Posted by George on September 12, 1999 at 17:53:13:
In Reply to: Clothing posted by Craig Solem on September 11, 1999 at 20:30:08:
Fashion is nice, but having one's skin beats it, er, hands down.
Living in Maryland (USA), I have no choice about wearing a helmet, but I'd wear one regardless of legal requirement: I like my brain. I chose a white helmet for better visibility. For eye protection, I use large "impact-proof" sunglasses in the daytime and clear plastic industrial safety glasses at night: I like my eyes, too, and I don't want anything slamming into them at high speed. Whenever the weather isn't too hot (I don't want to dehydrate and faint while riding), I wear the leather motorcycle jacket I bought in 1966 to go with my Yamaha YDS3. (By the way, if a jacket's leather isn't heavy enough -- 3 mils? -- it won't protect you much in a spill.) when I can, I also wear leather chaps and leather gloves with Kevlar-reinforced palms and backs. (On one of the mc safety pages on the Web, there's a story of an accident in which a person lost a lot of blood through the palms: we tend to put our hands out when we fall. There are also pages, by the way, that offer comparisons between leather and things like denim for pants and jackets -- denim being reelatively useless for protection.) I'd wear boots if I could afford boots big enough for my wide feet; as it is, I wear heavy, synthetic walking shoes -- the soles are designed to grip -- and I try to remember to tuck the laces into the shoes before riding.
As an alternative to leather, there are riding clothes made of lighter synthetic materials, often reinforced with Kevlar (the stuff our Savages' drive belts are made of) at critical points. And they come in bright colors, much more visible than dark leather.
Be safe out there, friends.