Reminder we can all learn from others

[AZJW]

Seeing a number of new riders signing on here, I wanted to relate my experiences in gear choices. General statement,  more gear = more protection.  Not an absolute,  but you get the idea.

 

Regardless of street vs dirt, wearing protective gear is always a good idea for the unexpected.  In my 60 years of riding ( about 50/50 dirt/ street) I've almost always worn protective gear. Helmets were/ are the one thing I never ride without,  but there have been times when I wished I had been wearing more gear. At 21 yo, I hit a black dog at night out in the dark countryside at 55 mph on a light Honda XL250. I went over the bars wearing a Shoei Full face helmet, no gloves, t-shirt, jeans & tennis shoes. I won't go into all the road rash that took months to heal ( tender skin & scars remain today) , but a broken clavicle & scapula along with a lengthy emergency surgery to clean all the chip seal gravel out of my left side convinced me that more gear was needed.

 

Ever since then I've been wearing decent gear and made the investment in a Aerostitch Roadcrafter for my street riding almost 20 years ago and still wear it for slab or cold days on fire roads.

My dirt riding gear has been with dedicated ( stiff) dirt boots,  knee guards, padded shorts,  hip protection, chest/ elbow guards and always a full face helmet with gloves. We all get complacent and I was still using old gear that was well past it's useful life and probably would self destruct if subjected to forces beyond zipping it up.

 

The learning from others part for me was trying on my son's new Leatt 5.5 body protector.  After wearing it and realizing how inferior my 15 yo 661 pressure suit was, I went ahead and upgraded to one to complement my Leatt knee guards I've been using for awhile.  I haven't ridden dirt for a few months due to snow ( I hate cold) and wore it this past Wednesday for an " easy" ride with a buddy to knock off the cobwebs.  All was fine for about the first hour until I took a blind curve at about 20, the front end washed out and I went down hard on my right side.

I've been body slammed like that before, but I was 40 years younger and this event was one of those where you're vertical one second and flat on the ground a half second later.  I was on my dirt bike, but have ridden this same section on my T7 before ( with more trepidation) as she's a big girl and I felt much more confident on my 250lb Beta.

 

The only real visible injury was a nickel sized piece of meat torn out of my upper arm about an 1" away from the elbow protector.  My entire right side hit with head, elbow, shoulder, hip and knee getting the full force of the impact.  I'm ok, but pretty sore and thankfully my temperamental back appears to have come through it ok. 

 

My new Leatt gear literally saved me as I hit hard on my elbow and shoulder that tore open my jersey and put some scratches in the guards along with my helmet.  The Beta is much tougher than I, picked her up, she fired right back up and got me home to complete the field first aid we did.  Did I mention that I ride with a retired Fire Captain and we both carry extensive med kits? I told him when he found out why I wasn't behind him that the bad news was I dumped my bike, but the good news is I got it on video!

 

  When I was a Rider Coach, to answer my students questions about how much gear they should wear, I told them, go out on the hottest day you'll ride, lay down on the pavement and set a timer for the average response time for your local Ambulance service. If you don't have 2nd/3rd degree burns when the timer ends, then it's probably ok.

 

Anyway the point to all this is not to promote Leatt gear or preach about AGATT ( good idea though) , but rather to prompt others to look where/ how they ride and take a good look at their gear.  We ride a difficult bike in the T7 to dress for as we need abrasion resistance for pavement,  but also good protection & ventilation for off road.  Remembering the pain I went through to heal all that road rash, I'll take sweating in too much gear vs too little.  YMMV.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Hollybrook]

I keep looking at the Alpinestars Tech-Air Off-Road airbag...

 

BTW, you should not have mentioned the video without posting it!  

 

That sounds like a pretty hard hit, glad you are mostly OK.  Its been a year since I did about the same and it took me a while to recover from the concussion.  At least it gave me a reason to upgrade to a better helmet.

[AZJW]

21 hours ago, Hollybrook said:

I keep looking at the Alpinestars Tech-Air Off-Road airbag...

 

BTW, you should not have mentioned the video without posting it!  

 

That sounds like a pretty hard hit, glad you are mostly OK.  Its been a year since I did about the same and it took me a while to recover from the concussion.  At least it gave me a reason to upgrade to a better helmet.

Working off my phone didn't help. Pics & link added as was originally intended as I don't mind people seeing me falling down. As some say " if you're not falling down, you're not having fun".  If that's true, I'm having a blast!

 

I remember your get off. My noggin didn't hit very hard, but sure scratched up my lid,  guess I'll be shopping a new one as well.

[DT675]

On 4/12/2024 at 12:26 PM, AZJW said:

Working off my phone didn't help. Pics & link added as was originally intended as I don't mind people seeing me falling down. As some say " if you're not falling down, you're not having fun".  If that's true, I'm having a blast!

 

I remember your get off. My noggin didn't hit very hard, but sure scratched up my lid,  guess I'll be shopping a new one as well.

 

Yeah why not? Crashes happen to everyone, it doesn't reflect on skill much at all.  So why not show it? It helps everyone learn.  I think some people get embarrassed thinking it means they are not a good rider or something.  Me and my buddy enjoy showing each other all our get-offs from previous years, all winter long.  I had a track crash in 2019 where a buddy was right behind me just a couple bike lengths, and had a bike cam, but it wasn't set up on his bike yet!  I so badly wish we had that on video as I'm told my feet went above my head. 

 

Thanks for sharing yours.