Fox Racing MX Pants Survived Everything Except Being Thrown Away
Motocross jerseys get the collector attention. The pants did the actual work — and the ones that survived are the ones nobody thought to save.
Photo by Martin Pettitt / Flickr / CC BY 2.0
Photo by Kev / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 2.0
Pemulis Water & Power • February 2026
A motocross jersey from the nineties was designed to be looked at. A motocross pant from the nineties was designed to be destroyed. The jersey got the all-over graphics and the sponsor logos and the color theory. The pant got Kevlar panels, triple-stitched seams, and a replacement cycle measured in weeks. Serious riders went through two or three pairs a season. The pants absorbed every crash, every roost spray, every hour of heat and sweat and mud that the jersey floated above. When the knee panels wore through or the stitching gave out, you threw them away and bought new ones. Nobody saved motocross pants.
This is why finding a clean pair from the era is harder than finding the jersey that matches it. The survival rate is abysmal — not because the pants were fragile, but because they were so obviously consumable that the idea of preserving a pair would have struck any working rider as absurd. You don't frame your brake pads. You don't shadow-box your chain lube. The pants were equipment, not memorabilia, and they were treated accordingly.
What Made Them Different
Fox Racing pants from this period share the basic DNA of every MX pant — pre-curved knees, stretch panels at the hip and crotch for range of motion on the bike, leather or synthetic heat shields on the inner knee where the radiator lives. But the Fox-specific details are worth noting: the waist closure system, the articulated knee construction, the weight of the fabric. These were pants designed by people who understood that a motocross rider spends most of their time standing on foot pegs with their knees bent at ninety degrees, absorbing impacts through their legs. The cut reflects that — they fit wrong when you're standing upright and perfectly when you're on a bike. This is a feature, not a defect.
We have two pairs in the shop: a grey and black pair and a black and red pair. Both survived the era intact, which means both were probably spares — bought and boxed, or worn once and retired before the track could get to them. One of one.