If you only read one article about gear: Difference between revisions

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A very common question among new motoryclists is, "What kind of riding gear should I get?" It's a really good question, and it shows that you're on the right track. Unfortunately, it's also hard to answer well, because everyone will have a different set of requirements for their gear.

A simple fact of life, faced by every motorcyclist (whether they acknowledge it consciously or not) is that motorcycles are unsafe. Being on two wheels, ~~they're~~ much less stable (able to resist tipping over) than cars. There's no safety cage around a motorcyclist protecting them from the outside world.

A simple fact of life, faced by every motorcyclist (whether they acknowledge it consciously or not) is that motorcycles are unsafe. Being on two wheels, bikes are much less stable (able to resist tipping over) than cars. There's no safety cage around a motorcyclist protecting them from the outside world.

This is perhaps the most important lesson about motorcycles (and cars): It is impossible to reduce your risk of collision to zero. You can make that risk very small, but it will always exist. That is why we wear riding gear: it protects us in that instant where circumstances coincide to separate bike from rider. When someone makes a mistake, the safety gear being worn can mean the difference between waking up sore the next morning and waking up in the hospital, or not at all. Note that it doesn't matter whose mistake we're talking about: the rider's, the SUV driver's, or the deer's. Any one of them can cause a serious enough problem that the rider is suddenly separated from her bike.

In a "typical accident" another vehicle does something to cause the motorcyclist to crash, and the motorcyclist then slides along the pavement until they come to a stop. Although there's not a clear breakdown of the kinds of injuries sustained, a lot of ~~damage~~ potential exists for abrasion damage. This is the scenario from which most safety gear is intended to protect.

In a "typical accident" another vehicle does something to cause the motorcyclist to crash, and the motorcyclist then slides along the pavement until they come to a stop. Although there's not a clear breakdown of the kinds of injuries sustained, a lot of potential exists for abrasion damage. This is the scenario from which most safety gear is intended to protect.

Safety gear is utterly useless unless you wear it, every single time you ride. You can't control when and where a collision happens. The time between the crash starting and you hitting the ground is on the order of tenths of a second, in which time you can't put on any gear you didn't happen to feel like wearing. There's a phrase used by many motorcyclists, ATGATT: All The Gear, All The Time. If you do that, you will have substantially increased your chances of surviving a motorcycle accident unscathed.

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<tr>

<td> ~~Melts~~ in high-heat situations </td>

<td> Resists melting in high-heat situations </td>

~~<td> Y </td>~~

</tr>

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With that in mind, take a good hard look at the table of pros and cons above, and mentally cross off the factors that don't matter for you. If you never ride in the rain, then waterproofing is probably unimportant, etc. The choice of leather vs. textile often boils down to "what can you afford?" I urge you to consider that for a given price, a textile jacket will commonly provide better value than a leather jacket, both in day-to-day and crash protection terms.

As a point of reference on the crash survivability of textile, I once asked Rider's Wearhouse (makers of the Aerostich Roadcrafter textile suit) about crash damage they've had to repair. The guy I was speaking with said they've had numerous suits come back after crashes (some as fast as 70-80 MPH), and not one of them had been damaged badly enough to stop protecting the rider. That says a lot to me about the ability of textile to keep a rider safe. (Yes, of course it may be that they never saw the suits that really failed; surviving an 80 MPH slide down the asphalt is all I can reasonably ask from my safety gear.)

As a point of reference on the crash survivability of textile, I once asked Rider's Wearhouse (makers of the [[Aerostich Roadcrafter Suit|Aerostich Roadcrafter]] textile suit) about crash damage they've had to repair. The guy I was speaking with said they've had numerous suits come back after crashes (some as fast as 70-80 MPH), and not one of them had been damaged badly enough to stop protecting the rider. That says a lot to me about the ability of textile to keep a rider safe. (Yes, of course it may be that they never saw the suits that really failed; surviving an 80 MPH slide down the asphalt is all I can reasonably ask from my safety gear.)

