Pay attention as the weather gets warmer: you're gonna see a lot of motorcyclists riding around in regular street clothes, nothing but hopes and dreams protecting them from nasty road rash should things get tumbly. Well, maybe not all of them—hopefully, some will be wearing Crave's kevlar-lined Axe shirt, which looks like a normal work shirt but probably won't shred like toilet paper in an asphalt encounter.
Street clothes with hidden Kevlar reinforcement have been around in the motorcycle world for a while, and Crave's offering follows suit with a layer of kevlar between the inner lining and outer shell on the back and arms. But the Axe line works in some nice details that put it somewhere between a shirt and a dedicated riding jacket. Zip-open armpit vents give you some cooling airflow on hot days, and inner and outer smartphone pockets make sure your device doesn't have a crash of its own.
Plus, the shirt has pockets for CE elbow, shoulder, and back armor, to get you even closer to the full protection of a serious jacket, along with zippered arm pockets for things like toll money (or ski passes—this doesn't have to strictly be a motorcycle shirt).
For the best protection, you really should ride with a full jacket (and Crave has a nice one of those too). But if limited storage, sweltering weather, or your uncompromising sense of style make you want to ditch your jacket, a well-built riding shirt like this will at least do more for you than the t-shirt your dealership threw in with your bike.
At a starting price of nearly $300, this ain't no Dickies—but when the pavement's whizzing by underneath you, that's probably a good thing. [Crave via Road & Track]