The legendary Altitude Pant has long been a popular women’s touring piece, redesigned in its fourth generation and upgraded with features ready for grand journeys. Major comfort improvements include ample stretch panels and gussets for mobility with new material layouts to make big rides even more comfortable. Altitude is an excellent motorcycle travel companion for your most epic rides, rain or shine, day after day, dusk till dawn – or even longer.
Please have a look at Klim’s sizing chart below to choose a size. We measured a sampling of sizes in this pant and found the waist to measure out just slightly larger than the chart.. about 1” larger at the most (which is common in pants). The measured inseam lengths matched the chart very well.
| Pant Size | Waist Range | Approx Hip | Inseam Regular |
Inseam Tall |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6 | 27-28 | 36-37 | 30 | 33 |
| 8 | 29-30 | 38-39 | 30 | 33 |
| 10 | 31-33 | 40-42 | 30 | 33 |
| 12 | 34-36 | 43-45 | 30 | 33 |
| 14 | 37-39 | 46-48 | 31 | 34 |
| 16 | 40-42 | 49-51 | 31 | 34 |
Today I’m looking at the Altitude Pants for women and also the Altitude Pants for women. Both styles are a Gore-Tex shell with pockets, venting and both are equipped with D3O armor in the hips and knees.
In looking over these two styles from Klim I don’t see a substantive difference in function, so I’m going to tell you about both. The two styles have slight styling differences and if you planned to pair the pants with their respective matching jackets, you’d have a good reason to choose one over the other, but otherwise, you could choose based on graphic style and color which are slightly different.
These pants are a solid textile shell that is waterproofed with the best… Gore-Tex, and are guaranteed to keep you dry. The type of shell material is a a textile material bonded directly to the Gore-Tex waterproofing material. There really isn’t a better system to provide waterproofing and still have breathability. They do have some large zip vents on the side of each thigh and exhaust vents on the back of each thigh. These close with waterproof zippers, and when open, will admit air directly through the pant, which should give some comfort in warm weather. Klim doesn’t include under-layers with their basic gear, but rather they encourage you to use your own layering depending upon the weather.
The pant leg design here is inspired by dual sport or adventure riding… the leg opening is large at the bottom to accommodate just about any boot but the cuff has snaps so you can make the pant leg smaller at the end if you like (for smaller touring/street boots). The inside area of the leg near the knee is leather. The leather works to help prevent melting from hot pipes and also give some “grip” for those wrangling a bike off the road. This is a common feature in off road and adventure riding pants.
The pants come with a full set of D3O armor in the hips and knees. The knee armor installation is great…. the armor is inside a pocket that is quite a bit larger than the armor, and inside the pockets there are strips of Velcro so that you can position the armor higher or lower in the pocket, so that it hits in the right spot when you are mounted. This is a nice feature to accommodate varying heights of riders.
The color schemes on these pants are classic “Klim” but with more feminine color accents. And of course the cut of the the pants is made more feminine with a smaller waist and larger hip as compared to men’s styles. The overall construction and materials is comparable to the men’s styles so there is equal quality and durability.
