With Love to Two Wheel

Passionate approach to serve Riders & Professional Racers.

Thursday 7 July 2011

About Leather

Expect only the best leather from Janman Shop

When it comes to choosing a fine leather jacket, accessory or sportswear piece you want nothing but the best. The best quality. The best styles. And of course, the best value. You've come to the right place because you've come to Janman Shop. We know leather, and we know how to match individual needs with the right leather types and styles. So you get the look you want. And the quality you demand. It's something Janman Shop has taken pride in since 1899. A pride and uncompromising set of standards that go into every garment and accessory we make. Leather that ranges from various textures and looks that work well and wear well, not only for fashion, but for function.

Choose a leather for durability and versatility:

Versatile leather pieces are available in a variety of textures and finishes. Heavy and durable by nature, it's the leather-of- choice for motorcycle jackets, briefcases and belts. The latest techniques in tanning and finishing also are creating lightweight versions of leather that are popular for year-around wear. It's easy to care for, water- and dirt-resistant, and the perfect match for any lifestyle.

Choose a leather for beautiful finish options:

Strong, yet lightweight leather is ideal for gloves and jackets. It responds beautifully to tanning techniques and color finishes, giving it wonderful dimension and rich hues. It's soft-to-the-touch, durable and a favorite among the world's top designers.

Choose a leather for elegance and luxury:

Soft, smooth, and luxurious, lamb is the ultimate leather indulgence. It's lightweight nature and buttery texture give it a sophisticated appeal, which makes it the perfect choice for dressier jackets, sportswear and accessories. Although lamb is the most delicate of all leather types, it's also very wearable and transforms beautifully into today's most-fashion forward designs.

Choose a leather for affordability with innovative ideas:

Leather that is soft, durable and stain-resistant. It transforms easily into today's most current looks, making it a popular choice for leather jackets. New tanning techniques have created innovative surfacing like subtle sheens and matte finishes, in beautiful colors. This affordable, functional leather offers fashion, value and endless style.

Choose a leather for velvety texture:

Suede refers to the underside of the leather, which is buffed to produce a velvety nap (texture). The natural highs and lows create interesting depth and beautiful hues, while the lightweight structure allows it to drape nicely - perfect for jackets, sportswear and handbags.

Learn More About Leather

Leather is one of nature's most versatile and sensual materials. It offers comfort and durability in a variety of beautiful finishes, textures and colors. Janman Shop apparel and accessories are designed with the quality and pride that have made us the world-wide leader in leather fashion. We know leather. Its characteristics. Its value. The way it makes you look good and feel good like any luxurious item should. Our remarkable leather fashions provide years of pleasure and long-lasting use. Through our experience we've learned the best methods for maintaining leather. The following information explains how leather is made and the best ways to keep your leather looking its best for years to come.

The History of Leather and How it is Made:

Leather has been made in various locations around the world for more than 5000 years, and the first tanners guilds have been traced as far back as twelfth century England. Although tanning methods have changed with new technologies, the end result is a product that has been valued for centuries.

The first step in the modern tanning method is to apply a protective treatment to the hides (whole pelts from cattle) or skins (the pelts of younger or smaller animals). Next they are put through a chemical process to keep them soft and flexible. Now the tanners can work with the leather to adjust the thickness, color and apply a variety of finishes. The end product is sent to manufacturers, who cut and sew the leather into apparel and accessories.

The Look and Feel of Leather:

When most people see leather, their first reaction is to touch it. The way leather feels is called its hand. In general, the softer the hand, the higher the cost. The raw material, which is a determined by genetics, greatly influences the quality of leather. Every hide and skin has sections that are naturally wrinkled, softer or thinner in certain areas. Environmental factors, including climate and food supply, also affect the final product. Since leather is a natural material, it is never uniform. Its small surface imperfections create a unique beauty that can never be duplicated.

Shopping Tips:

  • Consider the cut, style and lining that work best for your lifestyle.
  • The price of leather is mostly determined by the quality of the raw materials and style of the apparel or accessory.

