[SafetyFirst]

Here’s the 411 on me now. I have a Shift Backdraft mesh jacket. It’s pretty decent in the heat, and at night when I put the liner in it.

I have Scorpion textile pants. They are hotter than hell in the day, and great by night.

I have Icon Field Armor boots. They are clunky, but actually have some ankle protection and thick layers between your foot and the concrete if you go droppin’.

I saw some picks on Ride2Die.com that really tore up my trust in a mesh jacket, or anything textile for that matter. I’m starting to think, the best way to go is a full-body racing suit. When I think about it, for what I sunk in my jacket and pants, I could have bought about 1/2 into what a discounted suit goes for.

[briderdt]

Full racing suit is the best way to go if full protection in a slide out is your goal. But as for being the best riding gear… Well, “best” can have many interpretations. and ride2die is all about trying to tell people motorcycles are death machines and if you throw a leg over one, you WILL die. Whatever.

Remember, safety is what you do BEFORE the unscheduled get-off. After that it’s all about damage control.

I wear a mesh jacket as well (and just a couple days ago it was actually cooler NOT moving — strange), leather goves, canvas pants (Rigg’s Wear Ranger pants — cordura, double layer front, cargo pockets) with Fox knee/shin armor under them, and short riding boots. Yes, I have an armored cordura jacket, armored overpants and full racing boots for when the weather turns cooler.

It’s choices. You have to choose what you feel comfortable wearing. For some, that’s a tank top, shorts and flip-flops in the summer. For me… see above.

[JackTrade]

To be sure, motorcycles are very dangerous. Just getting on a bike, you assume a certain amount of risk. Not riding a motorcycle is always safer than riding one.

But that also applies to most worthwhile activities in life.

Is a leather suit the best possible protection? No doubt about it. But it’ll never protect you as much as not riding. So if you’re going to ride, you’re already in a certain sense compromising your safety. A.J. Liebling wrote that you don’t learn to box in order to avoid getting hit, just as you don’t go swimming in order to avoid drowning. Same thing with motorcycling. For all of us here, the reward outweighs the risk.

Consider that none of us likely rides with any real neck protection. That’s a pretty big risk we all assume from the get-go. But yet we still ride.

I personally think the thing is to consider the odds of when you’ll encounter different types of crashes. Crashes at high speed are exceedingly dangerous, yet statistically rare. This is the issue behind the Hurt Report controversy.

In the summer I wear a Fieldsheer High Flow armored mesh jacket, with connecting Fieldsheer Titanium mesh armored pants, with jeans underneath. Perfect protection, nope. But for me, a good balance of safety, comfort (being uncomfortable on a bike absolutely affects your riding, which is another safety factor as Briderdt mentions) and usability (i.e. you can’t wear normal clothes under a leather suit, so you have to wear it off the bike too).

[eon]

Also keep in mind not all mesh jackets offer the same level of protection. I was all set to buy the Rev’IT Air when I discovered the Rev’IT Turbine. Similar product from the same company but one is made from stronger materials and is almost twice the price of the other. I read of one guy who slid at 70mph (he reckons) in his Air jacket. The jacket came apart at the very end and he suffered minor road rash. He seemed quite happy with that but it concerned me enough that I spent the money on the Turbine.

[eternal05]

As somebody who ends up in a leather suit fairly regularly, let me tell you a few things about suits:

1) Even in cooler weather, they are hot as all F@#$. In warm weather, you’ll be drenched in sweat before you even leave an air conditioned building, and you’ll be ready to die once the sun attacks from the sky and your toasty bike from the below.

2) Suits are very hard to get into and out of because they are made to be extraordinarily tight. Granted, I also have some additional gear that slows me down (chest/back protectors), but it usually takes minutes to get into my suit. It’s gotten better since it broke in, but it’s still a bitch.

3) Once you’re in, it may restrict your motion even once broken in depending on your body type vs. the build of the suit. I, for instance, am tall and relatively thin. To fit my waist size, I end up in a suit where I can’t really stand up. It’s comfortable in riding position (all that matters), but impossible to walk around in. If I anticipate having to move around off the bike (e.g. in between track sessions), I inevitably unzip the suit and pull the shoulders off so I can stand up and cool off.

4) Nothing is less practical for everyday use. It’s hard to carry a wallet, cell phone, documentation, take a piss let alone the other kind, etc.

