Sunday, I went to Road America at Elkhart Lake for the Super Bike races in order to see what the vendors had for summer riding gear. My own preference is to see the stuff in person, avoid shipping fees, be able to compare brands and try to score a discount.
Anyways, I ended up buying two First Gear high viz mesh jackets for approx $160 a piece. Not a great price, but reasonable. These jackets run small as I typically wear a XL and ended up with a XXL.
Yesterday was one hot mother of a day, mid 90's, humid, of course, so the wife and I donned a new jackets and hit the road. My wife also wore her regular protective pants.
I am happy to report that the jackets were very comfortable and we weren't sweating on our upper torso whatsoever. When my wife took off her protective riding pants, her legs were soaked in sweat so I guess we'll be buying some mesh pants sometime soon.
On an entirely different note, I recently sent back my Russell seat for modifications. On the original invoice, it stated the shipping cost as 50 something dollars so I went to Staples to ship it back since they handle UPS thinking since I'm shipping back the same exact thing, in the same box with the same packing materials that the cost would be the same, not so my friends! They wanted 72 dollars and that was without insurance!
This was all too much so I took the package to local post office and shipped the whole thing WITH insurance for $32 dollars. It took 2 more days to get there, but for that savings, I can live with that.
Being a amateur taxidermist, I peruse the taxidermy websites on occasion and I can tell you that UPS in held in low regards by many, many taxidermists. The chief problem is that they will not honor damage claims regardless of any insurance coverage purchased-no matter what, they will simply claim the product wasn't boxed correctly and therefore reject the claim. I experienced this myself. Apparently if you pay them to package the item, they will honor the claim, but the consensus seems to be, that you are wasting your money buying insurance coverage from UPS unless you're having them do the boxing.
Live and learn.
Chuck
Anyways, I ended up buying two First Gear high viz mesh jackets for approx $160 a piece. Not a great price, but reasonable. These jackets run small as I typically wear a XL and ended up with a XXL.
Yesterday was one hot mother of a day, mid 90's, humid, of course, so the wife and I donned a new jackets and hit the road. My wife also wore her regular protective pants.
I am happy to report that the jackets were very comfortable and we weren't sweating on our upper torso whatsoever. When my wife took off her protective riding pants, her legs were soaked in sweat so I guess we'll be buying some mesh pants sometime soon.
On an entirely different note, I recently sent back my Russell seat for modifications. On the original invoice, it stated the shipping cost as 50 something dollars so I went to Staples to ship it back since they handle UPS thinking since I'm shipping back the same exact thing, in the same box with the same packing materials that the cost would be the same, not so my friends! They wanted 72 dollars and that was without insurance!
This was all too much so I took the package to local post office and shipped the whole thing WITH insurance for $32 dollars. It took 2 more days to get there, but for that savings, I can live with that.
Being a amateur taxidermist, I peruse the taxidermy websites on occasion and I can tell you that UPS in held in low regards by many, many taxidermists. The chief problem is that they will not honor damage claims regardless of any insurance coverage purchased-no matter what, they will simply claim the product wasn't boxed correctly and therefore reject the claim. I experienced this myself. Apparently if you pay them to package the item, they will honor the claim, but the consensus seems to be, that you are wasting your money buying insurance coverage from UPS unless you're having them do the boxing.
Live and learn.
Chuck