Leather Facts:

  • Leather is tear and puncture-resistant.
  • Leather protects from heat, cold and wind; and it repels moisture.
  • Leather items are available in a variety of weights and made with different linings for comfort in warm and cold weather.
  • Leather apparel stretches and molds to your body, yet at the same time retains its shape.
  • Leather breathes -- that's what keeps it soft and supple.
  • Leather is an agricultural by-product of the food industry. We purchase the hides and transform them into beautiful leather apparel and accessories.

Leather Protection and Care

  • Use a high-quality water and stain repellent product, like our Janman Shop and Suede Protector, to help prevent water stains and soiling. Our special formula is free of silicone and wax, ingredients that break down the natural oils in leather. We recommend Janman Shop and Suede Protector for all types of leather and suede. Apply immediately after purchasing your new leather item, and every two or three months with regular use.
  • Use a high quality leather lotion on a soft cloth to moisturize your finished leather. Janman Shop Lotion is specially formulated with lanolin oils to replenish natural oils and protect all fine, smooth and grained leather. Avoid using Janman Shop Lotion on suede or buffed leather (leather that has a nap).
  • Avoid using cleaning fluid, shoe cream, saddle soap and mink oil. These products contain ingredients that may damage leather.
  • We recommend that you test any protection and cleaning products on a hidden area of the leather.
  • Don't keep heavy objects, such as key chains, in your pockets. Doing so will stretch the leather.
  • Avoid applying hair sprays and perfumes while wearing leather.
  • Don't attach pins, adhesive badges or tape to leather.
  • Repair hems with a small amount of rubber cement.

Cleaning:

  • Gently blot liquid stains with a clean cloth.
  • Winter salt stains your leather, wipe with a clean, damp cloth and dry naturally.
  • Visit a professional leather cleaner for more serious stains. Normal dry cleaning methods will remove essential oils, causing the leather to crack, fade and shrink. A cleaner who specializes in leather care will use a different method to clean and condition the leather. Even this special process may cause slight variations in color, texture, and shape; so it is important to clean matching garments together.

Care When Wet:

  • If your leather becomes wet, allow it to dry at room temperature. (Never put leather in the dryer.) Then apply Janman Shop and Suede Protector. Buff suede with a soft towel to restore the nap.
  • If your garment has faux fur trim and the fur gets wet, dry it with a hair dryer set on the lowest temperature. Shake fur during the drying process, and periodically during wear to maintain loft and maximize appearance.

Storage:

  • Store your leather coat or jacket on a wide wooden, plastic or padded hanger to help maintain its shape.
  • Store leather in a well-ventilated, cool, dry place. Avoid hot areas, such as attics; or damp areas, such as cellars.
  • Cover your leather with breathable cloth, like cotton sheets, when storing. Plastic bags or coverings will cause excessive drying.
  • Wrinkles and creases in leather should hang out. If ironing is necessary, place heavy brown paper over the leather and use a cool to medium iron. Take care not to overheat the leather, which will cause it to shine.
  • Avoid exposing leather to direct sunlight or heat for prolonged periods of time.

Sunday 3 July 2011

Buying Motorbike Leather Suit First Time

A Very Useful Guide For First Time Leather Suit Buyer

Released 03/07/2011

This essay was written for the motorcyclist in the market for a new leather suit. If you enjoy what you read here or find it useful, please consider purchasing your new suit from janmanshop.com. We appreciate the return business and we enjoy providing you with top service on this important purchase.

If this is the first time you've been in the market for a leather motorcycle riding suit, or jacket, you're likely going into the experience with little information.
Most of Janman Shop customers come to us looking for a suit armed with recommendations and advice from friends, many of whom also have no idea what makes up a good fitting, quality suit. We're not asking you to ignore those recommendations or your own opinions, because they may in the end weigh the heaviest in your decision on what to buy, but take a moment to consider some new information your buddies may not be passing on to you.

