secondary safety and clothes

Hi guys, new admirer of the xj900f here, before I go gung ho and thinking of full time on 2 wheels again I have a q. I have one mate paralised, another broken ankle and plates, another arm and collar bone, all from biking. I teach safety among other things and for me none of the above would be worth it if it happened to me. However I have figured ways to drastically improve my primary safety (being seen and avoiding the incident in the first place) but in terms of clothes/boots there is a minefield. How do I know which ones have ankle and shin armour that actually works? Where can I get the sole crush resistance factors from? Which actually keep out rain?? etc, same for trousers and jacket. Can I get any in hi-vis? I have read good research indicating hard armour is bad and only a special closed cell high density foam absorbs impact enough. Also that kevlar has very poor abrasion resistance, leather good. Anyone got some links or guides? I'll be touring in rain so 2 piece non leather would be ideal, if it has the protection... Body armour in vest or in jacket where it could twist around in impact? etc. Help! Greg.

 

I would examine the ICON riding apparel line. I personally own the T-Max gloves and am looking to scoop on a leather jacket. They have titanium plates on the impact points and joints. Get the next size larger than their fitting chart specifies for your hand, the break-in was a royal pain. They also sell a reflective vest that is very fashion minded with loads of useful little pockets for tools and such truck. I run a set of riding boots from Brazil but I don't know the name of the manufacturer (they are issue for the motorcycle cops down there so they are not too hard to find). Amoured greeves, oil resistant soles, flame retardant exterior, built-in boot knife sheath, and re-enforced shifter toes. Not bad for $75 USD, they even came in size 45 EU! My pants are a classic pair of the old Bates leathers I picked up at a flea market in central California back in '91. My leather jacket is from the Open Road collection from Wilson Leather. I don't know if they are still making them. Joe Rocket is making some very nice togs these days and you can score some good gear on the end of the year clearances. My buddy Boris scored big with a full set of ballistic jacket and pants at $200 vice the $500 regular price. Keep your eyes open for the clearance sections of the bike shops and on-line.

 

Honestly, if a broken bone or two would make riding not worth it, you may want to rethink riding altogether. No matter how safe you are, there's still a fairly good chance that some moron in a cage is gonna fly out of nowhere and put you in the hospital. You can do alot to improve your odds of avoiding an accident or survivng one if it does happen. You can be safer, but you'llnever be safe. You have to accept the risk as part of the package.
Just my 2 cents.

 

Too true Jason, I've seen far too many drivers take out an innocent rider due to their neglegence. Unfortunately being right in this instance doesn't help one wit. The best you can do is get educated on proper riding techniques and apply them vigorously. Remember, you can prevent most accidents simply by seeing them before you enter the point of no return. You simply have to accept the rest of the possibilities as Jason pointed out.

 

I'm a full gear person... evangelical about it probably.

In a motorcycle accident it isn't the slide that kills you, it's the stopping. In full gear the blunt force of hitting a car is just about the same - and if that's the part that's going to do you in then it makes no difference.

The difference maker - is that if you slide in gear you have a chance of getting up and walking away. I've tested gear over 60mph - slid - got up and pushed my bike home with no real damage to myself. After a 60mph slide in anything other than gear you will be going to the hospital for graphs. You will loose blood and more than likely you'll wish you had of died.

Other accidents types when you hit a guard rail - mean that instead of amputating your leg or arm you break a bone...

I guess what I'm saying is that I wear armour because if I live through an accident i sure as hell don't want to feel like hell. It makes an accident more binary - you live and walk away or you die on the scene.

I also think that proper gear will reduce the likelihood of actually being killed in an accident... but that's a bit of a gray zone and we'd have to start discussing specific accident types.

The thing you have to look at is what types of accidents are you most likely to have. I've had mine as single vehicle or animal induced... ones I've walked away from. I've had some near misses with a motorcycle in my lane but usually my ridding style doesn't put me in many high speed headone scenarious.

Everyone is vunerable to low speed left turn type accidents and in most cases at the speeds you travel in congested traffic you can live through those... maybe not comfortably.

So after saying alot I don't think I've SAID alot. I wear gear because, and some choose not to wear gear because.

Woot.

 

I have been thinking a airbag system would be cool, off at least a little more support.. and in normal murphy's fashion..

http://www.webbikeworld.com/r2/airbag-j ... jacket.htm

guess i should have file for a patent ;p

 

I just started riding again [after a nasty wreck], got a Tourmaster Cordura jacket on Ebay for $30 and I am very impressed. The jacket is well vented, cool enough to wear in summer, has reflective stripes and decent body armor.
There are different levels of motorcycle accidents. Body armor protects you very well from the simple slides and bumps but not very well from multi-vehicle incidents. Without gear you can be very hurt in a stupid 5 mph "oops". I once totalled a car with my bike in a tee shirt and shorts, it was not pretty. The best defence is a good offence, I am currently planning to replace my lighting with LED's and HID.s, I already added reflecting tape and a louder horn. Get a jacket that is light enough that you will actually wear it, my old Hien Gerrick's was in a closet because they were hotter than hell in July.

