Inadvertent Safety Gear Test

[joemfbrown]

Hi. Having just crashed at 70mph and coming out of it with little more than a couple nasty bruises and scrapes, I thought some people might want to know what I was wearing and how it held up.

Helmet: KBC(loud as hell, but Snell-approved): cracked nearly in half and my head is absolutely fine.
Jacket: Joe Rocket Ballstic with soft armor: mnor scrapes, but totally resuable.
Under-jacket: Dainese Neck System jacket Wave-V: I'm convinved this kept me from breaking my neck.
Boots: Daytona Voyager GTX: saved my toes
Pants: Levis (these did not hold up very well and cost me quite a bit of skin)
Leg protectors: Valve covers: expensive protection, to be sure, but it works!

[SCJJR65]

Wow, Joe, sounds like you were lucky as hell!  Glad to know your helmet and gear did their respective jobs protecting your noggin and other body parts.  Sorry to hear about your legs.  Truth be told, I don't wear my Joe Rocket Ballistic pants nearly as often as I should, which would include going back and forth to school five days a week!

Maybe this will be MY wake-up call to "go all the way" and wear ALL of my gear when I ride, instead of just what's convenient or comfortable!


Ride safe!  (Yeah, like I need to tell you that!)  

[Bob_Roller]

I think riders in general, think that jeans are good protection against asphalt or concrete, well they are gone in a fraction of a second, I finally realized this a few years ago when a co-worker went down, and lost alot of skin in the process,he needed to get skin grafts to repair the areas lost. So I got a pair of IKON jeans and a pair of Draggin' jeans. I don't ride without one of these on anymore.

[Rob Valdez 79 R65]

This is just for my own reference as much as anyone elses'


Icon Jeans

Draggin Jeans

[Jon_P]

i always hate hearing a guy going down. glad to hear your not totally banged up. even better to hear your not giving up the sport/hobby/life of riding. i hear alot of that lately when guys dump their bikes.

i saw a test where they took and made a scarecrow guys then had them slid out the back of a pick up going 65 mph. they had a bunch of guys made up. the one's that took the worse damage was any of those that where wearing denim. as soon as it hit the pavement they where gone. this was a little over twelve years ago and the balistic jackets where still in the begins they held up but not recommened to use again. leather was said was the way to go. i go to the AMA superbike races every year at a local track and all those guys have to wear leather. so that must say something about leather.

i wear atleast some kind of riding jacket though i fall short on the pants, i have my mothers hips! i cant find a pair of pants that fit me nice. i will look into those draggin jeans.

[thrang]

Wow Joe, Having had a coupe of 70mph prangs, you were bloody lucky. As far as safty gear goes Í´m a great beliver in armoured leathers. They have saved me before even if they did get bloody hot when riding round the med in the mid 90´s.
tony

[Justin B.]

Joe, glad you got through this with the majority of your hide still attached and it's good to hear first-hand that the balistic nylon works as advertised.  Once it gets in the 80s my leather (extremely heavy, bet the jacket weighs 10-15 pounds) gets uncomfortable, 90s it becomes beastly, and over 100, well, forget about it!  Every thing is uncomfortable once in the 100s...

[joemfbrown]

Even my ballistic gets hot when the mercury spikes. One such day inspired me to buy one of those new Frank Thomas armored mesh jackets. Haven't had the *opportunity* to test it yet, but it has padding  in all the right places, and is super comfy.

[Flora_Max]

You can never trust fate.  People laugh at me. every morning put on amoured pants and jacket, get to work, change into casuals and repeat in the afternoon.  Takes time but hey I like to sit on my ass.  Good to see you come up on top Joem.

[Melena]

Joe, Glad to hear you are basically okay after all that.  Glad to hear that the  gear worked well.  But I am so sorry for your poor legs.  My partner went down at high speed once and had gravel embedded in his legs because he was just wearing denim jeans.  

I wear riding pants with armor on every ride, no matter what.  I know from experience just how unprotective denim is.  

When I was a young thing in High School, there was a group of us girls wandering around a university town supposedly looking for one of the girl's cousin.     At the point where there was a bunch of "boys" watching us I tripped and fell flat, right on my knee.  My jeans shredded across the knee just from that slight fall and I felt like the biggest clutz around.     We all disappeared from there very fast and went back to where we were staying where I took care of my poor scraped knee.  

All that to say that I've remembered that ever since, and when I started riding I knew I wasn't going to depend on denim jeans to protect me from even a dropped bike at a stop.  

[Rob Valdez 79 R65]

God loves clutz' too...

[suecanada]

Thanks for the heads up reminder to wear all the gear no matter what. I wear all the stuff and right now it's the leather pants with the Bohn Armour underneath and the heavy Alpinestar 3/4 length armoured jacket. When it gets hot I will switch to the Cortech air pants but I never feel quite as protected. I worry some about my summer mesh shorty jacket not being attached to the pants. Melena..how would you go about making sure our Power Trip jacket was attached to our pants given that the tail of the jacket is thick foam. How does one sew on a zipper there??

[thrang]

I´m on my jolly holidays in the canary islands just now and I keep cringing every time I see people wizzing about in shorts flip flops and tee shirts. I can uderstand why they do its as its F hot but I stiull think I´d rather have my own skin. The odd thing is seeing `pold on 125´s well odd
Tony

[Semper Gumby]

+1 on the Draggon Jeans.  I have two pair so I am never without!