Layering with Klim | Get this right and you’ll be ready for any weather on your motorbike

Paid partnership with Klim

Staying comfortable on your motorbike in all weathers is about more than your enjoyment. It can mean you can ride further, stop less often (if you want to) and will actually keep you safer, too.

Feeling comfortable is a passive safety feature of your kit. The thinking goes that if you’re not wasting brain power on being cold or wet or too hot or shuffling around on a chafed bum, then you are more likely to spot that car changing lane without indicating or a lorry driver looking the wrong way on a tricky junction.

One of the best ways to ensure your comfort in any conditions is layering. This means more than just adding more items of clothing the colder it gets – these days there are technical garments with specific jobs such as moisture wicking base layers, breathable waterproof membranes and insulating mid-layers.

The best place to start is with a base layer. There are three main types these days, some keep you warm, some keep you cool and some are designed to do both and be worn year-round.

Use Klim’s dealer locator to find your local retailer.

While base layers are a step in the right direction, once conditions start to get very cold you’ll need to step up your game and consider a mid-layer. These are worn immediately under your outer jacket and add wind-stopping and thermal bulk to your layering arrangement.

At the lighter end, these can be fleecy garments and at the heavier end they are down jackets that can be worn in their own right off the bike.

The best thing about layering is that you can adapt what you are wearing throughout the day or from day-to-day when the conditions change. Pop a mid-layer in for the chilly morning route and then take it back out again at lunch once the temperature has risen.

Or ride all day in the summer sun wearing a moisture wicking Aggressor “Minus 1.0” and then add an Alloy mid-layer for the last stretch home as the sun goes down and the mercury drops.

Klim women’s mid-layers

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