Top shelf vs bottom dollar: We compare the most expensive adventure motorcycle jackets from the most popular brands to their budget-friendly counterparts to figure out how much a good jacket is really worth.
It seems like just when you thought you’d seen the most expensive piece of gear on the market, another “latest and greatest” adventure motorcycle jacket is released, and the sound of jaws hitting the floor can be heard for miles all around.
What’s even more shocking is how often the prices of these jackets are justified by the incredible amount of safety and technology manufacturers manage to pack into them.
Who would have thought 20 years ago we’d be seeing jackets with built-in computers, floppy rubber pads that transform into rigid armor upon impact, or fabrics fused with ceramic by (FRICKIN’) laser beams that can out-slide even the best leather?
"Customers at Torres del Paine while on our guided tours in Patagonia"
It’s impressive… but is spending $1,000+ really necessary to ride safe and comfortable all year round?
Below we take a closer look at a handful of our favorite adventure motorcycle jackets of the year across a wide range of prices to see if there's an honest argument to made for "super premium" adventure jackets.
Before we get into all that though, let’s talk about where we stand on “adventure” gear in general.
| Jackets: | Summary: | Price: |
| Klim's battle-proven all-weather all-season tank, a nearly flawless ADV jacket made from the best materials on the planet. | CHECK PRICE | |
| Two jackets in one: an innovative 4-season ADV jacket when you want it, and a summerweight mesh jacket when you don't. | CHECK PRICE | |
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A proper laminated shell with dynamite weather protection, armor, and Superfabric abrasion protection for half the price of its premium competitors. | CHECK PRICE |
| The same legendary quality and protection Klim is known for at a more affordable price point than their flagship Badlands jacket. | CHECK PRICE | |
| A no-expense-spared four-season adventure motorcycle jacket with innovative solutions for ventilation, weatherproofing, and safety. | CHECK PRICE | |
| An affordable alternative to Rev'it's flagship Dominator that delivers four-season comfort and excellent durability for a lot less cash. | CHECK PRICE | |
| An ADV jacket for the dual sport crowd that trades bulky materials and full weather protection for a focus on mobility and ventilation. | CHECK PRICE |
It goes without saying that the word “adventure” gets thrown around a lot these days whether we’re talking about the gear we wear or the motorcycles we ride.
Could the new Yamaha Tenere be the best adventure motorcycle out there? Is the Honda CB500X an adventure bike at all? Is the adventure segment even a real thing, or is some asshole just trying to sell me a skid plate for my touring bike?
If you’ve been following us for a while, I think you know where we stand on all the above. As far as adventure motorcycle jackets go, however, we’ve got a few things we look for at RIDE Adventures before we consider a jacket to be appropriate for one of our tours.
The first, and arguably most important, is adequate waterproofing.
We ride rain or shine, and consider gritting your teeth and bearing the elements to be part of the “highs and lows” that make adventure touring such a unique experience.
In a perfect world, every adventure motorcycle jacket is fully Gore-Tex protected, and every day is bright and sunny. Unfortunately, Gore-Tex doesn’t fit into every rider’s budget, and we all get rained on sooner or later.
However, for the comparisons below, That’s why we want to touch on both the best-of-the-best being produced by leading manufacturers as well as their entry-level offerings, which are much more accessible to many more riders.
"Blazing trail on our "Baja on Down" trip"
Aside from having a reliable system of waterproofing, we also consider ventilation to be a big deal. Really, this is the main thing that separates your average “touring” jacket from what we consider the “adventure” jacket segment.
We spend a lot of time off-road, standing up, moving around, and working our bikes hard over varied terrain.
If your jacket doesn’t flow enough air, it’s going to be that much more challenging to get through the day.
You’ll also notice that we touch on the protective features of each jacket on this list, whether that’s crash-tested materials or high-quality internal armor and padding.
If you’ve seen our ultimate adventure motorcycle gear guide, you’ll know that while abrasion resistance is always important, we prefer to use stand-alone padding and protection from head to toe, and typically pull the armor out of our jackets before we ever put them to work.
Still, that approach isn’t for everyone, so armor quality is also taken into consideration for the jackets below.
Alright, enough ranting, let’s talk gear.
Weatherproofing, abrasion resistance, impact protection, and airflow. Those are the key ingredients in a good adventure jacket. Here are our 7 favorite jackets currently on the market that deliver the goods across a wide range of price points.
If you’ve been following our YouTube channel, you know we’re huge fans of the Klim Badlands Pro jacket.
Pretty much everyone on our team wears the Badlands Pro, and cumulatively we’ve put well over 100,000 miles on this adventure motorcycle jacket without a single failure. It hasn't seen an update since 2018, and the fact that it's still our go-to jacket in such a competitive space speaks volumes to its quality and performance.