So why do I have a suit then? Two reasons: dedicated rides and track days. For track days it’s required, and for a long three hour ride at a brisk pace through outskirt roads it just makes sense. You’re on the bike the whole time and the feeling of greater protection (especially lower body) relaxes me, yielding better (and safer) riding.

If you’re worried about synthetics, get a leather jacket. If you can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen

[Rob]

eternal05 nailed it just about right, full suits are in general very impractical and uncomfortable for general street riding. Mine is reserved for track use only. On the street I find a nice two-piece suit works well. I still feel like I have lots to wear through before I get road rash, but when we stop for food, break etc. I can take my jacket off and relax a bit.

[eon]

What’s the feeling from the more experience folks here on jackets NOT being zipped to the pants? I never worried about this with my winter 3/4 length jacket but with my summer one its been preying on my mind. The jacket is short and I’m pretty sure it would ride up easily in a slide. Pisses me off that the zips between jackets and pants are not standardized. I’ve been thinking about getting new pants to match the jacket but they are kind of expensive. I like my current pants but they only had a size small when I bought them and I’ve had a few too many cookies since then that they getting a bit tight round the waist. I guess I could find someone to attach the zip attachment to the pants but buying new gear is more fun

[eternal05]

I’d feel much better if, like you say, there wasn’t the lingering worry that my summer mesh jacket would ride up in a crash. It’s on the longer side, which is good, but it’s a much more pliable and easily-deformed material than my leather jacket, for instance.

Honestly, I’m just not really willing to sacrifice choice of gear to make sure that pants and jacket have matching zips. It really is a stupid thing, but I’m not surprised at all that standardization hasn’t happened. In the end, I’m not going to buy Shift pants to match my jacket, though I might buy a Dainese jacket someday to match my Air Drake pants.

As with leather work, I don’t know of any tailors or custom garment manufacturers that know how to deal with the usually absent issue of durability in a crash. Even if I could find somebody to make a matching zip system, I’m not sure I could trust it in the event that I go down.

Ultimately, I solve this problem via back protector. Mine straps firmly around the waist and shoulders and will not go anywhere if I go down, even if my jacket does ride up.

[Munch]

apparently my core is shorter then most… I actually have to inward roll my jackets near my waist to keep them from bunching up at my chest and making it look like I have a second spine. None of my gear zips up to each other. However I have come to realize my risk meter is a tad more relaxed then most on here… so I might not be the best to judge from.

[ixion00x]

I ride with a fairly uncommon setup. It works for me up here in Boston, but may not do so well in the hotter climes. I use a full body Cordura body suit from Aerostich. It’s designed to fit loosely, so you can wear it over street clothes with no problem. Its well ventilated, water-proof and has a ton of storage pockets.

Don’t lose faith in textile! I can speak for the safety factor. The suit held up completely through my accident. I landed on my shoulder, and the armor prevented me from dislocating it or breaking my collarbone. The Cordura completely prevented any road rash. The worst the suit got was a little scuff on the knee and some dirt on the shoulder. It didn’t need repair after the crash.

I mean, its the kind of thing you buy once and then never replace. Sure, I look downright re-donk wearing it (its gray with high-visibility yellow patches on the shoulders, elbows and knees), so much in fact that my co-workers call me the Power Ranger. I don’t care though, the thing keeps me safe and visible. I would consider it a cost-effective, practical alternative to a full leather racing suit.

Edit: Oh hey yeah, that’s me wearing it in my picture. I had forgotten about that!

[Ben]

Let me throw in my 2 cents although it seems like everyone else has it covered.

When it comes to gear I really don’t think mesh is that bad. Leather is better, but Mesh is pretty damn good (if it is quality made). The thing about mesh and textile is it is designed to sacrifice itself in the crash to save your own skin. This is why if you crash in a textile/mesh jacket you most likely have to throw it away (although I got 2 crashes out of my textile pants before I had to toss em!).

Leather on the other hand can survive pretty bad crashes with little damage. Hell, I still wear the jacket that I was wearing when I crashed and broke my shoulder blade. It is a little scuffed on the shoulder, but other than that it is more than fine.

One more thing: Although a lot of the pictures on Ride2Die are real, I know of at least one that is widely believed to be fake (the last one with the rider in a leather suit in pieces).

Ben

[Rob]

that last one is a fake, just look at the gear that’s around him, are you going to tell me he had two jackets on, and had one boot and one running shoe on? not to mention the lack of blood considering there is only an upper torso there.

[Author]

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