Best (or, at least coolest) you’ll ever have
Speed & Strength have been putting out excellent gear for a long time now, and one of the reasons why we’re always so excited to see what they have next is that they are not afraid to try and (sometimes) fail. No, not all of their ideas are golden, but unlike so many other companies out there that constantly play it safe, S&S are willing to risk big in order to win big. Have they done that with their latest offering, bearing the TapOut logo? Find out by reading on!
The TapOut Moto Armored Hoodie is, without a doubt, the office favorite piece of gear right now. One of the reasons for this is that while all of us know the safety reasons for wearing all the gear, all the time (ATGATT), sometimes we just want to pop on some jeans and a shirt and ride down to our friend’s house to watch our favorite teams lose horribly in pre-season games of football…shattering any hopes we had of finally dominating the office fantasy football league this year.
Who doesn’t love TapOut?
TapOut has partnered up with Speed & Strength to loan their logo (as long as it says TapOut Moto) to those guys, and the effort has led to several pieces of gear (all of which will be reviewed here), with our favorite piece, again, being the armored hoodie.
Why is it called an armored hoodie you may ask? Well, if you’re asking that you’ve clearly not paid attention to the words that have just come out of your mouth, because unlike every other hoodie you’ll find out there in your local WalMart, this hoodie features full Vault armor on the shoulders, elbows and spinal areas. That’s right. You can slip this hoodie on just like you would any other, except when you’re gliding down the road on your favorite two-wheeled lady, this hoodie won’t leave you high and dry should a spill happen to happen.
Of course armor isn’t the whole story with this jacket, either. The sleeves also feature finger holes for your thumbs to slide through, ensuring that in a worse-case scenario your sleeves don’t slide up and negate all of that cool, lightweight armor that is hiding underneath the hoodie. The fabric on top is also stitched together incredibly well, and during all of our testing of it we couldn’t find even one loose thread. The guys at S&S have gone all out with this hoodie, and it shows.
High-quality decals down the sides of both arms
While this armored hoodie won’t be for everyone, it is definitely the coolest piece of gear we’ve had the honor of playing around with in a long time — and that is definitely saying something given all of the test items that have come into the X-Motorcycle offices as of late. We love the fact that slipping this hoodie on, even with the removable C.E.-Approved armor in place, doesn’t feel like slipping on a heavy jacket. It just feels light and natural, and it goes without saying that it makes everyone look better — because it is a scientific fact that all males look good in hooded articles of clothing (source: Facts).
The TapOut Moto Hoodie comes directly from S&S gear’s website for $139.95 in a few weeks, but be sure to check out places like LeatherUp, Amazon and Ebay in the coming weeks when the hoodie is more easily available in October, as all three of those places are known to heavily discount items from S&S.
The TapOut Moto Hoodie additionally goes along with a TapOut Moto full-face helmet which we’ll be reviewing tomorrow, so stay tuned for details on that.
Some of the best gear starts with “S”
Overall, we highly recommend this jacket/hoodie for anyone that just wants a low-key looking and feeling jacket that will protect them (almost) as well as a full-on leather or denim jacket. It’s not 100% safe (and nothing is), but we have no qualms about shoving this thing in front of as many street bike enthusiasts as possible.
Until next time, Ride Safe Everyone!