Its Gore-Tex 3L weatherproofing is the best in the business. The ventilation is absurd (in a good way). Its protection is second to none with Aero Pro D3O armor, SuperFabric panels, and a smart blend of tough fabrics ranging from 200D nylon in low-risk zones to beefy 630D Karbonite in the most crash-prone areas.
The Badlands Pro was a top-of-the-line jacket when it was first introduced, and it’s only gotten better with each update.
The tech specs of the Klim Badlands Pro read like an article of their own, so just trust us when we say this jacket needs nothing and is worth every penny.
If we had to find something to complain about here, it would be that the external pockets are highly water-resistant, but not fully waterproof, so you wouldn’t want to trust sensitive electronics in them through a downpour.
Of course, if you do manage to find something to complain about with the Badlands Pro, you can always step up to Klim’s $1,500 Badlands Pro A3 jacket, which is made entirely from space-age Vectron fabric. Vectron is three times more abrasion-resistant than the Cordura used on most high-end jackets, so the A3 earns a rare "AAA" safety rating, and as an added bonus it's also highly heat-resistant, so the jacket runs cooler in hot, sunny weather.
CHECK PRICE:
Klim Badlands Pro Jacket
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If we're being honest, Alpinestars outgoing flagship adventure motorcycle jacket, the Revenant, was a tough pill to swallow. It was expensive, but you weren't getting any standout features for your money compared to industry favorites like the Badlands Pro or Rev'It Dominator. That's all changed with the AMT-10R.
The AMT-10R is unlike anything else on the market in that it's a fully modular jacket. What does that mean? Put simply, the entire top section of the jacket is removable, converting the AMT-10R into a summerweight mesh jacket that flows more air than anything else on our list.
In terms of protection the AMT-10R gets the same class AA safety rating as the Badlands Pro thanks to a generous helping of AStars' top-shelf Nucleon Flex Pro CE 2 armor, which is topped with a combination of full-grain leather and Superfabric. As for the weather protection, the AMT-10R is a proper waterproof shell design, and employs Alpinestars laminated DrystarXF membrane throughout.
We love this jacket, and it's by far our favorite ADV piece from Alpinestars to date. It doesn't include a back protector and the DrystarXF membrane doesn't carry the "bling" factor of GoreTex, but in our experience it's fully stormproof and plenty breathable. Well also note that the AMT-10R retails for under $1,000, so if you're looking for a flagship product from a trusted brand, it's one of the best deals going this year.
CHECK PRICE:
Alpinestars AMT-10R
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MSR gear has always been respected in the motocross world (it was started by and named after off-road legend Malcolm Smith of On Any Sunday fame), but up until recently it wasn't particularly revered in the adventure world. That all changed when the folks at Rocky Mountain ATV (the same folks who make Tusk tires and accessories) took over the company and began using it as their in-house brand.
"Cruising high on our Northern Vietnam group trip"
If you're reading this, we'll wager you're probably familiar with Rocky Mountain ATV's reputation for quality on a budget, and their new MSR Xplorer jacket is no exception. For around $420, you're getting a jacket that comes damn close to the quality, performance, and durability of many premium brands' flagship products.
We're talking about name brand Superfabric abrasion resistance, removable D3O armor, and eVent 3-layer weatherproofing. Just so we're clear, eVent goes toe-to-toe with GoreTex in our experience, and is used by brands like Mosko Moto and Sea to Summit to great effect.
Downsides here are few and far between (especially considering the price), but the main drawbacks we've found are (a) less-protective CE level 1 armor, and (b) a bit less ventilation than flagship products like Klim's Badlands Pro.
We'll also note that the jacket doesn't include a zipper to attach to your pants (if you care about that), but all things considered, this $400 jacket feels like a $1,000 model, which will make it the best bang for your buck out there for countless riders.
CHECK PRICE:
MSR Xplorer ADV Jacket
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The Carlsbad is Klim’s entry-level 4-season adventure motorcycle jacket, and it’s bar-none one of the best values in the segment.
It’ll run you about $100 more than the other “budget-friendly” jackets on this list, but the features you'll get for the money are pretty remarkable.
The same three-layer Gore-Tex protection as the Badlands Pro, for instance, is well worth the money on its own.
On top of that, the Carlsbad also includes D3O armor in the shoulders and elbows, AND ships with a D3O back protector at no extra charge.
As if that weren’t enough you also get some trademark Klim fit-and-finish features like a stow-away collar system, 14 total pockets (including hidden “stash” pockets for sketchy border crossings), and Klimatek mesh backing behind the armor pockets to help keep the jacket cool.
