Gear Spotting

[Howardr]

I have spent the last month or so doing some research on the types and amounts of gear worn by different riders. It is a comparison and contrast of the riders of Street Bikes, Cruisers and Scooterists. I only documented on 71 different bikes, so the sample is small, but I think it is revealing as well.

Please look it over and tell me what you think. I am aware that this is only one man's observations, in one town. I wonder if it holds true in other communities, though.

http://skyislandriders.com/?p=1913

[babblefish]

In the summer, I would only score a 6.5. In warm weather, I tend to ride with just a t-shirt or polo shirt, long pants, leather motorcycle gloves, boots, and a full face helmet. I'm well aware of what would happen in a crash with just a t-shirt on, but after 45 years of riding, eh, I don't care. This is only when I'm riding within city limits where speeds are relatively low. Anything else I'll add an armoured jacket to my ensemble.

[thatvwbusguy]

This is a great social experiment and one that I have actually spent a lot of time thinking about.

I can honestly sat that I tend to vary the gear I wear according to the speeds and conditions I will be riding in.

When riding my old Honda 919 at speeds that were well beyond anything approaching common sense, I always wore a full face helmet, armored jacket, reinforced gloves, over the ankle boots and heavy (usually Carhartt double knee) pants. When it was really hot, I would substitute my Joe Rocket Phoenix mesh armored jacket and pants. I knew that if I ever came off my bike going at highway speed or better due to a blowout or environmental factors like an oily or sandy patch on a curve, this amount of protection would increase my odds of survival.

Around town on my scooters I always wear a 3/4 helmet with shield, gloves, sturdy shoes and usually long pants if I will be going more than a couple minutes from home.

Having spent a majority of my younger years riding dirt bikes, skateboards and mountain bikes, I am aware that it doesn't take much to rip your palms apart when you instinctively put your hands out to break a fall and that you can sustain a life changing brain injury at walking speed if you land on your noggin wrong.

My biggest worry when riding in town at speeds below 40 is not road rash or a banged up knee or elbow if I have to lay the bike down, it is that the car behind me will run me over before I can get out of the way. Unfortunately no amount of gear will protect you from a full size truck driving over you while the driver is jamming on the brakes. For this reason I feel that a helmet and gloves are an absolute must to be reasonably safe at anything above 10MPH, but additional gear only affords a relatively small margin of improved safety in many scenarios.

From a social psychology viewpoint, I think that the gear people choose to wear is often at least partly based on their choice of 2 wheeled transport. The average "biker guy" on an old Harley is less likely to be wearing full gear than the average "adventure rider" on a fully decked out trekking bike.

For a first hand example, my friend Kurt used to be an "all the gear all the time" guy when he rode a BMW Dakar. 5 years later, he rides a Harley Davidson Fat Bob in a black HD tee shirt, black jeans and black boots and sunglasses. Most of his clothes have a HD symbol on them and he no longer owns a helmet aside from the novelty brain bucket that state law requires. Something tells me that changing jobs and relocating to a new area where about 80% of the bikes you see are full size cruisers (Harley, Victory, Indian) had a lot to do with this unfolding.

My friends who ride sport bikes by comparison are often very into the gear they wear and generally match it to the paint job on their bikes. In some circles, the better your gear, the more street cred you have (assuming you have a basic idea how to ride). It's not unheard of for guys with more than one bike to have different sets of gear to match their chosen mount for the day.

In the scooter world, if you were to line up 100 scooterists in the gear they usually ride in, I bet I can pick who rides a Vespa, who rides a Buddy and who rides a Ruckus with a fairly high degree of accuracy. What we choose to ride and what we choose to wear when we ride are often reflections of our personalities. Image isn't everything by any stretch of the imagination, but how we choose to show ourselves to the rest of the world often says a lot about who we are.

As a final thought, I have always believed that it would be incredibly interesting to compare the gear that people who have never been in a riding accident wear to the gear of people who have lived through a bad one. This is where the old saying "There are two types of motorcyclists. The ones who have crashed and the ones who will crash" might really reveal some interesting data.

[k1dude]

I'll admit to taking unreasonable risks when riding my scooter in the summer. I score a 6 during my summer riding and usually an 8.5 or higher during the winter.

When it's over 90 degrees, I can't stand the heat in proper gear. If I were highway riding on a cruiser or sport bike, then yes, I'd be decked out in full gear and the high continuous speeds would help tremendously with cooling. But around town at lower speeds and stopped in heavy traffic at lights, it just gets too damn hot. Riding in 95 to 115 degree heat with full gear is just as likely to kill or injure you due to heat stroke as any danger of a wipeout.

I find it strange it's considered safe and good to do 40 on a mountain or road bike with a tiny aerated half helmet and thin synthetic half finger gloves, yet it's not fine to do the same on a scooter at 40.

I submit to you it's more dangerous on a road or mountain bike than a scooter. When mountain biking you have boulders and trees in the way. On a road bike you're going much slower than the flow of traffic. So in addition to the chance of going down on your own, you also have the increased chance of being hit by a car since you aren't keeping up with traffic.

Since I'm also a mountain and road biker, I accept the risks of riding my scooter with very little gear. I have much more protection than when I'm on my bicycles doing the same speed. Of all the riding I do, I've always felt my road bicycling is the most dangerous of all.