Continued from the Leather Jodhpurs Pants Page –
“the reading- standard”
Leather jodhpurs
Built tough for the bad roads these leather jodhpurs are the way to go for a 1903 Reading-Standard day of riding. These Jodhpurs are made to work with low to the tank style of riding. Cut high in the waist to get better performance on the muddle roads or oily board tracks of the time. These Leather jodhpurs are made to work with being tucked inside a pair of boots or puttees. These jodhpurs are made with a button fly and lace tie downs at the legs for a finer fit.
Clothing to meet the needs of the motorcycle rider in the early years would have been a sweater leather jodhpurs and leather puttees with lace shoes. Cloth jacket would be the norm with a Shaw collar, and if you had the money a leather jacket would be over the top. The leather motorcycle jacket had not become the norm for motorcyclists. If boots were what you wanted it would be the full lace up style that you saw the most of at this time. So leather jodhpurs met the need of early inlet over exhaust design engine of the first decade of the industry for a more practical way of keeping the motorcycle off of your legs. Since valves broke on a regular basis from overheating, it was imperative to keep them cool. Yet with lubrication technology also in its infancy, the accepted way to cool the top end was to leave the valve stems out in the breeze—which meant that oil mist liberally coated the rider’s pants. Leather jodhpurs were what you would have been seeing the most use at this time by the motorcyclists.
