riding pants

i am looking for cold weather riding pants. i want good armor,abrasion,wind,water protection any suggestions what to get,where to buy? thanks folks  

I have some tourmaster pants.  They are great.  I got them for the fog last year and rode with them throughout last winter.  I never used the liner because it was too hot.  I think the coldest weather I used them in was about 28 degrees for about 40 minutes at 65 MPH.  

If you're serious about the cold weather riding, you need to find something made from a material that doesn't breathe. Even a liner that doesn't breathe, inside the overpants, will help a lot in the cold, although stopping cold air intrusion at the outer layer is best.

That's why leather is still around. It does not breathe, although you need to keep it dry if you don't want it getting all fuzzy with mold.

regards,
Joe  

Here's a place to check:
http://www.dragginjeans.com/ProductInfo.aspx?productid=DLINERS  

thanks for your help folks. i hear cordura is good with a liner but i keep running intoother brands like coretex.anyone know of a comparitive study? also thinking of a riding suit. any suggestions?  

When I'm riding in chilly weather, my 1st layer is a wicking fiber to get the sweat off me. Yes, even at 30, you sweat. Started doing it while skiiing (the wicking, not the sweating). A lot of the thermal underwear is really good. You pick how much insulation you want.
Then I cover that with a pair of jeans.
In my case, over that goes a Tourmaster Cortech armored pant. Mostly windproof, hip, and knee armor, plus it's all cordura nylon. The mostly windproof is good, it prevents the sweat from condensing and getting you wet.

Oh, yeah, if you're riding in that weather, remember thermal socks. Most motorcycle boots aren't insulated.
Do the same on the upper body. Head is easy, a full face has 2in of styrofoam (about R30).

Keep some charcoal handwarmers on the bike, or spring for heated handgrips (the better choice... and I will get them installed this year, I had a couple of expired ones on the bike ).  

>...anyone know of a comparitive study?

I wish... :-)

There are lots of them floating around, but none of them are under what I would consider real world conditions; sub-freezing temperatures, riding a naked bike, for 6 hours on the road with a maximum of 30 minutes total time spent moving at less than 50 mph.

regards,
Joe
--
Now that I've grown old and fat, I'm no longer the man I remember being. On the other hand, the man I remember would never have done some of the things I've done. Sometimes, I wonder who I really was...  

6+ hours sitting basically still, on a seat, with a 50+mph wind for a test???

I've done the ride, with the gear I described(minus the charcoal... they were dead on that ride), and by the grace of god alone, I made it home without killing myself. It snowed on me more than half the trip.
I got in the door at home, had some wine, some hot  dinner, went up and plunged myself into a large tub of hot water for 20 min. I got out, started drying off... then and only then, I was warm enough to start shivering.

Without an external heat source you are insane to try long rides in those temps(yes, I survived, and I learned just how stupid I was). You either have to use snowmobiling suits, which will shred in 3 ft of hitting anything, or, you need a large alternator, and heated jacket, pants, socks.

An hour or so is doable with decent gear.  

I used to routinely spend days on the road in subfreezing conditions. If you have the right gear, it's not that big a deal. In my case it was a HondaLine suit, with a hooded sweatshirt worn under it backwards so I could roll the hood up and stuff it around my jawline under the full face helmet that didn't have any vents. Insulated gauntlets and boots rounded out the dress, being adequate for spending long days on the road during winter trips, as long as the temperature stayed mostly above about 10°f. It's rarely colder than that during the day, if you stay south of I-90 :-)

I was really annoyed when that suit went up in a house fire in the late 80's. It's the only one I've ever found that both fit me and was good for extreme cold weather riding. The FirstGear suit I have now is a lousy fit and only keeps me warm down to about 40°f. When I do my night rides up into Alabama during mid winter, I have to stop every hour or so and exercise a few minutes to stoke the body furnace.

regards,
Joe
--
Obsession: When you think something is too important to joke about.
People who are obsessed are already straddling the line which divides sanity from insanity.