 

Buying A Leather Suit?

one or two piece leather suit 

is usually a relatively significant investment for most riders. The cost alone is the reason so many riders don't own a suit, let alone a good quality jacket. It's safe to say that a majority of street motorcycle riders ride with less than ideal riding gear. Given that fact, riding with any real protective gear other than a helmet is a step above the rest. Nevertheless, our opinion is that you should own and use the best quality riding gear that you can afford. Beyond that, your gear should fit your needs, your riding style and most of all it should fit you.

We are often asked what the difference is between the low end and high end suits. It comes down to the amount of features the suit has, the quality of the leather, the quality of the interior of the suit, the quality of the armor (if the suit features any), the type and amount of stitching in the suit. The more expensive the materials and the more time needed to make the suit, will make up the cost of the suit. Like anything, you tend to get what you pay for and poorly made suits will not only protect you less, but won't last as long just during the regular use of the suit.

Features to look for in a suit include:

  • Leather type, either cowhide, kangaroo or goat
  • Leather thickness and suit weight
  • Type of venting and perforation features
  • Type of padding and protection
  • Type of spine protection, aero hump, or inserts
  • Slider type and hardness
  • Type and quantity of stitching
  • Internal lining, removability
  • Insert pockets or snap-ins for back protectors
  • Stretch material used

The first thing you need to understand about motorcycle protective gear is that leather, whether cowhide or kangaroo skin, is always more protective than any type of textile (fabric) material currently available. Textile motorcycle gear is light weight and therefore comfortable, easy to get in and out of and breaths well, but there is a reason that no pro or amateur racer today is using textile gear on the track. Textile suits and jackets do not protect riders as well as leather in a crash. Today's suit manufacturers do use textile materials in parts of the suit that rarely experience impact or stress, such as under the arms, the groin and of course in the lining of a suit.

The qualities of leather make it a very difficult material to burn or tear in a crash slide situation. This isn't to say that textile jackets and pants shouldn't be owned and used for regular street riding, but of the two, leather offers more protection. Various types of leather and a wide range of leather thickness is used across all manufacturers.

You can really look at a leather suit as a 2nd, very thick skin, that is worn over your body. Sewn into this skin, in any serious leather suit, will be protective strategically placed armor for even more protection and then stretch panels and liners for comfort and cooling. In a crash situation, the leather protects from impact force that would otherwise tear your skin and sliding abrasion that would otherwise scrape your skin off. Impact armor is there to absorb as much of any impact energy as possible.

Higher end leather tends to be thinner and soft, therefore lighter and more comfortable for the rider, than heavy-weight leather. Thin, soft leather also takes less time for the suit to break-in than heavy weight leather. Thin leather, taken to the extreme may be comfortable, but can also no longer be fully protective, or if it is, is only a 'one-crash' garment.

Leather suits are typically offered in "one piece" and "two piece" varieties. One piece suits provide the best protection of the two types, due to the fact that there are less seams that can be subject to tearing during an impact situation. A two piece suit is slightly more versatile than a one piece suit, since it can be unzipped at the waist and be ridden as a jacket alone. At janmanshop.com we offer separate jackets and track pants that can be zipped together to make a full-type suit. Usually, however a riding jacket zipped to a riding pant does not zip all the way around the waist.

Increasingly, hi-tech suit manufacturers such as janmanshop.com feature injection molded hard-plastic protection on their suits, combining leather protection with impact-absorbing hard body armor. This brings us to the topic of armor. Body armor is the part of the suit designed to protect the rider's body from hard impact with the ground or other objects. Many leather riding jackets on the market today have no body armor in them at all. The other important part of a suit or jacket is the impact absorbing armor. Higher end suits today use "CE Approved" hard plastic and/or multi-layored memory foam armor inserts at these impact areas. Utilizing hard armor and various types of foam and padding, creates an energy absorbing zone through out the suit, protecting the rider during heavy direct impact crashes.

