I love motorcycle jackets.

The same way some people collect wine, watches, purses, or emotionally questionable ex-partners, I collect motorcycle jackets. Far too many of them. Different brands, different colors, different styles—each one absolutely necessary at the time.

Like most bad habits, it probably started with television.

Marlon Brando in The Wild One wearing that black leather police-style jacket. Emma Peel in The Avengers in her impossibly cool black leather catsuit. Somewhere in there, the pursuit of cool was permanently hardwired into my DNA. Never mind that most bikers looked less like Brando and more like overcooked astronauts sweating at gas stations.

Then I started actually riding motorcycles.

That’s when the addiction fully fused with reality: fashion, function, speed, and enough chrome to blind the dead.

The ritual itself became part of the experience. Heavy boots. Gloves. Helmet. Leather CE armor motorcycle pants designed to survive a low-earth orbit tumble down asphalt. And, of course, the all-important boldly branded motorcycle jacket.

Game on.

Then came the revelation:
Could I actually write for the motorcycle magazines I grew up reading?

Thanks to Buzz Buzzelli, editor of American Rider, that dream somehow became real. I sent Buzz a story with photos, he called me up, liked the work, and asked if I had more.

Twenty years and nearly 200 features, reviews, and travel stories later—riding from the Himalayas to the Great Wall—it turned into one hell of an adventure.

Once in the elite motojourno club, manufacturers showered journalists with goods, plying them for editorial and reviews. Let alone an open door to that year’s line of motorcycle loaners from their press fleets.

Then there were the press launches.

Imagine a swarm of the usual suspects from motorcycle publications around the world descending upon upscale resorts to ride the newest machines through spectacular scenery—all at the manufacturer’s expense. Naturally, you were expected to wear that year’s latest branded jacket featuring graphics loud enough to be spotted from space.

This is where the jacket situation became less “collection” and more “intervention.”

In alphabetical order:
Alpinestars, Dainese, Ducati, EagleRider, Harley-Davidson, Joe Rocket, Kawasaki, Moto Guzzi, Scorpion, Tourmaster, Vanson, Victory, and Yamaha. I still own my 40-year-old police-style leather jacket and a 50-year-old vintage Hein Gericke. Neither fits quite the same anymore. Funny how leather mysteriously shrinks over the decades.

All hanging helplessly in the garage like retired road warriors waiting for one last ride.

Sadly, the golden age of extravagant manufacturer spending and print motorcycle magazines has mostly faded into the sunset. Many of the publications I wrote for—American Iron, American Rider, Baggers, Hot Bike, Thunder Press, and Quick Throttle—have either disappeared or evolved into digital ghosts of their former selves.

But the passion never left.

I still scour eBay late at night looking for that elusive one-of-a-kind motorcycle jacket I absolutely do not need—but somehow cannot live without.

And who knows?
I might even have the one you’re looking for.

Ride safe. www.kozmoto.com

Koz lives in Northern Arizona, one of America’s great on- and off-road motorcycling meccas.