Tarmac Tested | Product Review

Selvage denim is all the rage right now. Never heard of it? It’s a type of denim that is manufactured the way they did in the ’40s and ’50s. The word comes from the “self-edge” meaning that this fabric was made on old-style shuttle looms that weave fabric with a continuing cross thread that is passed back and forth all the way down the length of the bolt creating a “self-edge” or selvage. Selvage is desirable because the edge cannot fray like denim made on a newer loom, which leaves an open edge that must be stitched. The selvage edges will be seen along the outseam of the pants, making it visible to all when cuffs are worn. Tres cool.

Maple, which is located in England, decided that riding pants looked stupid and jeans had little-to-no protection, so it spent a ton of time and money to make a pair of jeans that have all the good looks of selvage jeans, but are reinforced with Kevlar. So if the shit hits the fan and you hit the ground, these pants will save your flesh without all the Ricky Racer looks. I liked the classic looks of the jeans and loved the fit once I went through the shrink-to-fit process. Another cool thing is that the jeans also come with hip and leg padding that can be optionally installed. In the future I would like to see a pair in black and more of a 501-style cut for us Americans.

The DCF883 is the codename for one hell of a cordless wonder tool. A Lithium Ion–powered 20-volt battery controls this compact-sized and rather lightweight (3.4 pounds) tool. To tell you the truth, I was not too hip on cordless impacts until I cam across this unit and it made me a convert due to its 1,560-lb-in/130-lb-ft capability. I also liked the 3/8-inch hog ring anvil drive that made changing out sockets a thing of ease. Having this driver handy made removing the Loctite’d and old bolts on my bike a breeze and I didn’t have to torch every single bolt to red-hot like I do while using handtools.

The DCF883 is a workhouse, but also has a few bells and whistles, such as three separate LED lights that have a 20-second delay after the trigger is released. The other is a battery fuel gauge with three LED lights that lets a person know when the battery is going to die. These features are cool, but not needed. And I’m not going to lie to you all fine folk: I did use them more and more with time.

So, you have a couple of bikes, an old car, and an ATV or some shit, but only one battery charger? Yeah I know the deal. Not so long ago I plunked down a pretty penny for a single charger and since then have had to swap it from vehicle to vehicle to make sure all my rides have juice when I want to ride or drive them. That was until I hooked up a Pulse Tech QuadLink four-channel battery charger multiplier to my current one-horse charger. That’s right ladies and gents, this beautiful piece of machinery plugs directly into your single unit trickle charger with ease and lets you simultaneously charge up to four separate vehicles! The QuadLink lets you use any single 6- or 12-volt battery maintenance charger to charge a multitude of lead-acid batteries. The four-way switcher circuit is capable of charging the batteries individually connected or connected in a 24-, 36-, or 48-volt series. The QuadLink system charges the batteries sequentially in 10-minute intervals. The unit comes complete with a four eyelet lug adapter cables and four 5-foot extension leads making it an easy plug-and-play affair.