Designing and manufacturing riding gear for ATV and side-by-side is literally like the proverbial going out on a limb scenario.
Go to most any riding area or ATV/side-by-side rally or jamboree and look at what the riders are wearing. If the weather is decent you’ll usually see jeans and a t-shirt or if it’s a little chilly, jeans and a sweatshirt.
Yes, sport quad riders and dirt bikers usually wear moto gear but once you get past those segments of the powersports riders, there’s not much going on when it comes to off-road riding gear. Then Motorfist came along with an entire line of off-road riding gear for ATV and side-by-side riders. The Idaho Falls, ID-based company offers the Pilot and Defender series of off-road gear.
We chose the Pilot jacket and pant to try. And here is our first honest confession after getting the gear: it sat in our closet a few weeks before we tried it. It wasn’t that we didn’t want to try it, it’s just that while the Pilot jacket and pant are not insulated, each piece does have some bulk to it and the first rides we went on after getting the gear were warm-weather rides and the gear would have been too warm to wear.
However, we have since come to appreciate that warmth and protection in late-season rides.
First some details about the gear, though. Both the pant and jacket are made of 100 percent polyester with a mesh liner to help with cooling. The jacket has a gusseted back and the pant a gusseted crotch, aimed at providing comfort. On the pant, the knee and seat have dual layer fabric reinforcement as well as an expanding elastic waist with two adjusters. The jacket’s upper back is ventilated while the front zipper has an internal flap.
Motorfist doesn’t make any big claims about the Pilot jacket and pant being waterproof and/or windproof or this proof or that proof so we were able to determine that on our own. Here’s what we found.
At this year’s Rally on the Rocks in Moab, UT, we decided to ride the Porcupine Rim Trail one day. The forecast that day was for a chance of rain and not as warm of temperatures as you would expect in Moab in mid-May. What it turned out to be was cold and a steady snowfall that lasted nearly our entire ride. Not expecting that, we didn’t take as many clothes for layering as we should have. But we did, thank heavens, take the Pilot jacket, which we wore over a sweatshirt and another shirt. That was a good test for the jacket.
The jacket wasn’t 100 percent waterproof but it was waterproof enough to keep us fairly dry. Actually, had the precipitation been maybe just rain instead of snow, which sat on our jacket for hours as we rode (our Kawasaki had a roof, but no windshield for protection), we might not have been wet at all. And as it turns out, the jacket provided great protection.
Fast forward to the fall when we rode in northeastern Utah in the Uinta Mountains at the media intro for the all-new Can-Am Maverick Trail. We had both the Pilot jacket and pant along on this trip and were glad to have it because the area had received snow earlier in the week and temps had not really rebounded much. But it was warm enough that the snow had melted some—at least enough to create a fair amount of mud on the trails. While we wouldn’t go so far as to say the jacket and pant repelled the water and mud, both pieces of clothing provided great protection from the mud and water and dust. And we do like how the clothing is windproof. We did layer up on this ride as the Pilot clothing is not insulated but the jacket and pant proved to be a great outer layer.
The pant and jacket are very comfortable to wear and we like how we can move around in the gear, especially when on an ATV where we’re more active than in a side-by-side. And we appreciated how we could wear a long-sleeve shirt and jacket under the Pilot jacket and still be able to move around comfortably.
The pant retails for $99.99 and the jacket is also $99.99.
For more information, visit motorfist.com.