====Conspicuity, or "Being Seen"====

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Keep this in mind when you're looking at gear. Black leather may look cool (nay, it does look cool), but it's also hard to see in traffic. Your riding gear should be as bright as you can stand; ideally it'd be high-viz yellow with reflective, flourescent orange stripes all down it. Most people can't take that much day-glo all at once though, so most riding gear has mere splashes of color.

The more colorful your riding gear (particularly your jacket and helmet, which is what most people will see from the front), the easier you are to see. The easier you are to see, the less likely other drivers will act as if you're not there. I started riding with my high-beam on all the time during the day, and noticed that people seemed to see me better. Woo!

The more colorful your riding gear (particularly your jacket and helmet, which is what most people will see from the front), the easier you are to see. The easier you are to see, the less likely other drivers will act as if you're not there. I started riding with my high-beam on all the time during the day and noticed that people seemed to see me better. Woo!

Note that, although red and orange seem really bright in sunlight, they fade out to grey at twilight or in the dark. White is an excellent color, along with flourescents, because they remain bright through twilight.

====Notes on Textiles====

When you're looking at textile jackets, you want to select something with the highest surface of "ballistic" nylon possible. This is the heavy-duty, thick-weaved nylon that usually reinforces elbows, shoulders, hips, and knees on riding gear. If you could find a piece of riding clothing that was all ballistic nylon, you'd be set, but no one makes that. I suspect such a ~~garmet~~ would be too stiff to be really useful, but it's a good goal to strive for.

When you're looking at textile jackets, you want to select something with the highest surface of "ballistic" nylon possible. This is the heavy-duty, thick-weaved nylon that usually reinforces elbows, shoulders, hips, and knees on riding gear. If you could find a piece of riding clothing that was all ballistic nylon you'd be set, but no one makes that. I suspect such a garment would be too stiff to be really useful, but it's a good goal to strive for.

[http://www.mcnews.com/mcn/ Motorcycle Consumer News] did an abrasion test on a variety of materials, including ballistic nylon and some other forms of nylon. As expected, the ballistic nylon did really well on abrasion, the "regular" nylon not as well. So, make sure that your textile gear has as much ballistic as possible.

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==Picking a Helmet==

Helmets come in a variety of shapes, as do heads. In general, each brand will have a different signature shape (although Arai produces helmets with three different shapes). When your head and the helmet have different shapes, you will put it on and immediately feel pressure points and blank spots where the helmet doesn't press at all. ~~Your goal is to~~ go into a shop and try on every helmet they have. It's the only way to get a good fit.

Helmets come in a variety of shapes, as do heads. In general, each brand will have a different signature shape (although Arai produces helmets with three different shapes). When your head and the helmet have different shapes, you will put it on and immediately feel pressure points, and also blank spots where the helmet doesn't press at all. Both of these things will make the helmet very uncomfortable after riding for just a short while. To avoid getting a helmet that you won't wear, you should go into a shop or two and try on every helmet they have. It's the only way to get a good fit.

For more information on helmet selection, please see the [[Helmet|helmet FAQ]].

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<tr>

<th> Normal price</th>

<td>These prices are "about normal" for good, high-quality safety gear that's not extravagant or overpriced. </td>

<td> These prices are "about normal" for good, high-quality safety gear that's not extravagant or overpriced. </td>

</tr>

<tr>

<th> High price</th>

<td> This is for normal production items; you can always pay thousands of dollars for custom manufacture, gold inlay, custom graphics, etc.

<td> This is for normal production items; you can always pay thousands of dollars for custom manufacture, gold inlay, custom graphics, etc. </td>

</td>

</tr>

</table>

~~<p>~~<table border=1 cellpadding=3>

<tr>

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</table>

<br>

I like to tell people that they should budget $1000 for safety gear when they buy a motorcycle. That is, they should have $1000 in their hand that they intend to spend on safety gear. This prevents them from doing something silly like "saving $50" by skimping on a piece of gear that's a lot safer for just $50 more.

