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Riding Gear Investment

3K views 29 replies 25 participants last post by  maxthrust 
#1 ·
It's 97 degrees and your riding down the block for a bottle of milk.
How often do you wear your $1,000 worth of riding gear for short rides?
 
#4 ·
Every time!! I know the value of being dressed for the unexpected..... if I don't want to dress - the bike stays parked. Just my .$.02. B.
 
#5 ·
Me I would walk, and if it was raining take the car.

To answer your question, almost every time. Its called ATGATT All The Gear All Time Time. I say almost as I have not been 100% perfect at this. My less than perfect is still with a jacket, helmet and gloves. I personally do not consider jeans or Levi's gear. No armor and not the best abrasion resistance. I wear riding pants. If it was 97 I would probably have shorts on. And I would just leave the shorts on underneath. I would be too lazy to change or get on LDConfort gear. I would grab the mesh jacket. Going that short a distance I am not worried about getting too hot and dehydrated in it. Normally I would wear some riding socks with my boots. For this I would kick of the tennies and slip on the boots and live with the wrong socks. Boots would fit a little loose. But just for milk it would be fine. But me I actually would take the 2min to slip on the gear and 2min to take off the gear when I got home. Yeah its an extra 5min overall but a decent percentage of accidents happen with a few miles of your home. So.....

Helmet, Gloves, Jackets, Riding Pants and Boots.
 
#6 ·
As others have said, I wouldn't be riding a block, I'd walk. I use my motorcycles as recreation, commuting etc. And, when I do, I'm pretty much geared up all the time. I always wear a helmet, gloves, boots, at least jeans. In temperatures above about 40C I may chose to wear only a T-Shirt on top.
 
#7 ·
I would never run my wing for just a block . Besides I have too much road rash on my body already to not wear gear.
 
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#9 ·
I know I should, but I don't always. I do wear long pants and boots along with a shirt and gloves and At times half helmet.

I've tried wearing full gear but I get to hot and miserable. I do ride with two others and they dress about the same. We don't hot dog it we just cruise the back roads.

I do wish they had outfits that cooled like they do heated.
 
#12 ·
I do wish they had outfits that cooled like they do heated.
They do. Refrigerated rear is a reality. You just have to invest in it - much like heated gear.

Me, I ALWAYS wear my full-face helmet, jacket and gloves. I commute with dress shoes and slacks year round, and in the winter, I put some thermal overpants on to keep my kneecaps from freezing off. If I am doing a casual ride, I always wear jeans and boots. Distance is never a factor in whether or not I wear the gear. As others have said, I'd probably take the car for a quick trip to the store on a hot day anyway. If it takes longer to gear up than to drive to my destination, it's not worth it.
 
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#10 ·
Putting on real gear and sweating for 10 minutes is 10000000x better than heaven forbid getting into a head on or T bone and having to pay for skin graphs and a potentially life altering event. Granted we all know the risks involved but why continue to borrow trouble. All gear all the time or take the cage.
 
#14 · (Edited)
There is a thing called the Abbreviated Injury Scale. When you hear the news say someone was is critical condition or serious conditions, etc there is a scale for that.

1. Minor
2. Moderate
3. Serious
4. Severe
5. Critical
6. Untreatable ( you just have not died yet )

The there is the injury severity score. To calculate an ISS, take the highest AIS severity code in each of the three most severely injured ISS body regions, square each AIS code and add the three squared numbers for an ISS.

Why is this of interest? Because your ability to survive an accident is not just how bad your injuries are, but also how many of them you have. And the older you get the lower the threshold becomes for survivability.

So. Lets say your not wearing gear and some bad thing happens and you have 3 Severe injuries. That is (4x4) + (4x4) + (4x4) = 48 for your IIS score. But if you were wearing gear those would have only been Serious injuries. Now its (3x3) + (3x3) + (3x3) = 27. That's a big difference in your chance of survivability. Of course this is my contrived example. And we can do these all day where we prove and disprove the effectiveness.

Its about risk management. We take more risks riding motorcycles than we do in a cage. So we need to take more precautions that we do in a cage. We are each going to draw our own line in the sand as to what level of precautions are acceptable levels of risk management. For me, that's all the gear all the time. For my wife its pretty much the same as I don't let her on the back of bike without it. But for you all, you get to choose for yourself.
 
#15 ·
I don't own any armored gear other than a couple of helmets that I seldom wear. I do have a pair of batting gloves that I wear occasionally. If I had to gear up everytime, I would not ride...too hot!
 
#16 ·
I'm sooo guilty of this also, but for the most part, do wear my full face helmet, gloves, and sometimes
high shoes that cover my ankles.


