New for 2022: Klim Artemis Women’s Gear

[advrider]

Adventure gear manufacturer Klim has introduced their new Artemis jacket and pants for 2022. Long known for their high-quality, feature-rich gear with prices to match, this year’s lineup continues the trend.

This set truly exemplifies everything about the saying “you get what you pay for.” Let’s dive in, shall we?

What Colors Do They Come In?

The jacket and pants both come in three different colorways. A desert khaki / dark sand / orange set, a silver / graphite / turquoise set, and a black / silver/hi-viz set (the matching pants for that last one are just black). Note, those aren’t the official color names; those haven’t been published yet.

Same Features as Everyone Else?

They have the features you would expect from most textile adventure riding gear, like Velcro adjustments at the cuffs, an adjustable waistband, and 630D Cordura construction. There are 3M reflective highlights, and the jacket comes with CE level 1 shoulder, elbow and back armor. The pants have the same hip and knee armor. These can be upgraded to D3O armor for either side of $200 for the set (depending on your option preferences).

No, Better Features

Let’s talk about the stuff that you don’t generally find in textile motorcycle gear, especially women’s motorcycle gear. First, pockets. Klim listened; this gear has loads of pockets. And not just pockets, but well-placed, usable pockets with internal separation for better pocket organization. Keep your chapstick separate from your cash separate from your everything else in the same pocket.

The jacket and pants also have what Klim terms a “Molle-compatible” utility panel. This is a weight-bearing “Pouch Attachment Ladder System (PALS)” and it’s for anything, you know, tactical. The tang on your hydration valve? Your pocket knife? Several sharpies? A Fast Lane transponder? The choice is yours. I love this feature.

Superfabric™ abrasion-resistant panels adorn the elbows, shoulders and knees. This material is laced with ceramic, and does a great job of sliding (not tearing) when it has to. I once had a pair of gloves with the same stuff on the palm, and it took the paint off my bar end inside of a few months. The stuff is no joke.

Long Hair Protection

The collar is adjustable, with a “springless… adjuster to avoid hair snagging.” If you’ve never had your long hair, braided out the back of your helmet, snag on your jacket’s collar snap just as you were going to change lanes, giving you a real startle as a chunk of hair ripped out of your scalp on a head-check, well, perhaps you haven’t lived.

The VENTING

Folks, let’s talk about venting. The Artemis jacket and pants have loads of vents. One lovely feature is the two-way wrist cuff zipper. You can zip it down, and then follow with the next zipper, so the cuff is secure but the opening sends air up your sleeve, through a mesh panel. The pants have a great wide-open thigh vent, the jacket has front and back vents but there’s one more. The under-boob vent is, in my estimation, the pinnacle of women-focused engineering when it comes to riding gear. We all know the girls can get a bit feisty on a hot day, and a breeze straight into that furnace is going to make life at speed much, much better.

The last piece of awesomeness here is the collar hooks. There are hooks on the shoulders that will hold the collar open on very hot days. It’s a great feature, but there’s no mesh on this one, so use it at your own risk. We all know that wasps will fly directly into whatever gaps have no mesh (hello, Aerostich pit vents) and punching yourself in the chest to try to stop the repeated stinging can make a ride less than pleasant.

If you’d like to see Klim’s take on their own stuff, here’s a good rundown:

The Pricing

What will all this run you, if you are as interested in it as I am? That’ll be $750 USD for the jacket, and $550 USD for the pants. The jacket runs from XS-2XL, and from the size chart I estimate their Large to be about a women’s size 12-14. The pants, dear reader, come in short and long sizes, hallelujah.

Now, is all of the above worth $1,300 plus a possible armor-upgrade of $200 plus? You’ll have to do that calculation. I think the under-boob vents alone are worth a few hundred alone, to be fair.

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