This is the Ranger Motorcycle Shirt from Crave, the company that pioneered the concept of DuPont™ Kevlar®-lined shirts designed for motorcycle use.
There has long been demand for protective motorcycle gear that looks like regular streetwear, if anything the industry has been relatively slow to recognize this and capitalize on it.
The Ranger shirt by Crave is designed to look like regular streetwear, so you can wear it when you’re on or off the bike without looking out of place.
Back in 2013, a decade ago at the time of writing, the team over at Crave struck upon the idea of taking a standard button-down flannel shirt and adding both a Kevlar® lining and pockets for optional protective armor.
The shirt was released onto the market with relatively little fanfare, we covered it here on Silodrome and to was covered on a number of other motoring sites, orders began to pour in from around the world.
Next up Crave developed the first Kevlar®-lined denim jacket, also for motorcycle use, and later they developed the first waxed-cotton Armalith motorcycle jacket. All of their gear is designed and manufactured in Europe – and all of it is tested by Crave designers who are all riders themselves.
Crave shirts typically use a three-layer design, with a Kevlar layer sandwiched between a cotton outer layer and a microfiber liner.
The Crave Ranger Motorcycle Shirt has three-layer construction including a 100% cotton outer layer, a DuPont™ Kevlar® middle layer, and a 100% microfibre inner layer for comfort against the skin.
The Kevlar® lining runs throughout the entire shirt with the exception of the collar and cuffs, and the seams are all double stitched with aramid thread to prevent bursting in an accident.
It has five pockets in total including two chest flap pockets, one inner zippered pocket, one zippered pocket on the left forearm, and one zippered pocket on the right shoulder.
Internal pockets are included in the shoulders, elbows, and back, allowing you to fit your own armor to further improve the shirt’s protective capabilities.
Inside the shirt you’ll find armor pockets in the shoulders, elbows, and back. Many riders already have a full assortment of armor from a previous jacket purchase, if not multiple sets, so Crave doesn’t include it with the shirt to help keep the cost down.
Articles that Ben has written have been covered on CNN, Popular Mechanics, Smithsonian Magazine, Road & Track Magazine, the official Pinterest blog, the official eBay Motors blog, BuzzFeed, Autoweek Magazine, Wired Magazine, Autoblog, Gear Patrol, Jalopnik, The Verge, and many more.
Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with well over a million monthly readers from around the world and many hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
