Protective Motorcycle Clothing

Sometimes I'm driving along in my car in hot weather and I get overtaken by a guy, sometimes a guy and his girlfriend (funny, it's never a single woman) on a motorcycle dressed in jeans and tees, sometimes even shorts and tees. It's not only in town that this happens either, in the past I've been overtaken at speed by
some-one who, in terms of organic mass versus tarmac is effectively naked.

Statistics would suggest that motorcyclists have more fatal accidents than any other group of road users and that's hardly surprising if you're conducting an experiment in how to convert your bike into a petrol driven cheese-grater motor. Wearing the right leather motorcycle jacket always has been and always will be cool, look at the evidence: Marlon Brando in The Wild One; cool, Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper in Easy Rider; cool, Arnie in Terminator; cool. Even Marianne Faithful in Girl on a Motorcycle looks cool in 60's skin tight leather. You however, lying under a wreck after skiddingdown 50 yards of gravel without a leather jacket; just about as far away from cool as it's possible to get.

Even when the weather's hot, riding in too little clothing is freezing, any loose chippings that get thrown up which hit you will sting like bullets. Motorbike clothing does exactly what everyday clothes do, only more so. They exist to protect you from your environment and these days the right accessories are more and more likely to save your life as bikes get more powerful. Wearing a pair of gloves might not prevent you from breaking your hand if you go rubber side up but at least you'll stand a better chance of keeping your fingers than if you went without.

It was as late as 1973 that all motorcycle users were required to wear a helmet and since then the percentage of fatalities due to head trauma has fallen, as a percentage of motorcycle users. Legally you can use a Skid Lid since it meets the minimum legal requirements. It doesn't however offer much in the way of crash protection. If you're serious about your bike and want to live long enough to enjoy it for any period of time then a motorcycle or motorcross helmet with full visor and state of the art shell should mean that even if you do come a cropper then both you and hopefully your bike, should be fixable.