I have a question for you all. I was looking through the posts to see if anyone had covered this before and I could not find anything, except for the guy who was riding with the group and left and then his buddy was doing tricks on the interstate and crashed and died. So that leads me into my question, how many of you wear your gear and how often? I will have to admit, I have a bad habit of not wearing gear around town (sometimes not even my helmet), but any time I am on the open road, I have it on. What are your thoughts and feedback?

 

Anytime I leave base...I have on any and all gear possible. You can't ride tomorrow if you crash and burn unsafely today.

 

I always wear gear. I wear a helmet, riding jacket with armor, gloves, boots, and jeans. I know the jeans are not the best, so I went out and bought some draggin jeans which are awseome, and I bought some leg armor from Icon that I can wear under jeans. It gets hot in FL during the summer, but road rash is even hotter.

 

In the past, I had been a bit lax about wearing gear - I would routinely (riding as a pessenger) go out in jeans and a tee, and even capris and a tank top on many occasions. And as I posted in the helmet thread, I probably wore one about 50% of the time (as in I'd wear it in cold weather, and would rarely wear it in hot weather).

Luckily, however, I've been retrained away from these bad habits, and even though I'm not riding (on my own) yet, I've become somewhat of a "Gear ****," i.e. assessing the gear (or lack thereof) of passing riders. I'm also building up a good gear wardrobe of my own - I received a pair of Joe Rocket Phoenix gloves for Chrismas, then about a month ago I picked up my Joe Rocket Phoeniz Jacket, and I just recently got some Teknic leather gauntlet gloves for winter riding. I'm sure before too long I'll have my helmet and at least one more jacket (two more by wintertime). And there will be no more riding in tees or shorts.... it will be (at the least) jeans and boots from here on out. I've heard (and seen) too many horror stories of injuries that could have been prevented (or minimalized) if the rider had been wearing proper gear.

 

Helmet, Frank Thomas jacket and gloves, jeans. and boots or leather high tops every time I go out.