Protection zones to look at include:

  • Shoulders
  • Elbows
  • Spine
  • Hips
  • Knees
  • Shins
  • Chest
  • Thighs



Janman Shop's higher ends suits, now offer exterior hard plastic protection in certain areas. This serves to protect the rider even more by putting the protection inserts as the first point of contact with the impact object.

The bare bones distinction between a high quality suit and low quality suit can be said to be the quality of the leather and the quality of the stitching. A high quality well-made suit can withstand the most brutal of slides and still stay together, protecting the riders skin. Lessor quality leather matched with poor stitching is what causes a suit to 'blow up', or come apart on a rider during a crash. It takes a certain amount of skill, learned proprietary knowledge and craft to produce a suit will live up to the task.

Next to protection, what any suit or jacket spends most of its time doing is keeping you comfortable. Mainly, this means that the suit should fit you well, so that you will want to wear it. An overly heavy suit with no venting on a hot day, won't be your first choice when you go to suit up for a day's ride in the street. An overly uncomfortable suit will also have the affect of being a distraction to your riding when you are on the bike. You want your suit to fit as good as possible.

Sizing. Especially when ordering online, sizing questions are one of the first things on people's minds. As a retailer with both a web site and a retail showroom of our products, we don't necessarily recommend that that you go and try on a suit at your local dealer and buy the item from us. Kinda tacky and most motorcycle dealerships don't offer a wide variety of sizes in their showroom for you anyway. 

Difference in US & European Sizing:

Sizing across all manufacturers varies. Some makers size their suits in US Sizes, others in European Sizes. The difference in numbers is that European sizes are 10 above US sizes. So, if you tend to wear a size 42 US jacket, you'd be a size 52 in European sizing.

When we speak to customers on the phone who don't know what size they are, the questions we ask are:

  • What's your height
  • What's your weight
  • What size US suit jacket do you wear
  • What's your waist size
  • And sometimes we require Photo of the customer so we can make our expert opinion to offer right size to customer.


Using these questions we can usually get the sizing right in a few seconds. This is, however, as long as the rider isn't exceptionally built in the shoulder, stomach or thigh areas. Some, though few, riders will simply not fit well in any off the shelf suit.

You want your suit to fit as snug as possible, You are at ight place to order your custom requirements to match your needs like: Measurements, Patching / Labeling, Name embeded & number etc... We exclusively offer Custom Made Suits to our worthy customers

The other point that first-time suit owners often overlook is that your suit is designed to fit you best when riding the bike. You're not going to use your suit to go out on a date and although showing up at your favorite rider gathering area and posing in a full race suit looks cool, that's not what a well made suit is designed for and we hope that's not playing in your purchasing decision. A race suit is designed to be in the riding position, leaned over and aggressively positioned. It's designed to fit the rider comfortably while riding the bike. We speak with folks all the time who get the suit on and complain they can't raise their arms over their head. Ok- great! you're not going to want your arms flailing over you head if you get off the bike- you'll want some restriction there.

When considering the features of a suit, you'll realize quick that the higher cost suits offer the most advanced features. If you can't spring for the big buck suit, you can still get a quality protective suit that fits, without having to settle for a low end suit that will come part on you while riding, or just plain be uncomfortable while riding. The full range of Janman Shop suits is designed to fit within most riders' budgets and still offer world-class features such as CE Approved armor, soft leather, venting and interior lining.

Another important point to consider is that there are a multitude of suit manufacturers on the market today. A good amount of them utilize the racing scene as a marketing and sales tool for their products. It makes good sense to look at which riders are riding with what suit brand, because these guys have careers and lives to protect and they crash all the time. They want to be around at the finish line, but realize too, that pro racers usually have custom suits built for them by their sponsors. What your favorite pro racer is wearing may or may not be available to the average rider. Suit makers also use their sponsored riders for product testing and product development. Many of the suits worn by pro racers are not yet available to the public, because the manufacturer puts time, money and energy into getting feedback from their sponsored riders for products that are not yet released yet. This information is then taken back to the lab and used to build next generation protection products.