Ever seen a picture of a man with no ass?
I have.
He crashed in chaps and had to have all the skin regrafted from his thighs onto his butt. He lost a fair chunk of the muscle under the skin as well. It really was not what I’d call as “safe for work” photo.
Not a scratch on his legs, but nothing but burned and ripped flesh where the chaps ended.
(Remeber chaps come from the horse riding world, where they protect against cuts and scraps as the riders brushes past branches, really not a similar thing to sliding down the road)
Interesting side note: “road rash” is not a scrap or rip in the traditional sense, it is actually a friction burn (think rug burn, only the speed and force is orders of magnitude higher than anything you can do at home, and the “rug” is rough asphalt specifically created to adhere to tires). That makes treating road rash all the more difficult since it requires of mixture of blunt-force trauma and burn ward expertise.
Okay, my useless trivia moment is over.
Obviously protection is a purely personal choice, but chaps don’t provide anywhere near as much protection as they appear to.
My textile overpants have a built in belt and fly, so recycling the soda isn’t really much of an issue, but I’ll admit they are more bulky and less comfortable than a nice pair of a normal pants.
Staying away from textile overpants, there is a lot to be said for armoured jeans or proper leather riding pants (CE protection doesn’t require racing leathers).
The jeans might not provide a ton of protection, but if they’re made of ballistic material and have the knee and hip inserts, they’ll do you much better than chaps.
Proper CE rated leather is well, CE rated leather. It doesn’t have to be racing leathers to save your bacon.
How much is a pound of (your) flesh worth? Just something to consider.