Two things in my life that elevates my senses more is:
#1....... riding my Goldwing.
#2.......Owning 4 boats through the years for fishing, joy riding, and pulling a occasional skier.
Why? Because both my wife and I didn't know how to swim....... :22yikes:
 
#17 ·
I'm highly contradictory.

On anything more than about 5 miles, I'm in full gear. (Regardless of temperature)

On short trips to the grocery store or friends house. I may wear shorts flip flops and sunglasses.

Guess I am just not willing to put on gear for 5 minutes to ride for 3. And yes...I know you can crash in those 3 minutes but I'm typically not going that fast and riding very cautiously so I'm willing to take the risk.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G935A using Tapatalk
 
#18 ·
Doesn't take long to put on helmet, gloves and coat. On short trips full face helmet, coat, gloves and boots. If raining I add riding pants or a one piece suit over my jeans. Only one mile to local grocery store or post office but usually 20 to 60 miles back home. My 2 motorcycles are my only forms of transportation, I ride almost daily regardless of weather (except snow/ice) .
 
#19 ·
My gear is what I am wearing at the time plus the little highway patrolman's helmet. I won't go if I am planning to wreck ;-)


I could ride a bicycle, but don't have one and it is so hard to ride my unicycle with a case of beer under my arm..........




Rooster
 
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#20 ·
Choices

Aren't choices great? In my college days, I rode from Kansas to California with a leather Harley jacket, helmet, gloves and boots. However, much of the time I did not wear the jacket as it was very hot. I would never repeat that trip again without riding pants and the jacket would stay on all the time. My choices have changed as I have gotten older.

The guys that drive me nuts are the ones on their sport bikes with full leathers and helmet with their girl friends on the back wearing shorts, t-shirt and flip-flops.
 
#29 ·
The guys that drive me nuts are the ones on their sport bikes with full leathers and helmet with their girl friends on the back wearing shorts, t-shirt and flip-flops.
It depends on their girlfreind and her choice of how tight her clothes are >:)
 
#21 ·
I remember during the 90's when I took my week long riders safety class one of the things that was stressed was comfort. Comfort is safety. If for for any reason your not comfortable.... hot, cold, you have to pee, your helmet is tight, you feel claustrophobic in a full face, etc., you are distracted. Riding while being distracted is dangerous. There's all kinds of distractions while riding. Not being comfortable is one of them.

Your riding gear needs to be comfortable. That's different for everyone.

Maybe things have changed since then. I don't know.
 
#23 ·
I remember during the 90's when I took my week long riders safety class one of the things that was stressed was comfort. Comfort is safety. If for for any reason your not comfortable.... hot, cold, you have to pee, your helmet is tight, you feel claustrophobic in a full face, etc., you are distracted. Riding while being distracted is dangerous. There's all kinds of distractions while riding. Not being comfortable is one of them.

Your riding gear needs to be comfortable. That's different for everyone.

.

Great Point.
Also the time of day (night, daytime sun in your eyes) and weather (rain, heat, wind) is also a discomfort for some.
 
#25 ·
I bought my first riding jacket at WingDing last fall. So far, I have ridden in some pretty warm weather. We shall see in the next couple of months how much I wear it. I have also purchase an Aerostich riding suit. I have worn it several times, and am trying to get use to it. Again, we shall see how summer goes. I always wear a helmet (3/4) and leather gloves. On trips, or riding days, I wear boots. When riding to work, I wear shoes for the 4 mile trip. I don't want to wear the boots all day, and I also don't want to keep spare shoes at the shop and change twice. Yeah, I know the pros and cons, and am prepared to suffer the consequences of my actions if I guess wrong.
 
#26 ·
Every time I get on the bike I am wearing full kevlar jacket, pants & gloves along with a helmet. It is actually cooler wearing the kevlar than it is in jeans and a t-shirt in the sun. Murphy seems to ride along with me no matter what I'm doing so the one time I didn't wear it would be the time I needed it. I have already had one slide on asphalt wearing kevlar in which I was pretty much unscathed, don't want to look like the typical motorcyclist missing lots of skin if it ever happens again
 
#27 ·
I always wear a motorcycle jacket and helmet at a minimum. I never ride in shorts and flip flops. The most dangerous rides are on the most familiar roads where we assume things and then the unexpected happens.
 
#30 ·
ATGATT!! My wife and I are sometimes at odds over this, but she's getting used to it by now.
It is 107° here today and I'm wearing gloves, full-face helmet, boots, and an armored jacket. (I even ride with the front of my helmet down unless at an intersection for a long period of time.) The one concession to comfort is that I wear Levi's when riding. I always have, even when on a dirt bike. I know they are little protection, but I just haven't been able to do the motorcycle pants thing, yet. I've been thinking about it though.
 
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