Short answer: a mesh riding jacket with a published abrasion class, mesh pants or an armored overpant, vented certified gloves, boots, and a helmet whose vents actually open. Not a t-shirt — and not because we are nagging, but because above about 95°F a t-shirt genuinely stops being the cooler option.
That last point is the one most summer gear arguments miss, so here it is first. Once the air is hotter than your skin, airflow over bare skin heats you up. Skin sits around 91–93°F. On a 100°F day a bare forearm in a 60 mph airstream is a convection oven element, which is precisely why riders in Phoenix and Las Vegas wear more rather than less. A mesh jacket over a damp wicking layer keeps evaporation working for you instead of against you.
How summer gear actually keeps you cool
Two mechanisms, and they work in different conditions, which is worth knowing because it tells you when your gear will and will not help.
Convection— moving air carrying heat away. This works while the air is cooler than your skin and while you are moving. It is what mesh panels are for.
Evaporation— sweat turning to vapour, which takes significant heat with it. This keeps working even when the air is hotter than you are, and it is the mechanism that matters most in extreme heat. Evaporation is why a wicking base layer under a mesh jacket genuinely outperforms bare skin: the fabric spreads moisture over a large surface in the airstream instead of letting it pool.
The practical upshot: mesh plus a damp wicking layer beats bare skin, and both beat a solid jacket.And in stopped traffic nothing works, because there is no airflow to use — which is the one problem gear cannot solve and we come back to below.
The thing to look for: a published abrasion class
This is the only part of summer gear buying that needs any technical attention, and it is simple once you know the shape of it.
Riding garments are certified under EN 17092, which assigns a class from AAA (the highest, racing-level abrasion resistance) down through AA and A to B and C. Class A is the lowest street class. Class C is the important one to recognize: it means the garment is an impact-protector holder with no abrasion requirement at all — an armored shirt, not a jacket.
Here is what that looks like across the hot-weather gear in our registry, read from each maker’s own published page:
| Garment | Construction | Published garment class | Armor included |
|---|
| Alpinestars SMX Air (jacket) | Tech mesh with perforated 450D upper chest | EN 17092-4 Class A | CE Level 1 EN 1621-1:2012 shoulder and elbow |
|---|
| Alpinestars T-GP Plus R V4 Airflow (jacket) | 450D poly-fabric with mesh and perforated panels | EN 17092-4 Class A | Nucleon Flex Plus shoulder and elbow |
|---|
| Tourmaster Draft Air 2.0 (overpant) | 600D polyester with Armor-Link mesh panels | Class A as published | Armanox knee, CE EN 1621-1 Level 1 |
|---|
| Klim Induction (gloves) | Goat leather with mesh backhand and mapped perforations | CE Level 1 KP to EN 13594 | Carbon-fiber hard knuckle; 5 mm XRD foam |
|---|
| Klim Tactical Pro (armored shirt) | Four-way-stretch cooling fabric over mesh | EN 17092-6 Class C — no abrasion requirement | Level 2 chest, Level 2 back, Level 1 shoulder |
|---|
Two honest readings of that table. First, every mesh garment here is Class A, where the leather jackets in our registry publish AA. A mostly-mesh jacket does give up a class, and that is the real trade for the airflow — our leather vs textile comparison works through the abrasion argument properly, including the textile jackets that reach AA.
Second, Class A is enormously better than nothing. A t-shirt has no class, no armor and no rated seams. The gap between Class A and Class AA is far smaller than the gap between Class A and a cotton tee.
One transparency note on that table, because we would rather flag it than smooth it over: Tourmaster’s own page prints “CE certified A EN 17092-2” for the Draft Air 2.0, which is internally inconsistent — in EN 17092, class A is clause -4 and clause -2 is class AAA. We record it as the class A it names rather than the AAA the clause number would imply. Our CE armor guide explains how to read these markings yourself.
Zone by zone
Torso
A mostly-mesh jacket, not a perforated solid one, if heat is the priority. The Alpinestars SMX Air is the registry pick: a tech-mesh chassis with mechanical stretch and a perforated 450D upper chest, with Alpinestars publishing the armor clause outright as CE Level 1 to EN 1621-1:2012. Two things worth knowing before you buy: it is Class A, and no back or chest protector is included— both are pockets waiting for a protector you supply. It is also Tech-Air 5 Plasma compatible if an airbag is in the plan, which our airbag vest vs back protector comparison covers.
