COLUMN: Riding Gear Basics: Should You Really Be Wearing Riding Gear?

We are at home, as you should be, under the lockdown. That means we are not riding our motorcycles. What we are doing is thinking about riding them, and today, the topic that I wanted to bring up is riding gear for motorcycles. We are going to go into detail in this series later on. Today we are talking about, "Do I really need motorcycle riding gear? When should I be wearing it? And how much riding gear should I be investing in."

If you don't use it, it doesn't work

The first thing that I want to give you as an example is condoms and motorcycle gear are roughly the same thing in the sense that they are designed for your protection. Right? But if you never take out of the night table and use it, it doesn't really serve a purpose. Motorcycle gear, as funny as that sounds, is sort of like that. You could have the world's best motorcycle jacket with an airbag and everything, but if you don't use it, it doesn't work.

So the most common question we get is, you are only going to the shops and that's 500m or a kilometre from here and you're taking a scooter, not even a motorcycle, should you really be wearing riding gear.

Where is the risk located?

Let me give you two ideas here. First, every motorcycle study that you'll want to read up on - my favourite one is the MAIDS study from quite a while ago but its very well documented and very clear about what it says - says that you are at your biggest risk of having a crash and being injured 5km from your house or 5km from your office.

What I like to qualify that as is that these are the environments that you get the most used to on your daily commute. You are constantly passing through that 5km zone around your house and your office and you get almost ignorant of the danger.

Here's an example: Let's assume that you're a little child living on the savannah in Africa and one of your jobs in the morning is to walk to the watering hole and bring water back. Now you pass a hungry lion on the path everyday.

The first time you spot this lion, you're going to be super scared - oh my god that thing looks hungry. And then you realise that it didn't do anything apart from making a noise or a display of aggression, that's it.

This happens for a week, ten days and you realise that the lion never actually does anything outside of growling at you. By a month in, you probably just ignore the fact that the lion is there. And that's how your brain works.

Once you are exposed to the danger constantly, the real danger is not the fact that there is a hazard, but that you might forget that there is a hazard there. And you might classify it as non-hazardous because you constantly see it and you're constantly exposed to it and you don't worry about it anymore.

It's in the same way that once this COVID thing goes on for a while and masks become a part of your habituated pattern, one of two things will happen.

Either the mask will settle into something that you do completely naturally -- it's just there and so you don't notice it anymore. Or you will become increasingly ignorant of the risk of catching the virus and think, "hey nothing's happened so far" and you'll stop using the mask. Which is when you are really, really at risk. 

When am I at risk?

In the same way, motorcycle gear only works if you wear them and therefore the American idea, ATGATT - All the gear, all the time - is actually fantastic.

That's what it is supposed to be until humanity can come up with an all that tells you, "You're going to crash next Tuesday at 9 o'clock." If that app comes, then, of course, you only need to wear the gear when the notification tells you to.

Until then, you're better off just wearing all the gear all the time.

That brings us to the idea, "Yes but I'm only going to the shops. Do you really expect me to wear a helmet, and a jacket, and gloves, and pants and boots?"  Well, honestly, I do it.

I am coming at you from the point of view on the other side whereas the road tester 20 years in the business, I've actually put in a lot of miles, seen a lot of crashes. In fact, most of my serious injuries have come from the time before I had access to good gear or didn't have gear at all.

For example, both of my knees.. all my ligaments have some amounts of damage. I haven't really majorly damaged any of my ligaments... but all of that damage comes from the time before I could get access to riding pants... I just didn't have any.  I was wearing jeans and riding around and I had a series of crashes and every one of those has left some damage behind.  Today, if I wanted to exercise and run up and down the stairs, I can't. That's something that my knees can't handle.  Accumulated damage from before.

How much gear do you want to wear for this kind of activity? I leave it up to you. I think you are all adults here and you guys are able to use your brain and make decisions for yourself. 

Comfort is the unlock

To me, the unlock is gear that you find comfortable on a daily basis. You are more likely to wear it if it is comfortable. So most people who tell you to buy riding gear will say, "Oh look at the CE rating" I would say yes that's important. "Look at the textile and it must at least be breathable." I would say no, it needs to be mesh in our weather for most of it. They would say look at it within your budget. I would say budgets are important but try and extend your budget and get the best gear you can. If it's in your budget but if it's a matter of extending 10 per cent and getting something that's 30 per cent better, extend it... it's life saving equipment. You don't want to skimp on it.

But the most important thing in all of this is, no matter how well configured the piece of gear is if it is not natively comfortable for you to wear, you are not going to wear it. You're going to say, "Oh my god it's so hot today, I don't think I want to wear the jacket, I'm just going to go get eggs." That's when issues start.

So if you look at my riding gear, I wear a lot of mesh and I use a lot of mesh because Bombay is relatively hot and humid... mesh works. I started out wearing overpants, but I don't bother with that anymore. Now I buy them one or two sizes smaller and I wear them as pants because they are so well ventilated in most cases.

I have slowly oriented my gear to being super comfortable and I save my highest protection for touring rides when I am out on a motorcycle for hours and hours together and for the racetrack where I will try and get CE level 2 for everything, the best leathers I can afford.... Obviously, I have Arais, I already wear the best helmet I can. 

And I don't have a distinction between I'll wear my cheaper helmet for now and an expensive helmet for later. I believe that your body is worth a lot and it's worth the same amount no matter what you are up to next. So whether you're playing with a soldering iron, you're on Facebook, or you're on a motorcycle or you're cutting onions, I believe that the value of your body is not determined by the activity.

And that means, you should be wearing the best gear you can the entire time.

But it's up to you. You can choose to say, hey look, I am going to take the scooter, I am going to go to the shops, I think just wearing the helmet and gloves is enough. Your call. Absolutely. Go for it. Make an informed decision. That's what I am saying here.

You must think about this. This is not a subconscious process. It can become one once you have taken the data, incorporated it and say yeah, I think I am comfortable with this. And then that would be fine. But get to that point by thinking about it.

To me, riding gear, you wear it all the time.