 

I can relate, phred. I have a nice leather River Road jacket. Nice and thick. And hot. It's sitting in the closet while I ride with a denim jacket. Stupid, I know, but I'll be damned if I'm going to put that super heavy, hot leather jacket on as hot as it is down here. I've got to get serious about my equipment, I know. I'm riding like an 18 year old with a 48 year old body...

 

I agree that there is risk, same driving a car - head on with an artic will no doubt be worse than most bike crashes.

However I can't accept that I 'have' to have a broken bone, I'm looking to avoid it as I don't think it's worth it. In my previous line of work I have unfortionately been in a position where I have broken people's bones and I can guarantee that typing on this board is a lot different to being in the situation. If I came over to a bikers house and said 'I'll let you keep biking, but only if you let me break your arm' and then proceeded to slowly build up the pressure on an elbow untill it gave, I can guarantee said person would be screaming that it wasn't worth it and they would give up biking.

Strange scenario I know, but I'm just sort of putting myself in that position, thinking of my past experiences, and going 'I don't want to go there' but I do like bikes.....

 

I think pretty much like you and I rekon you are a lot less likely to be in a bad way than most thanks to your mindset and clothes!

 

greg123, I have many of the same questions your asking!

I'm turning 50 this year and it's been about 27 years since I've been on a bike, I have concerns about accidents and want to get some sort of riding gear to help my body get thru any possible outcomes. It's not my abilities to ride that bother me, it's the idiots that don't pay attention to bikes on the road, and I'm afraid that there are more of them now than when I last rode.

I came across this link that may be of interest to everyone, and it's from our friends in Australia. Hope it helps.

http://www.roadsafety.mccofnsw.org.au/a/11.html

There's a risk involved with any sport, skiing, skydiving, scubadiving, or motorcycling, to name a few.

 

Hi Nick and welcome back to two wheels! Thanks for the link, I have done a lot of research including reading the whole of the governments strategic review of motorcycling which included quite a bit on safety. Broadly speaking they want more bikes, but mainstream eg not bad boys on monsters with no exhaust and they don't particularly like the speeding.

Re safety I have concluded that all the right gear can make the chances of very serious injury remote, unless you were in one of those unluck crashes. Safe riding, slow in corners, not overtaking by turnings etc reduce out of town crashes a great deal, indeed defensive riding gets rid of most of them. Then add in being seen, something up to 90% of car drivers quote as the reason they drove into you, by painting your whole bike and self dayglo orange, and I rekon I can get my risk reduced by 90%. Wearing of a while helmet alone lowers my stats of being involved in a mishap by a massive 22%. A big bike or a big fairing increase the chance of being seen too. All told, I worked out that from a worse case of 25 times more likely to be involved in a crash/injured I can reduce it to a max of 2.5 times more likely (compared to a car driver) and depending on the report/way you work it, could actually be lower or equal to a car. Ditching a sports bike and fast a road riding gets rid of most of the deaths.

I was raading about a guy who never tried to get his knee down as he felt from his experience that going balls out round a corner knee down on the road was merely a precursor to coming off the bike and having never got my knee down, and never come off, I think I can see his point. Knee down round a corner, exiting it at 60 straight into a tractor blocking the road/patch of diesel/patch of sheep excrement/overtaking car driver etc must be a guaranteed way to be unable to avoid the crash.

Anyhow I'm eventually going to make a 'safe' bike, probably with a suspension setup like this only with a roof/crash bars/strapped in seats:

http://www.mp3.piaggio.com/index_eng.html

It solves the problem of not being able to put protective bodywork round the rider as they then can't get their feet down when they stop. It also solves the problem of hitting something on a bend and then losing the front/back end, it's setup enables it to slide/slip/grip just like a car on the edge, even when banked over and obviously has a lot greater grip on the front end, can be drifted and powered etc even banked over on gravel.

The main reason I'm calling it a bike (even my mythical version with the roof etc) is that as I see it the advantages of a bike are leaning into corners and narrow, this is just as narrow and leans/rides just like a standard bike but has potential to be developed into a BMW C1 beater, who's roof/front/rear protection and seat was great, but legs were awfully exposed as no sides!

Greg

 

What a thread, definitely distracted me from why I actually clicked it...

I came here to look for tried and true suggestions for a lightweight reflective vest that won't flap around at speed. (ex: http://www.majorsafety.com/moreinfo.cfm?Product_ID=813 )

Found this in the process, might be interesting to some:
A gyroscopically stabilized and enclosed motorcycle type thing, http://www.cobbsblog.com/gyro/gyro-x-menu.html