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However, the point is obvious. Steve, who spent some good money initially, ended up with little financial liability from his crash. Carl, who didn't want to spend much money on safety gear, ended up spending a good chunk of the next few years paying off his medical bills. An ounce of prevention, in this case, is worth hundreds of pounds of cure.

And, of course, this strictly-numbers analysis doesn't look at what happens to a person who has to endure that kind of pain for 4-5 months. It doesn't examine the mental problems that could develop, or the strain on relationships with other people, or the fact that Carl chose to never ride a bike again ~~as being~~ far too dangerous -- he considers himself lucky (and rightly so) that he didn't die in that accident.

And, of course, this strictly-numbers analysis doesn't look at what happens to a person who has to endure that kind of pain for 4-5 months. It doesn't examine the mental problems that could develop, or the strain on relationships with other people, or the fact that Carl chose to never ride a bike again because it's far too dangerous; he considers himself lucky (and rightly so) that he didn't die in that accident.

==Conclusion==

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This work ~~is Copyright~~ © 2004 by Ian Johnston. Permission is explicitly granted for non-commercial reproduction with credit. Commercial use is not allowed without explicit written permission from the author.

'''About IanJ:''' I'm just a regular guy who happens to have some opinions on motorcycling and what kind of gear he thinks is safe. I encourage you to read this article with a critical eye, because I'm probably wrong. I am not paid any money by anyone to write this stuff; I do it because I hope it'll help other riders to be safer. Please engage your brain before taking any free advice you found on some guy's website.

