Hein Gericke Celtic Jacket > Reviews > Hein Gericke - Motorcycle "Spidey suit"

Author's product rating:   

Advantages:	Price, looks, off the peg
Disadvantages:	zips, price

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

This jacket (and matching jeans) is the evolution of the Hein Gericke tribal suit design which offered a decent set of leathers for a very reasonable price.

I have one of the tribal suits and I would swear by it. Especially the price I paid for it at the time. Although I prefer the red/black/white colour scheme there is a choice of colours.

I did catch a kerb a few years back trying to avoid a friend who's electrics had failed and the resultant earth-sky-earth could have been alot worse if I hadnt been wearing these. The result was a broken collerbone and thumb, The leathers stayed intact and apart from minor scuffing down one of the forearm flashes there is no other damage. (In fact you can see the suit in my profile pic).

The Jacket zips to the matching Jeans to give it a more secure feel with a full waist zip, not just a short back zip. While insructing I could wear these all day, unlike my race suit which started to make my neck ache after a few hours.

So for the jacket and jeans for around £200 you can't really go wrong.

Downsides? Of course there are a few. Some riders think that you get what you pay for with motorcycle gear. so a £1000 race suit is going to be far better than a £200 one. I don't believe this is always the case and if something works well at half the price, just because it hasn't got a designer name on doesn't bother me.
The zips can be a problem though. Apparently there is a EU regulation which dictates the amount of teeth per inch / centimetre on a zip, This means the zips have quite large teeth and after a few weeks of wearing the suit, the zip split on the waist holding the two together. Instead of returning the suit though, I asked advice from a local leather repair shop and a new zip was fitted with smaller, metal teeth as he had done a few suits like this. So for £20 this wsnt a problem as I liked the suit.
The only other gripe is that inside the lining the armour is held in place by round clips. These started to fall out after a while and I noticed that pulling the Jeans on, I would find a round plastic button like object on the floor. This isn't too much of a problem though, no worse than any other leathers I have had without these clips anyway. The armour still stays in place as there isnt much room for it to go anyway.

If you are on a budget and want a decent set of leathers, for a brand new set then try these. For myself I wasn't on that tight a budget but I got them anyway