No, it doesn’t vent quite as well as the Badlands and no, it doesn’t have any ceramic-infused SuperFabric, but as far as entry-level jackets go, this is the Klim jacket to beat.
CHECK PRICE:
Klim Carlsbad Jacket
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I really can’t imagine where Rev’It will go next after this jacket.
The list of features is just outrageous. If you can imagine it, Rev’It built it into the Dominator 3 GTX adventure motorcycle jacket.
Gore-Tex protection head-to-toe, CE level 2 armor included throughout, high-tech TPR infused fabric in the slide-prone zones, flexible waterproof panels at the back of the shoulders… Look, I’m not even going to try to list it all here.
It’s just as bombproof, water-tight, and protective as the Badlands Pro jacket above, but has a few proprietary bells and whistles to boot: A removable monkey-paw system (which you’ll appreciate in the winter), and massive “VCS AquaDefence” ventilation ports (with super-slick Fidlock magnetic fasteners to hold them open), just to name a few.
The Dominator got an update in 2022, and the jacket is now much less bulky and a bit lighter thanks to more optimized material weights. It also got a few notable refinements like a stowable storm collar and a removable kidney belt.
Unfortunately the Dominator also still retails for $300 more than the Badlands Pro, so you'll really have to be a Rev'it fan to justify the asking price. We'll also note that the brand has replaced the previous jacket's Superfabric panels with the TPR-welded fabric noted above, and we're still on the fence as to whether this is an upgrade or a cost-cutting measure.
CHECK PRICE:
REV'IT! Dominator 3 GTX Jacket
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...Or, for about a third of the price, you can give the Rev’It! Sand 4 H2O a try.
The shell itself isn’t waterproof like the Dominator 3 above, but Rev’It! includes a removable liner to handle waterproofing duties and keep costs down.
You won’t find any premium SuperFabric at this price point (or a back protector for that matter), but the Sand 4 H2O does get Seeflex CE level 2 armor in the shoulders in the elbows, as well as a rugged ripstop polyester exterior from top to bottom.
Rev’It! is also thoughtful enough to include a removable thermal liner with the Sand 4 to help stretch the jacket into four season territory. This liner also doubles as a stand-alone jacket that’s handsome enough to wear around town, so that's one less thing you'll have to pack on an overnight trip.
Of course we don’t love the multi-layer approach to waterproofing, and the full ripstop construction leaves a little to be desired in terms of maneuverability, but for this price the Sand 4 is a rock solid piece of four-season adventure gear that’s built to last for years.
CHECK PRICE:
REV'IT! Sand 4 H2O Jacket
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We know, we know... The Alpinestars Venture XT isn't a waterproof jacket. Obviously that means it won't be the jack-of-all-trades adventure motorcycle jacket many riders are looking for, but honestly it's so damn useful we're going to give it a shoutout anyways.
It's best to think of the Venture XT as an ADV jacket for the dual sport crowd. It's light, tough, breathable, and tailor-made for those off-road intensive adventures where larger, bulkier ADV gear is rarely ideal. It's not as light and breathable as a jersey, but it's also made from 500D polyester, so it's much more protective in a crash.
And while the Venture XT may not be fully waterproof, it is impressively water-resistant. Alpinestars equips the XT with a combination of a tight polyester weave (which is naturally more water-resistant than nylon) and an external water-repellant treatment, which lets the jacket shake off light rain and big splashes through puddles and water crossings with ease. The best part? It'll only set you back $300.
You'll still need standalone rain gear for a proper storm, but most of the dual sport touring crowd is already accustomed to that particular inconvenience. Our only other complaint is that although the Venture XT does come equipped with extremely flexible and low-profile armor, it's limited to CE level-1 protection.
CHECK PRICE:
Alpinestars Venture XT
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Like so much else in the motorcycling world, finding the right adventure motorcycle jacket comes down to making the smartest investment you can.
Spending $1,000+ for guaranteed all-weather performance, four-season comfort, and the best safety features money can buy doesn’t seem nearly as outrageous if you intend to see the world from the saddle of a capable adventure bike. Hell, that’s only thirty cents a mile on our Patagonia Adventure excursions alone…
With that being said, for your average weekend warrior or riders who are relatively new to the adventure and dual sport realm, we can confidently tell you that you don’t need the latest tech to stay safe and enjoy the ride rain-or-shine.
Every one of the budget-friendly jackets on this list packs a ton of protection and technology for the money, and many of them would get you around the world in a pinch just fine.
→Read More: 8 Best Adventure Motorcycle Boots and Best Adventure Motorcycle Gear for any RIDE.