Our sport jacket ranking and general jacket ranking have the alternatives, including the mid-price Alpinestars T-GP Plus R V4 Airflow.
Legs
The zone that defeats most riders in summer, because the honest alternative to jeans is an extra garment in genuine heat.
The answer that actually gets worn is a mesh overpant, because it pulls on over what you are already wearing and comes off at the other end. The Tourmaster Draft Air 2.0 is the registry pick: Armor-Link mesh panels, 1000 denier ripstop at the knees and seat, and CE Level 1 Armanox knee armor in the box. No hip armor is published, which is the gap. Our riding pants ranking puts it against the certified riding jeans, which are the cooler-looking but hotter-wearing option.
A laminated touring pant, by contrast, runs warm in peak summer even with the thermal liner removed — Alpinestars says as much about its own Andes V4.
Hands
A ventilated certified glove. The thing to look for is a maker that prints the EN 13594 clause on a vented glove, which is less common than it should be. Klim does it for the Induction: “CE Level 1 KP rating certified to EN 13594” on a mesh-backhand glove with a carbon-fiber hard knuckle, 5 mm XRD impact foam and an aramid-reinforced palm overlay.
The honest catch is on its card: no membrane at all, so it is a dry-weather glove, and the mesh is not reversible — it is cold at highway speed once the temperature drops into the fifties. If you want a cheaper short summer glove, our glove ranking has the ventilated budget pick, and if this is your first pair our beginner glove ranking covers the whole first-season question.
Feet
Short boots rather than tall touring boots, perforated or vented if you can find them, and not laced tight— compression reduces circulation and makes feet hotter, the same mechanism as in winter. Our boot ranking covers the structural side. Sneakers are not boots: ankles are the joint motorcycle boots exist for.
Head
The one item you cannot ventilate yourself after the fact, so buy it right. What matters is published vent architecture and weight, which is exactly how our hot-weather helmet ranking is sorted. A lighter helmet is also a cooler helmet in the sense that matters on hour four: less load on your neck when you are already working harder.
If you are considering an open-face purely for airflow, read our open-face vs full-face comparison first. It is genuinely cooler below about 40 mph, and it is also a decision about your jaw rather than about ventilation.
And wear a wicking skull cap or balaclava. It sounds like the opposite of what you want in heat and it is not: it moves sweat off your scalp, keeps the liner cleaner, and makes the helmet easier to get on and off at every stop.
The problem gear cannot solve: stopped traffic
Mesh needs air moving through it. At a standstill in 100°F there is none, and no garment fixes that. What helps:
Hydrate far more than feels necessary, starting before you ride. Dehydration degrades concentration and reaction time before you notice it, which makes this a safety item rather than a comfort one.
Soak a base layer or neck tube before you set off. Evaporative cooling is the mechanism that still works in extreme heat, and wetting the fabric gives it something to work with.
Light colors, since a black jacket in direct sun is absorbing radiant heat all day.
Ride earlier or later. The least technical and most effective fix on the list.
The compromise, if a jacket is genuinely not going to happen
We would rather give you a real answer than a lecture, because the gear you wear beats the gear you own — which is the whole argument of our ATGATT guide.
If the honest choice is between a t-shirt and nothing, an armored shirt is the better compromise. The Klim Tactical Prois a four-way-stretch cooling shirt with mineral-treated fabric, carrying Level 2 chest and back pads and Level 1 shoulders, and it is the only armor product in our registry that publishes its own garment certification — “CE CU rating certified to EN 17092-6”.
Be clear about what that is and is not. Class C means no abrasion requirement. It is impact protection without slide protection, and Klim says so. It is meaningfully better than a t-shirt and it is not a jacket. Our armored base layer ranking has the full set, including the slimmer vests.
What we have not done
Worn any of it in the heat. We own no units and run no lab — how we reviewsets out the method and its limits. Every figure on this page is read from a maker’s or retailer’s own published page on the date recorded on each product card, and where a maker does not publish a figure the card says “Not published” rather than inventing one. The heat-transfer principles are physics; the temperature at which any of this stops being enough for you is not something anybody can publish.
When the season turns, the problem inverts — our guide to staying warm on a motorcycle is the mirror of this one, and the base-layer advice is the one thing that carries straight across.