suit manufacturers make a great product but it's not always exactly what we want when we get it
on day one. if you've ever thought about custom modification of your suit to make it what you want
i'm going to share my experience of what i went through with the process
to take my suit that was already a great product and make it exactly how i wanted.
the first thing most of us deal with is a tight fit on day one. with any new suit
they are tight and they just take time to break in and get loosened up a little bit so you can
move around comfortably in them. in one of my other videos you'll see where i went through the
process of soaking the suit and then being able to stretch the wet leather to get a little bit more
room in the suit without going up to another size that would then be too big and loose.
once i had the suit fitting well i started focusing more on the features of the suit
and i started comparing those features to what i liked about my old suits and wondered how i
could improve this one to make it more enjoyable. after some web research i reached out to anthony's
leatherworks in california and they were great to work with. they came highly recommended
so i contacted them. it was unfortunate that with covid i couldn't go visit them in person
to kind of work with them where they could see the suit on me but they were quick to respond.
i talked to them on the phone and i sort of explained several of the things that i would
like modified. the biggest thing was the bottom of the suit. i really liked how my
old alpine stars suit came down to a tapered cuff that just fit nicely inside of a boot.
when i first got it it had a very open bottom that could go over the top of the boots
and if you wanted it to go inside the boots it had this zipped down bellow that would make it
a little bit tighter but then there is so much leather bunching up inside the boot that it just
wasn't comfortable. it created a pressure point on my leg that didn't make it fun to ride. they
walked me through the process of how to measure the bottom cuff at several heights with the proper
amount to take out of the leathers so i marked it all with chalk and used that for a guide when i
sent them the suit. they took those measurements pulled the leather in and now my suit fits great
inside the boot without having any bunched up leather that causes pressure points
so it's way more comfortable to use now than it was originally. another thing i liked about
my alpine star suit is that the zipper came way down and it made it very easy to piss wherever you
were side of the road or in the bathroom with the suit on. however when i got this suit the
zipper didn't go down as far as the alpine starts suit and it made it a little bit uncomfortable
to stop for the bathroom while you're wearing the suit. i went through this with anthony's leather
works and they were able to bring the zipper down to as far as they could to give a little bit more
clearance and just make it more comfortable to use. the last thing i didn't care for about the
suit as it came was the inside pocket it only had one pocket and it was a side opening. it was
small enough that my phone barely could get into this spot which means if the phone barely fit i
didn't have a place to put my wallet and sometimes i just throw it inside the suit and let it float
so that wasn't exactly ideal. what i asked these guys to do is to put two pockets in
and top openings with velcro both of them much more roomy as well so i can fit a wallet in one
a phone in the other and you know a garage door opener or whatever i need as well
again making the suit much more convenient and enjoyable to use. after sending the suit
to anthony's leathers they turned it around very quickly. the biggest delay was on my part because
when i emailed them i kind of forgot to give them my phone number so it was not until i followed up
that we were able to get things moving but they turned around quickly they did a great
job they were really easy to work with and can't say enough about how happy i am with the suit. you
wouldn't think that several little modifications like that would make a big difference
but the fact is when you're riding you want to focus on the ride not only for enjoyment but for
safety as well but taking away just a few little annoyances from the suit with these new features
makes it so much more enjoyable and such a blast to use on a ride. subscribe to
my youtube channel if you want to learn more about how to enjoy amazing machines like this.