@@ Line 6: / Line 6: @@
 A very common question among new motoryclists is, "What kind of riding gear should I get?" It's a really good question, and it shows that you're on the right track. Unfortunately, it's also hard to answer well, because everyone will have a different set of requirements for their gear.
-A simple fact of life, faced by every motorcyclist (whether they acknowledge it consciously or not) is that motorcycles are unsafe. Being on two wheels, they're much less stable (able to resist tipping over) than cars. There's no safety cage around a motorcyclist protecting them from the outside world.
+A simple fact of life, faced by every motorcyclist (whether they acknowledge it consciously or not) is that motorcycles are unsafe. Being on two wheels, bikes are much less stable (able to resist tipping over) than cars. There's no safety cage around a motorcyclist protecting them from the outside world.
 This is perhaps the most important lesson about motorcycles (and cars): It is impossible to reduce your risk of collision to zero. You can make that risk very small, but it will always exist. That is why we wear riding gear: it protects us in that instant where circumstances coincide to separate bike from rider. When someone makes a mistake, the safety gear being worn can mean the difference between waking up sore the next morning and waking up in the hospital, or not at all. Note that it doesn't matter whose mistake we're talking about: the rider's, the SUV driver's, or the deer's. Any one of them can cause a serious enough problem that the rider is suddenly separated from her bike.
-In a "typical accident" another vehicle does something to cause the motorcyclist to crash, and the motorcyclist then slides along the pavement until they come to a stop. Although there's not a clear breakdown of the kinds of injuries sustained, a lot of damage potential exists for abrasion damage.  This is the scenario from which most safety gear is intended to protect.
+In a "typical accident" another vehicle does something to cause the motorcyclist to crash, and the motorcyclist then slides along the pavement until they come to a stop. Although there's not a clear breakdown of the kinds of injuries sustained, a lot of potential exists for abrasion damage.  This is the scenario from which most safety gear is intended to protect.
 Safety gear is utterly useless unless you wear it, every single time you ride. You can't control when and where a collision happens. The time between the crash starting and you hitting the ground is on the order of tenths of a second, in which time you can't put on any gear you didn't happen to feel like wearing. There's a phrase used by many motorcyclists, ATGATT: All The Gear, All The Time. If you do that, you will have substantially increased your chances of surviving a motorcycle accident unscathed.
@@ Line 109: / Line 109: @@
 <tr>
-<td> Melts in high-heat situations </td>
+<td> Resists melting in high-heat situations </td>
+<td> Y </td>
 <td> N </td>
-<td> Y </td>
 </tr>
@@ Line 136: / Line 136: @@
 With that in mind, take a good hard look at the table of pros and cons above, and mentally cross off the factors that don't matter for you. If you never ride in the rain, then waterproofing is probably unimportant, etc. The choice of leather vs. textile often boils down to "what can you afford?" I urge you to consider that for a given price, a textile jacket will commonly provide better value than a leather jacket, both in day-to-day and crash protection terms.
-As a point of reference on the crash survivability of textile, I once asked Rider's Wearhouse (makers of the Aerostich Roadcrafter textile suit) about crash damage they've had to repair. The guy I was speaking with said they've had numerous suits come back after crashes (some as fast as 70-80 MPH), and not one of them had been damaged badly enough to stop protecting the rider. That says a lot to me about the ability of textile to keep a rider safe. (Yes, of course it may be that they never saw the suits that really failed; surviving an 80 MPH slide down the asphalt is all I can reasonably ask from my safety gear.)
+As a point of reference on the crash survivability of textile, I once asked Rider's Wearhouse (makers of the [[Aerostich Roadcrafter Suit|Aerostich Roadcrafter]] textile suit) about crash damage they've had to repair. The guy I was speaking with said they've had numerous suits come back after crashes (some as fast as 70-80 MPH), and not one of them had been damaged badly enough to stop protecting the rider. That says a lot to me about the ability of textile to keep a rider safe. (Yes, of course it may be that they never saw the suits that really failed; surviving an 80 MPH slide down the asphalt is all I can reasonably ask from my safety gear.)
 ====Conspicuity, or "Being Seen"====
@@ Line 144: / Line 144: @@
 Keep this in mind when you're looking at gear. Black leather may look cool (nay, it does look cool), but it's also hard to see in traffic. Your riding gear should be as bright as you can stand; ideally it'd be high-viz yellow with reflective, flourescent orange stripes all down it. Most people can't take that much day-glo all at once though, so most riding gear has mere splashes of color.
-The more colorful your riding gear (particularly your jacket and helmet, which is what most people will see from the front), the easier you are to see. The easier you are to see, the less likely other drivers will act as if you're not there. I started riding with my high-beam on all the time during the day, and noticed that people seemed to see me better. Woo!
+The more colorful your riding gear (particularly your jacket and helmet, which is what most people will see from the front), the easier you are to see. The easier you are to see, the less likely other drivers will act as if you're not there. I started riding with my high-beam on all the time during the day and noticed that people seemed to see me better. Woo!
