Bull-it Vectran Jeans – better than Kevlar!

Bull-it Vectran Jeans – better than Kevlar!

I recently purchased a pair of Bull-it Jeans from Royal Distributing. Instead of Kevlar, these jeans have a protective liner made of Vectran. According to the Royal Distributing page and an abrasion test result posted on Bull-it Jeans facebook page, Vectran is stronger than Kevlar and is not affected by moisture the way Kevlar is. Having tried on a few pair of Kevlar jeans, my impression is that the Bull-it jeans are significantly lighter, while offering superior protection from abrasion. Vectran is used by NASA on the Mars Space Rover and is mandatory for all hood tethers for NASCAR. This is strong stuff!
You can read more about the science here: http://www.bull-it.com/vectranlcp.html

The specific style I purchased is the Bull-it Street Jeans in Jet Black.

Features

• Vectran lining gives you full coverage in the front from the waist down to well below the knees.
• In the back coverage goes from the waist to slightly above the knees.
• Full length mesh liner in the front of the jeans – for comfort and ease of sliding on
• Pockets for optional knee armour
• Straps to hold optional hip armour

Fit and Finish

I normally wear a 30 waist 32 inseam. In the Bull-it Street Jeans in Jet Black I wear a 32 waist. However, since I wanted to fit my knox armoured cross shorts underneath, I purchased a 34 waist, long inseam. After washing these fit perfectly. The manufacturer indicated that the Jet Black are heavy cotton instead of denim to get the darkest, longest lasting black finish. They are not pre-shrunk.

The other finishes, namely 50’s Blue and Dirty wash are pre-shrunk denim.

I would advise going in and trying them on, but if you are ordering online, order up one size. Or 2 sizes if you are wearing armoured shorts underneath.
Finish is very good. Double stitched or bar-tacked in stress areas and heavy duty metal zipper.


Comfort and looks

I have worn these jeans in 30+ Celsius weather and find them not much different than wearing regular jeans. They allow good airflow and are only slightly warmer than regular jeans, but this may be due to my knox armour shorts and forcefield knee armour. However, they are significantly cooler and more comfortable than my Shift Havoc Leather pants and look much more normal for walking around. There are no tell tale seams that are common in the knee area on many Kevlar jeans.

Styles
The Bull-it Vectran Jeans at Royal Distributing.com are available for men in the following styles

• Morrison –slim, boot cut style
• Street – straight leg style
• Cargo with outside pockets

Women’s size and cut are available in Morrison and Cargo styles.

Price: $139.99 at Royal Distributing.com

Overall I am very pleased with my purchase. I have a very comfortable pair of normal looking jeans with great protection for those days when I don’t want to wear leather. If your looking for a pair of riding jeans I’d highly recommend you check out Bull-it Jeans!

Going to add some of my experience with these jeans as well. Picked up a pair from Royal last week as I've been looking for something slightly protective to wear when not in my overpants. I liked the fact that Bull-It jeans don't have visible stitching on the front panels like other riding jeans.

I tried on both Morrison and Street and gotta say the fits were good. I normally have trouble fitting jeans because of thick thighs, but the Morrison fits well and Street felt comfy without being loose fit. My complaint with most of the Sartso styles were that they fit too loose (even the regular fit ones) and make my butt look huge (haha). The Morrison is a bit too boot but I picked it over the Street for the slightly slimmer fit. Size 34 fits me just like most size 34 jeans, I picked the stone wash blue as I took csecond2001's advice and skipped the black due to it being not pre-shrunk; 36 was too big and 34 would've not fit after shrinking.

One thing I noticed, though, is that the denim material is rough compared to designer jeans. Of course, it would be naive of me to expect a $140 pair of jeans with protective lining would be similar quality to $200+ jeans. On the plus side, I wouldn't feel as bad (physically and financially) going down when wearing these jeans than if I were wearing Diesel jeans. One small feature I'd like to point out is flaps over rear pockets that are velcro'ed, surely to help prevent wallets from falling out, but I guess style-wise that can be a make-it-or-break-it thing for some.

