well my jacket says, made in china

lol

some of their lower-end stuff is "outsourced" to China or Korea

Don't think that means it's crap. Like anywhere, they make both excellent quality stuff and crap. It depends on how much attention the contractee pays to quality control. I have some amazing quality DSLR lenses that were made in China, for Olympus.

My Chinese HJC jacket from 10 yrs ago had leather just as good as a Vanson.

It's Pakistan that makes the crap stuff.

$115

http://www.motorcyclegear.com/street...le_jacket.html

That is the jacket I've been considering. After much deliberation over the silver or day-glo, I opted to burn people's retinas. Placed my order. Unfortunately, they're waiting to receive the jackets mid next week, so I likely won't get it for almost 2 weeks. Arrgh. However, they have silver in stock...considering just going with silver to get the jacket in less than a week...

I have all black gear because it fits - I just assume I am invisible no matter what I wear.

Yeah, Pakistan is the crappy stuff.

I bought a red one years ago. It worked well in the 105 degree heat last week. The "armor" in the elbows, shoulders and back was laughable. I bought some hard plastic armor from ebay back in 2007.

http://img442.imageshack.us/img442/2...armeshtex1.jpg

This picture shows the 1/16-inch thick foam on the left and the plastic armor I installed over the foam. I did this in the pockets for the elbows and shoulders.

http://img854.imageshack.us/img854/6...armeshtex2.jpg

This picture shows the back foam on the right and the flexible plastic armor I bought off ebay. The problem was that the plastic armor was too wide to fit in the pocket for the T-shaped foam.

http://img843.imageshack.us/img843/1...armeshtex3.jpg

Solution: My wife sewed up a bigger pocket. But she had to place it exactly so the plastic armor fit the curvature of my back. She also put in a zipper instead of the stock velcro. I haven't crash-tested it, but it fits great.

Holy cow, I have that exact same jacket for when it gets stupid hot out (same color and everything - bought it from Tricktape) - I use my all black stuff because the armor in the mesh tex is crappy - I must try that solution. You wouldn't happen to know who made the stuff you're using, would you?