 Note that, although red and orange seem really bright in sunlight, they fade out to grey at twilight or in the dark. White is an excellent color, along with flourescents, because they remain bright through twilight.
 ====Notes on Textiles====
-When you're looking at textile jackets, you want to select something with the highest surface of "ballistic" nylon possible. This is the heavy-duty, thick-weaved nylon that usually reinforces elbows, shoulders, hips, and knees on riding gear. If you could find a piece of riding clothing that was all ballistic nylon, you'd be set, but no one makes that. I suspect such a garmet would be too stiff to be really useful, but it's a good goal to strive for.
+When you're looking at textile jackets, you want to select something with the highest surface of "ballistic" nylon possible. This is the heavy-duty, thick-weaved nylon that usually reinforces elbows, shoulders, hips, and knees on riding gear. If you could find a piece of riding clothing that was all ballistic nylon you'd be set, but no one makes that. I suspect such a garment would be too stiff to be really useful, but it's a good goal to strive for.
 [http://www.mcnews.com/mcn/ Motorcycle Consumer News] did an abrasion test on a variety of materials, including ballistic nylon and some other forms of nylon. As expected, the ballistic nylon did really well on abrasion, the "regular" nylon not as well. So, make sure that your textile gear has as much ballistic as possible.
@@ Line 172: / Line 172: @@
 ==Picking a Helmet==
-Helmets come in a variety of shapes, as do heads. In general, each brand will have a different signature shape (although Arai produces helmets with three different shapes). When your head and the helmet have different shapes, you will put it on and immediately feel pressure points and blank spots where the helmet doesn't press at all. Your goal is to go into a shop and try on every helmet they have. It's the only way to get a good fit.
+Helmets come in a variety of shapes, as do heads. In general, each brand will have a different signature shape (although Arai produces helmets with three different shapes). When your head and the helmet have different shapes, you will put it on and immediately feel pressure points, and also blank spots where the helmet doesn't press at all. Both of these things will make the helmet very uncomfortable after riding for just a short while. To avoid getting a helmet that you won't wear, you should go into a shop or two and try on every helmet they have. It's the only way to get a good fit.
 For more information on helmet selection, please see the [[Helmet|helmet FAQ]].
@@ Line 195: / Line 195: @@
 <tr>
 <th> Normal price</th>
-<td>These prices are "about normal" for good, high-quality safety gear that's not extravagant or overpriced. </td>
+<td> These prices are "about normal" for good, high-quality safety gear that's not extravagant or overpriced. </td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
 <th> High price</th>
-<td> This is for normal production items; you can always pay thousands of dollars for custom manufacture, gold inlay, custom graphics, etc.
+<td> This is for normal production items; you can always pay thousands of dollars for custom manufacture, gold inlay, custom graphics, etc. </td>
-</td>
 </tr>
 </table>
-<p><table border=1 cellpadding=3>
+<table border=1 cellpadding=3>
 <tr>
 <th > Item </th>
@@ Line 299: / Line 298: @@
 </table>
+<br>
 I like to tell people that they should budget $1000 for safety gear when they buy a motorcycle. That is, they should have $1000 in their hand that they intend to spend on safety gear. This prevents them from doing something silly like "saving $50" by skimping on a piece of gear that's a lot safer for just $50 more.
@@ Line 377: / Line 376: @@
 However, the point is obvious. Steve, who spent some good money initially, ended up with little financial liability from his crash. Carl, who didn't want to spend much money on safety gear, ended up spending a good chunk of the next few years paying off his medical bills. An ounce of prevention, in this case, is worth hundreds of pounds of cure.
-And, of course, this strictly-numbers analysis doesn't look at what happens to a person who has to endure that kind of pain for 4-5 months. It doesn't examine the mental problems that could develop, or the strain on relationships with other people, or the fact that Carl chose to never ride a bike again as being far too dangerous -- he considers himself lucky (and rightly so) that he didn't die in that accident.
+And, of course, this strictly-numbers analysis doesn't look at what happens to a person who has to endure that kind of pain for 4-5 months. It doesn't examine the mental problems that could develop, or the strain on relationships with other people, or the fact that Carl chose to never ride a bike again because it's far too dangerous; he considers himself lucky (and rightly so) that he didn't die in that accident.
 ==Conclusion==
@@ Line 389: / Line 388: @@
-This work is Copyright © 2004 by Ian Johnston. Permission is explicitly granted for non-commercial reproduction with credit. Commercial use is not allowed without explicit written permission from the author.
+This work © 2004 by Ian Johnston. Permission is explicitly granted for non-commercial reproduction with credit. Commercial use is not allowed without explicit written permission from the author.
 '''About IanJ:''' I'm just a regular guy who happens to have some opinions on motorcycling and what kind of gear he thinks is safe. I encourage you to read this article with a critical eye, because I'm probably wrong. I am not paid any money by anyone to write this stuff; I do it because I hope it'll help other riders to be safer. Please engage your brain before taking any free advice you found on some guy's website.