We were after some new Kevlar Jeans as our old ones had gotten to the point that they had started to stand up on their own.
We did a tonne of research and eventually settled on the Route One Cranford Jeans. A lot of Kevlar Jeans are pretty comparable these days, but there were 2 things that tipped these into the Basket for us, they were:
- The Price. At £139.99 they were definitely in the more reasonable priced range, and we were comfortable that we weren’t simply paying extra £10’s for a particular brand label to be sewn in.
- The removable armour pockets. Historically we have been guilty of riding without the knee armour in place just because it became so annoying when walking around off the bike. With these you can remove the armour whilst wearing the jeans – Genius!
So we purchased our Jeans from online retailer Get Geared, we also took advantage of their Klarna payment option, which meant that we spread the cost over 3 payments, rather than one lump sum! The jeans arrived well packaged, and on time (the next day!), as we’ve come to expect from Get Geared.
Comfort – So the first thing to note, these Jeans are soooo much more comfortable than we expected! They’re ever so slightly stretchy, which makes a world of difference, particularly when trying to get your leg over the bike. We didn’t realise this when we were looking at them online, but it would seem that slightly stretchiness is given to them by 2% Elastine (The rest is made up of 85% Cordura Cotton Denim and 13% Polyester).
The Kevlar Lining – The next thing to note is the Kevlar, these particular Jeans use a 100% DuPont Kevlar fibre lining, and that covers the Knee Area, Hip Area and Buttocks. Again, it’s a pretty standard thing found in most Kevlar Jeans these days, but what we like about this is it’s 100% true DuPont Kevlar – The proper stuff! We’ve had Kevlar Jeans in the past where the Kevlar lining can be itchy and hot, we’re pleased to report that’s not the case with these. They are just as comfortable as any other regular pair of Jeans we have.
The Fit – They fit awesomely. Again, pretty much like a regular pair of Jeans. The best way to describe it is that it feels like they were designed first as a pair of Jeans, and then made protective. Rather than the other way around. A lot of Kevlar Jeans seem to perfect the Jean ‘look’, but fail on the ‘fit’. Again, we’re super pleased that’s not the case here. Perfect!
The Armour – We mentioned this already, but it deserves another mention! You can remove the knee armour whilst wearing the jeans. The Armour pockets are accessible from the outside! The inability to easily remove the armour has often led to us choosing just not to keep the armour in place at all. This solves the problem for us, and we love it!
Little Details – Small things in the grand scheme of things, but things that we noticed and we liked! They use proper YKK zippers, that means they’re not going to break in a couple of months! There are Jeans in this price range that scrimp and save at every corner, swapping out to cheaper zippers which break too easily. Not the case here! Also there is a small coin pocket, we’re actually one of the few people that seem to use those, but for us, it was a nice little feature to be able to keep when switching to the Route One Cranford Jeans.
So all in all, We’re SUPER pleased with our purchase, and we’d highly recommend them to anyone that’s in the market for a new pair of Kevlar Jeans!
