How much protective clothing do you wear?

[Targetman]

How safe is safe?

Do you dress for a fall when you ride?
Or maybe you are a fair weather rider with a big-ass fairing on your bike, and it's just too darn hot to be wearing all that stuff?

What about your helmet, Half or full?

[sksxs1100]

minimums are: full face helmet (unless riding the Harley.. half helmet)
blue jeans
steel toe ankle high boots
t-shirt
fingerless gloves..

I know i should wear more... but atleast i Don't ride in shorts and filp-flops

[John]

I will wear shorts and a T shirt & tennis shoes in hot weather. In the winter I wear a whole cow. Chaps, jacket, gloves and boots. I ALWAYS wear a lid, half shell. I catch some flack for wearing shorts from the h-d riders I work with, but they are so hardcore (stupid) that they don't wear helmets. My response is "Skin will grow back, and I can live with out a leg. Can you live with out a head?"

[Jerry]

Minimum: Full-face helmet, leather jacket, gloves (aramid-reinforced) 8" lace-up heavy boots. Longer trips: Tourmaster separate jacket and pants, both with armor.

[chevy45412001]

guilty

leather jacket if cold, t-shirt tennis shoes. Thats it. Helmet at the track.

[TopCatGr58]

Road Rash Veteran!

Leather Jacket, Calf High Boots, Jeans and maybe Chaps, Full Face Helmet, Gloves if cold.

I had a spill at 55mph driving home from work one hot(100 degree) summer day when wearing only long sleeve polyester shirt and dress slacks and dress shoes, was just too hot for the other stuff. Was using new throttle lock, in Friday pm traffic, crested a slow hill, traffic panic stopped over hill, PANIC grabbed the brakes, forgot the cruise(DOH!), bike pushed hard and with Xsive braking of front crossed up the bars, thrown down at 55mph, slapped pavement with hands, then came off bike, rolled down highway doing about 20 revs just holding onto helmet hoping I didn't hit another car or get run over, shoes blown off, modest rash on arms, knees, toes but otherwise okay, nothing broken except spark plug and cosmetic stuff to headlight, turn signal, mirror, handlebars. Got bike upright, denied ambulance call, pride hurt real bad, I hit no one, no one hit me, about ready to leave, cop pulls up, gives me a ticket for following too close "since" somebody got hurt-ME! Tied broken spark plug together with piece of belt cord found on highway, limped home remaining 10 miles, scars are barely visible now!!!!

[Ken Talbot]

Well protected in all seasons, but gear changes depenging on season.
- full-face Shoie helmet all the time
- heavy leather pants for cool weather, Joe Rocket mesh for hot weather
- leather Alpinestar boots for all seasons
- heavy leather jacket for coolest season riding, Joe Rocket Ballistic for medium to warm, will be picking up a Joe Rocket mesh jacket next for hot season rides
- full leather gauntlet gloves for most seasons, leather fingerless gloves for hot season riding

YMMV

[Geezer]

Leather jacket if it's not too hot, a Bell helmet and maybe a pair of gloves. For the most part safety s between your ears.

Geezer

[Targetman]

For the most part safety s between your ears.

That's true, but your safety (and life) is also in the hands of everyone else around you on the road.
(That woman in the mini-van, putting on make-up and talking on her cell)

I like your story, Topcat. Shows how quickly bad things can happen.
In '96 I was hit on my Fj1100 on the 401 highway doing about 115 km\h. A girl changed lanes into me to avoid a car braking in front of her, and the rear of her station wagon missed my left knee by less than a foot. The bike was a write-off.
I always wear heavy jacket, leather gloves, jeans, high-cut shoes, and Full face helmet. But the gloves and my jeans both wore through. I couldn't see the injuries on my backside too well, but my girlfriend said I had "holes in me". Ever since then , riding hasn't been the same. I always expected to go down one day, i'm just glad it was survivable, (in the short time I was flying down the road seeing sky-ground-sky-ground, I thought I was dead for sure). If we all keep riding, eventually we will all go down one way or another. All you can do is hope it's not too bad when it happens. I know that sounds paranoid, but unless everyone else is wide awake, and not "bending" the rules of traffic, I think the amount you ride is directly linked to how good a chance you stand of being hit.

I think it's interesting to see all the different levels of safety gear people feel comfortable with. I see young kids around town in the summer with $800 race replica helmets, but hardly any clothes on.
I see guys on cruisers with tiny little barely legal helmets, but more than a cows worth of leather on (I think those chaps are useless, unless you are a cowboy).

I notice alot of people don't care about this subject at all,
because they are not planning on having an accident. heh...

[mitch]

Leather

I also have been down , twice once my fault going too fast in a corner! You know what i mean dont you Gary ? Once it was a cars fault cut me off, and i overreacted. It has to be some hot before i will take my leather jacket and gloves off. I always wear a helmet and im amazed when i go into the states and see you dudes goin with no helmet . But to each his own , i do wear a half helmet it doesent give any facial protection but i find the full face to confining, i like to hear whats gonna hit me lol. I got hit by a June bug at 80 mph once right between the eyes OUCH, almost took me off the bike. Great day here today 50 degrees, im going for a putt , Later.......MITCH

[bikerhawk]

Helmet: Brand-new Nolan N100E flip-up. I love it!

Winter gear: Joe Rocket Ballistic jacket/pants, Tour-Master Cold-Tex gloves.

Summer gear: Firstgear Mesh-Tex jacket/pants, Olympia perforated gel gloves. 70 degrees is the magic temp for switching gear.

Boots: Wal-Mart issue steel-toed, engineer-style (very plain but quite comfortable for not much $$$).

Almost always in full protective gear, except sometimes around town when I skip the pants (yes, I wear jeans instead, sickos).

[Jdwags]

Helmet always, switch between full face and 3/4,

Basic jacket, if warm, occasionally T shirt, and jeans always, frequently gloves...
anything from tennis shoes to boots..


Im a granny rider, and should get more, and slowly I'm aquiring better and safer riding apparel..


spent too many years scraping guys off the road that had no helmets, so I wont even go down the street without one.

[Geezer]

I've been down a few too many times but if I'm roasting inside a safety suit then I'm a lot less likely to pay full attention to my surroundings. About 22 years ago, I was pasted by a drunk driver while riding my old Moto Guzzi. I blew past him at a light and I guess I pissed him off, anyway he overtook me and hit me going about 20 mph faster than I was going. I was wearing a top of the line full face helmet and full Langlitz leathers. I wasn’t wearing gloves because I had Hippo-Hands on the bike (anybody remember those?)

On impact I flew back and smashed in the windshield with my big ass. About that time the drunk realized he’d hit something and mashed the breaks. Then I went flying over the bike taking a handlebar to the guts. It’s a good thing that my jacket was a tight fit, because it did a good job keeping my insides intact. My helmet took a hard hit to the chin when I was bouncing on the pavement and many other hard scrapes too.

The only skin I lost was a tiny patch on the back of my left hand. If I had been wearing gloves that wouldn’t have happened. I chose the Hippo-Hands for ease of use and I like having the feel of the controls. If this had happened in warm weather, I would have been wearing the same jacket and helmet but the leather pants would have been left at home. I think the outcome would have been the same.

[jetmechmarty]

I switch between 3/4 and half helmet, steel toe 13" boots, mesh jacket in summer. Always long pants, occasionally a tee shirt.

[Hobbit]

gear

My son, my wife and I all wear full face helmets, boots, jeans, gloves, and depending on the weather either Joe Rocket mesh jacket or leather.

It's a good thing too. My wife (who just started riding recently), put her Intruder down, not once but twice, this morning.
Nothing hurt but the mirror