro riding pushes your heart rate much higher, you're constantly working with your whole body and heating yourself up from the inside. That's the crux of the problem, and physics explains it well: breathable textiles only move water vapour outwards along a temperature and humidity gradient. Under hard work, though, the body produces more sweat than even the best fabrics can shift, and in warm, humid air the gradient shrinks even further. So in a tricky section at 38 or 41 degrees, you can rip open as many vents as you like: if there's no airflow blowing through, the suit stays a sauna. That's exactly how it caught me recently in the south of France: 41 degrees according to the display, rocky terrain, walking pace. The ventilation was completely useless. On top of that comes the protection question, which looks different off-road than on the road: you crash more often, but usually at lower speeds, and that's exactly why the gear concepts drift so far apart.

So this doesn't turn into membrane-bashing, you have to be fair and understand what a laminate like this delivers. In a three-layer laminate, the membrane is firmly bonded between the outer shell and the inner lining. Nothing shifts, nothing chafes, the construction is tough and comparatively light. The membrane itself is a stretched fluoropolymer with billions of microscopic pores per square inch. These pores are orders of magnitude smaller than a water droplet, but significantly larger than a water vapour molecule. Rain stays out, body vapour can escape, as long as the gradient mentioned above is right.

I learned how much that's worth in Yellowstone in 2005. The park's visitor areas sit between 2,000 and 2,400 metres, frost is possible there in every month of the year, and summer nights regularly slide towards zero degrees. On our America trip back then we had sub-zero mornings and rain showers in between, and I swore an oath on the bike: never again on a big trip without a Gore-Tex three-layer laminate. Back home I then ordered top gear from Gore-Tex specialist Stadler, and in cold, wet conditions nothing can replace a laminate like that to this day. The only important thing is to be honest about what you're paying for: the laminate is weather insurance with a built-in ceiling on sweat removal, not an air conditioner.

It just doesn't solve the summer problem. The honest truth after many trips is this: even my suits with huge zip-open vents never come close to the airiness of motocross gear. The membrane wins in cold and rain, and it loses whenever the airflow is missing and your heart rate climbs.

I know the other extreme just as well, because I regularly swing back to it. Motocross gear is made of light, open mesh and stretch fabrics without any waterproof layer. It's built uncompromisingly for airflow, and the protection doesn't come from the textile but from separate armour. In that case I wear a jersey with an airy armoured vest underneath. On the protection question it's worth looking at the standard: armour is tested to EN 1621 in two levels, and Level 2 may on average transmit only half as much residual force as Level 1. So a good vest with Level 2 armour is no fig leaf, but serious protection. Then there's a detail many underestimate: under the jersey, the base layer helps decide how the day goes. Cotton gets soaked and cools you down uncontrollably, while a tight sports shirt at least moves the sweat to where the airflow can evaporate it. The airy camp also lives by the layering principle, just thought through in the opposite direction.

On a hot, hard-working day off-road, this setup gets you through brilliantly. The price is well known: as soon as rain rolls in, you're standing at the edge of the trail pulling on oversuits, and against cold the only help is layering with everything your luggage can offer. In any case, I've yet to find the jack-of-all-trades for adventure touring that works equally well in sweaty sections and at the lowest temperatures. By now I believe it can't exist, because maximum airiness and a sealed membrane physically contradict each other.

The best reality check for this dilemma so far came from the Colorado Backcountry Discovery Route. The BDR organisation, a non-profit US initiative, documents off-road routes for adventure bikes across the states and provides GPS tracks and maps free of charge; the Colorado route, COBDR for short, officially measures 745 miles. Our two Aprilia Tuareg 660s, complete with a pre-programmed route, came from Colorado Motorcycle Adventures in Golden, and if you want to study the gear problem live, you'll hardly find a better lab: this trip throws desert heat in the valley and graupel on the pass under your wheels on the same day.

There I wore the iXS Venture-Air 1.0, a two-layer ripstop suit with large vents, jacket and trousers in light grey-olive. It was the most acceptable compromise in my collection so far: airy enough as long as I was moving, and with its water-repellent design a usable base when the rain caught us at 3,700 metres. Alongside me, Clemo rode the pure motocross solution, and the division of roles was a textbook lesson. When we got stuck in a water hole and I was sweating hard during the recovery, he just smiled gently out of his airy MX kit. Up on the 3,901-metre Engineer Pass and the roughly 3,850-metre Cinnamon Pass, in single-digit temperatures and with showers moving in, the picture flipped completely. Incidentally, your head is part of the system too: off-road I deliberately wear a full-face enduro helmet with a visor, the Arai Tour-X5, which is warmer than a motocross helmet with goggles but saves me in the rain and on transfer stages. And because in moments like these you're constantly coordinating lines, recoveries and photo stops, communication ran via the Cardo Packtalk Edge mesh system, which proved to be a genuine safety gain off-road.

The conclusion from Colorado is uncomfortable: both philosophies had their moment, and neither won the day outright. That's exactly why I no longer believe in the one perfect suit, but in a cleverly built system.

My next attempt deliberately swings back towards airiness, but with a safety net. The plan looks like this: up top I'll wear an airy armoured shirt with a motocross jersey over it, so maximum ventilation exactly where the body produces the most heat while working. As weather insurance, a super-compact Gore-Tex overjacket gets strapped firmly to the bike, within easy reach. When bad weather rolls in, I'll invest the two minutes and pull it on. For the trousers I'm going the opposite way and sticking with adventure bike trousers with a membrane and large vents, like the iXS last time. The legs produce less heat stress than the upper body, but they're the first to catch spray, water crossings and splashes.

Whether this system ends the search, I don't know; the off-road gear compromise probably remains an unsolvable problem that you can only navigate more cleverly. But that's exactly what trips are for. The new setup will be tested on the next projects; currently in planning are Arizona, Texas, Greece and Portugal. Stay tuned – for you guys, no research project is too much effort.