Take Care of Your Thermal Comfort During a Motorcycle Trip

Motorcycle travel offers a unique sense of freedom and adventure that’s hard to match with any other form of transportation. However, long rides come with specific challenges, especially when it comes to comfort and safety.

We’ve all tried different solutions for the so-called first layer when riding a motorcycle, from cotton t-shirts to modern thermal or thermoactive underwear. Nowadays, thermal or thermoactive underwear is the go-to choice for most riders. That’s why it’s important to know what to look for when choosing this product, what works, and what doesn’t.

LET’S START… AT THE BEGINNING

Let us first start with some definitions, so we understand what we are going to discuss. There are two broad categories of clothing: Sports and outdoors. 

Then, there are three broad categories of technical clothing:

1. Thermal clothing (sports): This is a breathable material which provides an insulating layer around your body to shield it from the cold. It can be wind-resistant or not. 
2. Moisture removing clothing (sports): This clothing allows the sweat to be kept away from the body, so you stay comfortable, avoid irritations. This is the type of clothing you’d wear for a run or bicycle outing, under your other garment. 
3. Outdoor clothing: the most generic category, that can be made of pretty much any material (including PET from recycled plastic bottles) and sold even at supermarkets. 

We will not go into an in-depth discussion about the merits of the different materials. Varied synthetic material is used in sports clothing and outdoors clothing.  

Over the years, new synthetic fabrics have emerged, opening up a new world of possibilities: Synthetic fabrics mixed with other elements. Be it silver against smell, elastic fibers for comfort, and also cooling / heating properties. 

Thermoactive clothing has the properties of sports underlayers, but then adds an element of thermal control to help regulate body temperature in hot and cold weather. It’s like having your own heater/ air con unit, but without the power supply.

Why is this important? High temperatures can impair cognitive functions such as attention, memory, and decision-making. This is particularly dangerous in activities requiring high levels of concentration, like driving a motorbike.

We can influence the safety of what we do with active safety and passive safety. Active safety is for instance driving more carefully. Passive safety would be by having gear which protects us and/or does not impair our abilities. 

Regulating temperature is therefore a critical element of passive safety for riders to stay safe, in all conditions.

Then, having thermoactive gear allows you to ride in a broader range of temperatures without having to add or remove layers: you pack lighter, don’t have to stop to dress up or strip. Pretty cool!

Thermoactive clothing is only used when it’s cold : Thermoactive clothes can be worn in scorching heat or in the cold. Thermoactive clothing provides thermal comfort as well as effective moisture management, and thus comfort and convenience. On cold and rainy days, thermoactive underwear should be worn with another layer of clothing, adapted to the weather conditions outside. In turn, in the summer, one layer is enough. Think of your clothing like onion skin: the cold it gets, the more layers you add.

Thermoactive underwear does not prevent sweating: Thankfully, not. Sweating is what keeps you cool. However, thanks to its special structure, it perfectly wicks sweat (moisture) away, thanks to which it ensures dryness and exceptional wearing comfort.

What are the “must haves” of technical wear

We put our biking stuff through a lot of abuse. Spending many weeks on the bike during the year, in all kinds of conditions, we have tried a few brands.  Decathlon, Brubeck, Odlo among many, and more recently Red Line.  From the accumulated experience, we came up with 4 criteria that must be met:

Moisture management
Long motorcycle trips can make you sweat buckets: this can be uncomfortable and even skin irritation. Good moisture management capabilities are therefore very important. The gear must wick away sweat from the body, to keep the rider dry and comfortable.

Temperature control
Keeps you cool when it’s hot and warm when it’s cold.

Comfort
Technical layers will be on your skin for hours a day. They must not itch, give you irritations, especially where you sit, and you should essentially not notice you wear them under the armor or your bike suit.

Durability
As motorcycle guides, we put the gear through pretty intense use. We know from experience that the brands we have used before tend to be worn out after 2 years – or less: this is because of abrasion against the bike suit or armor, daily washing, etc.  The technical gear we use adds up over time to a respectable amount.  Having a solution that outlasts what we have used up to now and also provides better functionality sounds like a good idea.