Definitely quite happy overall with these jeans, especially at $140. Might pick up another pair if they come out with more styles, though I'm tempted to grab a pair of slim Sartso jeans if they ever make it here from Australia.

Update: Just saw on their facebook page http://www.facebook.com/pages/Bull-i...145828?sk=wall that Bull-it is getting ready to launch a new COVEC jean. Instead of having a Vectran liner the Vectran fibre is woven into the jean material so you have full abrasion protection. With just one layer and no liner should be cooler in the summer as well. Can't wait for these to arrive in Canada. Hopefully Royal Distributing will be bringing them in.

Just picked up a pair yesterday and am trying to find some knee armour that will fit in the knee pockets. My Fox armour is too big. Any suggestions? The only place I can see to order the actual Bull-it armour is from Australia!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Blues hurler

Just picked up a pair yesterday and am trying to find some knee armour that will fit in the knee pockets. My Fox armour is too big. Any suggestions? The only place I can see to order the actual Bull-it armour is from Australia!

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I think Velocity sports gear can get knox armour for you.

Where can I buy these jeans?

Found it. Thanks

Royal Distributing. It's on page 88 in the Spring/Fall 2012 Catalog.

Just read about Vectran recently.

Very interesting product. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vectran

Nike uses it in many models of their shoes due to its lightness and strength and they call call it FlyWire.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nike_Flywire

Quote:

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Originally Posted by motomike

I think Velocity sports gear can get knox armour for you.

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Jimmy fixed me up. Thx.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Blues hurler

Jimmy fixed me up. Thx.

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I am thinking of picking up these jeans too, how much was the knox armour?

The Bull-it jeans at Royal say nothing about having Vectran?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kuma

Royal Distributing. It's on page 88 in the Spring/Fall 2012 Catalog.

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I'm under the impression that all of their jeans are Vectran, it might just be the difference between the LCP Super Fiber or just Vectran? Or is it all LCP Super Fiber?

From the website:
"Technical


Bike jeans have followed the lead of a single brand over the last 10 years, short of Idea’s the industry has followed like sheep using the same materials they have no knowledge about, they assume its brand name will do the job you need if the day ever comes you’re skating on your backside down the tarmac.
After making jeans lined with those same fibres for 6 year we looked at it from a technical angle. For 2 years we have researched and tested fibres available to use as a single layer or a secondary liner in denim jeans to protect the rider.
Our ‘Super Fibre’ is a Liquid Crystal Polymer, it performs (according to Nasa) better than Kevlar for abrasion resistance, it’s key feature over all aramids though is it’s almost zero moisture retention, aramids decaying reasonably quickly when exposed to moisture, even humidity, so washing your Kevlar’s makes them weaker.
There are few high performance fibres that will do the job required in bike jeans, some use High Modulus Polyethylene (Brands like Dyneema or Spectra), these like aramids are not ideal for bike jeans, the high thermal conductivity in them passes the heat from the friction immediately to the skin, consequently burning the skin.
For the record, THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS ARMY GRADE KEVLAR, a selling feature used by some who have no idea. There is Para Aramid and Meta Aramid, Para having higher abrasion qualities and Meta having fire resistant qualities over Para. Balistic vest’s for example use multiple very thin layers of woven Para Kevlar, this acts as continuous and abrupt slowing of a bullet through each layer, if the same thickness of Kevlar was used in a single layer the bullet would penetrate the vest. This leads to the next issue…….
A question often asked on various blogs when looking at Kevlar jeans, Woven or Knitted? The guys that make both answer the question as it fits their argument, so for higher abrasion resistance the knitted has more density, simply apply what you know about a knitted jumper compared to a tightly woven one, this may help you see the picture, HOWEVER, the woven one will protect you better if you had a low speed and a sharp object directly penetrated the Kevlar, the tight weave in the woven offering resistance, the knitted having a more open appearance is likely to let the sharp object straight through to the skin.
Bull-it Jeans are made from or lined with a Covec Technical Textile, it was made for the purpose it was intended….Is there any other bike jeans product in the world today that can say the same thing? "