One Industries Defcon Gear

When One Industries was finally ready to launch their new gear, they could have done the usual ride day at a local track, but instead they wanted to do something just a little different. The riding spot they picked was East of Ocotillo, getting closer to the Arizona border. It also butted up against a Naval bombing range, where jet fighter pilots spent the day doing mock bombing ...a perfect backdrop for their Defcon lineup.

One is only a couple months away from their 12th anniversary, and as One’s Danny Dobey explained, they’ve been planning for this for quite some time. "Entering the gear market is something that was kind of a dream when we first started. From day one, a lot of guys speculated that One Industries would be in gear immediately. We had a game plan and always thought about it, but we wanted to do baby steps, and we started with the graphics. That went off without a hitch, and we had a great time doing it.”

“Obviously Marc (Blanchard) is a great designer. When we introduced the helmet line, that's when it really started getting fun for us. That was a project that we bit off, and…wow, we learned a ton. It was a tough market to enter, but it was a lot of fun doing it. Then we finally came to doing gear. That took us about two years, from the concept of actually pulling the trigger, to when we had a finished piece, ready to rock and roll. That was an experience. In hindsight I would have done things a lot differently, but it was a lot of fun. It's awesome having people like Russ (Koza), and Skip Norfolk on board, making this come true for us.”

“Everyone speculated, 'How is a graphics company going to make helmets?' Well, we did that and proved them wrong. Then it was, 'How's a graphic company going to do gear?' Hopefully we're proving them wrong again.”

“The neat thing about One Industries is that everything is done with a passion for form and style, for function….the whole package, we take a lot of pride in everything we've done. That's why we didn't rush anything. We probably could have done this a year sooner, but we wanted to make sure everything came out perfect.”

With the why out of the way, One’s Skip Norfolk explained some the how that makes these pants different. “All of the knee, all of the spandex, is designed so that when you put this thing on, you have the volume you need, but without bulk. We also don't want the pant rotating around on the knee a lot. Guys now have so much grip tape and so much stuff on the side of their bike to hold on, you tend to get the pants to walk around. We wanted to make this thing tailored and fit really nice. So we tried to build the volume into this knee. The big TPRs are all on the outside to form and function with the knee how it's going to work. There's some spandex in the key places to give it that stretch, where it'll adapt to the different thighs, knee braces and knee cups, and still maintain its slender fit, and doesn't just look big and baggy.”

“There's also an articulated yoke in the back. The goal of this is when you're on the bike in the seated position, We want that yoke and back of the pant to stay up tight and go through the motions without the pant wanting to walk off the back.”

Protecting the nylon and polyester portions of the pant from hot components was also a consideration. “We also didn't want to shortchange the leather in the knees. Five percent of this pant, it's a good bit of area, is leather. We know that with a hot exhaust pipe, they're going to melt. There's no way around it. We wanted to put as much leather as we possibly could into this pant to keep the performance, and also to give some heat resistance to the exhaust pipe.”

“It's got a 3/4-length liner in it, it's got some spandex around the ankles. We wanted to make this pant as easy to get off, as it was to get on.”

When it came to riding, the fit and comfort of the pants was excellent. The waist wasn’t overly tight, but the yoke in the back seemed to do a really good job of keeping the pants where they belonged. They did seem a bit snug around the hips (like when hoisting a leg over the bike), but that could have also been due to the (ahem) dimensions of the tester, rather than the fault of the pant.

As far as the 100 percent polyester jersey, it features 17 panels, and an all-over sublimated design. One feature that we really liked on it was a slightly padded area up on the collar, to add a bit of comfort for the braces and things that sit atop your shoulders. While wearing it, it was feathery light and very cool.

There are also two models of gloves in One’s gear bag, the Armada, which is more the protective glove. With an embossed neoprene on the knuckles, it also has added layers for high-wear areas in both the inside and outside areas of your palm. Then there’s the Zero glove, which is more of a lightweight Supercross-style racing glove. It’s very free feeling and very lightweight, with just a small amount of padding in your callous area and a small amount of padding on the heel of your hand.

And of course, the gear can be topped off nicely with One’s Trooper helmets.

All in all? We were pretty impressed with One’s lineup. This year they’re keeping the run of gear fairly small, and we hear sales in to dealers was brisk. If you’re interested in checking it out, we’d suggest scooting down to your local One dealer.

For more info, check out http://oneindustries.com.