Leather and Textile Jackets - Which One to Choosev

With the summer coming up, leather versus textile is on a lot of motorcyclists minds. It might be a hard decision so I've put together a list of a few things you need to consider before buying yours. I'm leaving the looks out of this review since that's a personal decision.

So let's dig in it!

Protection. Leather is a lot better when it comes to protection. First of all, when in contact with the asphalt, leather will slide smoothly, or as smoothly as possible, across the surface. This is a good thing, because when you're sliding at 50 mph after a spill, you want to slide instead of bumping. Secondly, the tear resistance of leather is way better than textiles. This has been tested in hundreds of tests and while wholesale color printing voile has been catching up with leather with advanced materials, it's still not quite the same. Finally, leather jackets usually come with a lot more protection than textile ones but you should check the jackets you're interested in and compare. Overall, leather definitely wins here.
Ventilation. This is very dependent on the actual jacket and it varies a lot. Leather is a very thick material and doesn't really breath all too much as is, but most of the leather jackets out there are well ventilated via perforated leather panels and oftentimes with the big backhump. Breathability of textile jackets depends on whether it has a Gore-Tex or similar waterproof membrane in it. Jackets with the membrane are much thicker and won't breath as much. So, as I said, this varies a lot depending on the jacket, but if we're looking at a top of the line perforated leather jacket and a top of the line waterproof textile jacket, the leather would win.