The underlayers must be well-fitted to the body, meaning it must adhere to the skin. The most common mistake made by people who have not dealt with thermal underwear before is choosing larger underwear – “so that it is looser.” This is a big mistake because the extra space created between the material and the skin significantly lowers the thermal properties of the underwear. It can also cause friction. It’s also worth remembering that underwear should be the first layer of clothing. It works best when it has direct contact with the skin. You can wear additional layers over thermal underwear, but it’s not always necessary. Everything really depends on the time of year and the prevailing weather conditions. If it’s cold or windy outside, then you should definitely put on additional layers of clothing. If it’s warm outside, thermal underwear alone is sufficient and can be the only layer of clothing.

Red Line Outlast technology is using new materials designed to optimize the comfort of motorcyclists. They are saying they use a product that was developed with space technology: “Outlast® thermo-technology was distinguished as a “Certified Space Technology™” in 2003 by the Space Foundation, an international non-profit organization to promote space activities. Outlast is the world’s only textile company to have received this quality label in connection with proactive heat management. »



To our knowledge, astronauts are not riding motorbikes in space. So, does the gear get the job done beyond space?

As Red Line are stating: “The great thing about this technology is that it works in both directions – cooling or heating depending on the situation. As the body cools, crystallization occurs in the Outlast thermo-material – once again a change of physical state, but one that releases heat. This cycle of solidifying and liquefying the natural wax within the microcapsules does not wear off, but instead functions continuously and repeatedly. Outlast thus permanently achieves a constantly comfortable temperature with its textiles, despite continuously changing temperatures and external influences around us over the course of a day or during the night”

Sounds like exactly what we need on a bike!

One of the key features of Red Line Outlast technology is its temperature regulation capability. Long motorcycle trips can expose riders to varying weather conditions, from scorching heat to chilly winds. Traditional technical gear often falls short in maintaining a comfortable body temperature, leading to discomfort and fatigue.

Red Line Outlast technology incorporates phase change materials (PCMs) that absorb, store, and release thermal energy. These materials adjust to the rider’s body temperature, ensuring a consistent and comfortable climate inside the gear. When the temperature rises, the PCMs absorb excess heat, preventing overheating. Conversely, when the temperature drops, the stored heat is released to keep the rider warm. This dynamic thermal system significantly enhances comfort during long rides. In theory at least.

We got ourselves a set of Outlast underlayers that we tested on 4 of our tours, over 10,000km on the bike:

North Vietnam offroad

The first tour was in the rice fields, forests, with steep hills and technical sections. All in 100% humidity and over 35-degree heat. It was so hot and humid that you were always sweating.  Fighting for survival on a bike in those temperatures was hard work.

Central Vietnam

This second tour was blessed with abnormal temperatures: riding temperatures exceeded 43 degrees for several days in a row. At times, the only way not to faint was to pour cold water on us and rely on the evaporation to help in the cooling!

Kyrgyzstan Ladies-only and Kyrgyzstan off-road edition

We rode in temperatures ranging between 3 and 35 degrees celsius. In the morning chilly and sometimes blessed with ice-cold showers at 3,500m. All with just 2 layers. We never had to dress up or down during the whole trip and we never felt the need to do so. All the riders on tour had to pack various layers.  It was quite a revelation!

How did the Red Line Outlast perform?

It did great at keeping moisture away from the body: we never felt wet. The gear never stank, even after 2 days of use, including sleeping in it.

It was comfortable to wear, pretty much like a second skin. This is unlike some other products that stick to you and feel wet.

It remained breathable in all circumstances.

Washing it every day did not affect the performance.

It never smelled bad. Don’t you hate smelling like a goat after a day on the bike?

We never had to add or remove layers during those tours. It made life much easier and a whole lot less stuff to pack as well.

Where to buy it?

Very simple – directly on their website or in a traditional shop – the list of shops is available here:
https://redline.com.pl/gb/content/8-shops 

There you have it! We wish you many beautiful hours in the saddle, smelling like the roses – and comfortable – with whatever you decide to wear.

The MotoBirds Team.

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