How to Clean and Store Your Leather Motorcycle Gear for Winter

Do you wind up spending a ton of money on motorcycle gear every spring when riding season starts again? I used to until I figured out what I was doing wrong: I wasn’t cleaning and storing my gear properly. Spring would be sprung, and I couldn’t find my gloves. Or I could only find one of them. My jacket had developed some kind of fungus, and my riding pants had cracked.

All of this could have been avoided with some proper gear cleaning, care and storage. So you can learn from my mistakes, I’ve outlined my winter storage process in 8 steps:

1. The most important step in keeping your gear ready-to-use is to clean it after each ride and give it a thorough, deep cleaning at the end of the riding season before packing it away. Different materials require different cleaning procedures – always check the labels before using any cleaning fluid or detergent on your gear. Persistent, gentle cleaning is better than a tough assault. When in doubt, back off, consult the label or get in touch with the manufacturer for advice.
2. Avoid harsh detergents and chemicals at all costs. Remember, next year, your gear is going to be touching your body, mixing with your sweat in hot weather, and generally becoming an intimate part of you. Any chemical you use to clean your gear can potentially leave a residue that may later irritate your skin and get absorbed into your body. You don’t want that.
3. Leather gear needs different treatment than textile gear. Some modern leathers are washable, but they are a rarity. You will ruin most motorcycle jackets and riding pants if you just throw them in the washer and dryer. Remove any safety padding and liners from the jacket and clean them separately with warm soapy water. Line dry, and they’ll be great.
4. The inside of your leathers may smell bad by the end of the season, and not just because the liner is dirty. The culprit is perspiration – more specifically, it’s the salt in your perspiration. Anthony’s Leatherworks makes a great trio of products for leather gear care, and the first product is Anthony’s De-Salter. Spray on and brush off a coating of De-Salter on the inside of your jacket, riding pants and gloves, and you’ll remove the mold and perspiration from a season’s riding.
5. Follow up with a leather shampoo like Anthony’s Easy Cleaner or Leather Spa Leather Shampoo. Use a moderate amount, brush and massage the leather gently inside and out, and rinse gently to get rid of dirt, grime and excess shampoo. Hang your leathers out to dry before the next step – don’t use the dryer or a blow dryer to speed up the process.
6. Once your leathers are clean and dry, you have to condition them to keep them supple and to keep them from cracking over the winter. Of course, Anthony’s has a product for that – Anthony’s One-Step Conditioner. I also like Leather Honey. Rub on, buff off.
7. Next, you have to find a place to store your leathers when they’re not in use. If you’re lucky, you have hanging space in a well-ventilated closet. Don’t make the mistake of hanging your heavy jacket and pants on an ordinary wire hanger – it’ll wind up in a pile on the floor before springtime. Invest in a good hanger system, like the Aerostich Shoulder Saver Hanger or the Dritek Hanger Pro. I use a pair of binder clips or clothes pins to secure my gloves to the hanger’s crossbar, assuring that I can find them again in the spring.

If you don’t have hanging space, invest in a plastic bin that’s wide enough and deep enough to hold your jacket without folding it too much, like the Rubbermaid Clever Store Basic Latch. A box like this will keep dust and bugs out, but won’t be so airtight that your leathers get moldy. Store in a cool, dry place out of direct sunlight, and come springtime, you’ll have some nice smelling, supple, clean gear to ride in.