gear, bike, riding techniques for a noob

[BLINGMW]

For your first jacket i'd say stick with a perf leather one.

Agreed. A very perforated jacket like the Teknic Chicane is surprisingly comfortable (and pretty cheap) in hot weather IMHO. Ok, enough sitting in traffic on an aircooled bike would start to suck, but I find that as long as I'm moving just a little, even my very sparsely perf Alpinestars is comfortable when it's 85+ deg. I could honestly wear it all day if I wanted to look super badass, it just doesn't provide much insulation.