Alpinestars Bogota Drystar Pants

Alpinestars publishes a really complicated sizing chart, so I’ve distilled that down for you into the table below. We checked a selection of pants with a tape and the chart is reasonably accurate. Choose a size based on the chart below. I encourage you to use a tape around your waist just below the navel to determine waist size because using jean sizes might lead to false results if your jeans are “vanity sized”.

Since these pants come with suspenders, I’d advise you to choose larger if you are between sizes since the use of suspenders allows for a looser waist, which would be more comfortable. (I’m a big fan of suspender pants BTW!).

Need help measuring? Get it here.

The Bogota pants are made to match the Bogota jacket (see link below). As of this writing, we now offer three models of pants with similar function that are made to match their respective jackets… the Andes, Bogota and Valparaiso. It seems that rather than offering a “generic” pant, Alpinestars is gravitating toward a specifically styled pant for each jacket style. So here is the mate to the Bogota jacket. But let me say that there isn’t any reason you couldn’t wear this pant with any style jacket… they are generically styled (especially the black, and although they have a full zipper that can be attached to an Alpinestars jacket, they also have a regular waist band (with adjustment) and suspenders, so attachment to an Alpinestars jacket isn’t a requirement.

These pants are made to be worn over underwear and not as an overpant. There isn’t a reason you couldn’t wear them over street clothes, but they are tailored a bit more closely to the body and they lack the customary long side zipper to allow easy “on and off” you see with the usual “overpant”. If you do plan on wearing these over street clothes, I’d suggest buying one size larger to accommodate the added bulk of your street clothes underneath due to the trim tailoring.

The pants have the customary outer nylon shell and then the shell is backed by a fixed Drystar waterproof, breathable liner. The liner will be the thing that keeps the water out and since it is a fixed design, it should do a very good job of that. The flip side to the great functionality of a fixed liner is that the pants won’t flow a lot of air in summer, so I’d recommend these for cold to mild… maybe even a bit warm weather. They won’t be great in hot weather though. But for the cold weather, the pants have the solid shell, windproof membrane and then a removable full leg length thermal liner. All that together should keep you toasty and dry!

Other things I like are the waist adjustments, the suspenders, and the leg closure. I’m a fan of pant suspenders, and for long rides, the suspenders allow you to wear the pants not so tight through the waist and that makes for a more comfortable long ride sitting in the saddle. The side waist adjusters I mentioned will help you fine tune the fit in the waistband to account for suspender use or not (they are removable BTW), and what sort of clothes you are wearing under the pants. Lastly, the pant legs are trimmed out with a short side zipper and Velcro which will give a WIDE range of adjustment to wear over boots of all types.

The pants have a bit of reflectivity built in (not a ton, but better than nothing of course). We took some night shots and included them in our photo gallery for you.

The Bogota jacket and and pants are “mid priced” and of course very high quality. I think the styling is sharp and the basic functionality is there for you. As a suit, the two pieces would be great, but these pants alone would work great too. :: Paul, 02-27-15