Africa Tour wear
Hi All,
Recently did a ride through Africa from Morocco to the Congo and had a few ideas on what to wear. The ride was August to November.
I brought a new AGV AX8 dual sport helmet and was not disappointed. Comfy, very light and great venting. It did get a bit hot at times so I just wore some safety sun glasses with the shield open. Watch the bugs though!.
My jacket was a Held Hakuna. I chose this due to the large amounts of vents. These did not really help due to the humidity and high temps. This jacket was very hot. Any full coverage jacket will be very hot in these conditions. I think a full mesh jacket or a dirt bike armour mesh jacket would be ideal. The dirt bike armour with an over jacket would provide enough protection while still being cool enough and, with the over jacket, waterproof.
I wore Klim Chinook pants which I would highly recommend. They were comfy, had massive thigh vents and handy pockets. No armour though so separate knee armour worked well.
My boots were Sidi Adventures and apart from the squeaking were fantastic. Comfy and waterproof without being too hot.
You really just need very light gloves with plenty of venting. I took a pair of over gloves just in case but didn't need them.
For wet weather I wore over pants and jacket rather than stuff around with the internal liner in the Held jacket. With all the small storms I stopped using my wet weather gear as it took longer to put it on than to ride through the rain storm. I found it was that hot a bath was refreshing and I dried out pretty quickly.
I think if I was going again I would go with dirt bike armour and an over jacket for rain/cooler temps. I would definitely use the AGV helmet, Klim pants and Sidi boots again.
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