Attitudes about protective gear in hot conditions.

[Oldbikefixr]

I've always worn a helmet, skid resistant gloves and pants, always boots. Never got used to the year 'round jackets, although I do wear a 'solid' leather traditional style bike jacket of one form or another during cooler months. And, yes, I have seen what can happen to go down unprotected.
Had the unsettling experience to sit by a younger crash victim in the ER a while back, weekend stomach virus on my part. The kid had been racing his crotch rocket in traffic...no helmet, t-shirt, shorts, flipflops. He was likely going to lose much of his left foot after he slid under a city bus. He had split from the crash site and had waited several days to seek medical attention. I talked to him until they took him up to surgery. I've seen two dead ones like this over the years also.
As most of us also know, we can fall victim through no fault of our own also.
Common sense, responsibility (personal and for others) and sanity. The greatest victims of our 'modern times'?

 

[Da Bear]

It's been hot here all week. We're expecting 97-100° here on Monday. I love my bike, make no mistake; however, I am an absolute ATGATT guy. My car has AC for a reason. That being said, I saw a guy yesterday, less than a block from my house getting on the highway on a some road rocket bike. It was black and green, and FAST too fast for me to get a handle on the make/model... His basketball shorts and T-shirt did match the bike though... I will also add that a full face modular only does what it's supposed to do when you close and latch the damned thing, as well as strap it on.
His choice. As much as ATGATT is mine. The way he rode that thing though...
What gets me is that I am a paranoid rider, and I wear the gear because of that. Would I ride more if it wasn't so damned hot? Yes. That's one reason I live in Oregon. I am however looking at protective wear denim...

 

[Firstpeke]

ATGATT, mesh jacket when needed..... but as I always say..... I would rather sweat than bleed.

Remember, the world is your belt sander......

 

[Da Bear]

Got my first street bike when I was 16. I went to show it to my Grandfather, the male influence in my life. He lived on a quiet residential street with very little traffic. I parked out front and he came out to look at the bike...
"Follow me" he said. You didn't argue with gramps. At 75, he did 150 sit ups, 75 pull ups, jumped rope for ten minutes... You get the idea.
He walked across the street and told me to take off my shirt. I did. "Lay down on your back..." I did.
He grabbed my feet and slowly dragged me back to the other side. I was scraped and scratched. "That was zero miles an hour. Imagine what it's gonna feel like at 65... Buy the best protective clothing you can. Upgrade when you can. Never ride without it." He never disproved of the bike, he just made sure I rode safe. I have yet to go back on the promise I made to him regarding gear. There are some that say it was abuse, that slow drag across the street; but I'm telling you, it worked...

 

[dduelin]

Got my first street bike when I was 16. I went to show it to my Grandfather, the male influence in my life. He lived on a quiet residential street with very little traffic. I parked out front and he came out to look at the bike...
"Follow me" he said. You didn't argue with gramps. At 75, he did 150 sit ups, 75 pull ups, jumped rope for ten minutes... You get the idea.
He walked across the street and told me to take off my shirt. I did. "Lay down on your back..." I did.
He grabbed my feet and slowly dragged me back to the other side. I was scraped and scratched. "That was zero miles an hour. Imagine what it's gonna feel like at 65... Buy the best protective clothing you can. Upgrade when you can. Never ride without it." He never disproved of the bike, he just made sure I rode safe. I have yet to go back on the promise I made to him regarding gear. There are some that say it was abuse, that slow drag across the street; but I'm telling you, it worked...

Unconventional but it worked.

 

[cjames431]

16F to 115F I go ATGATT. I commute year round so I now wear a ‘stich R3 unlined. I wore my wife’s ‘stich while mine was out for repairs. Her’s is lined and even though it was 90ish I was still comfortable while moving. I wear a pair of Alpinstar touring boots.
I do carry water on warmer days since my ride is 45min or more in the afternoon.

 

[St-Gerard]

Finally found a Vented summer Jacket "that I could afford", so now I can be Atgatt . Like Dabear said when it's to hot I take the car with AC . There have been rides where I would have passed out from the heat ,so no jacket but allways have boots and jeans and gloves. One ride was so hot , stopped took a nap and waited for the sun to go down , led headlights are a wonderful thing.

 

[SupraSabre]

I have ridden a number of times in the heat, 115 and above for a couple hours or more. Mesh gear and cooling liner (VS a vest) have kept me from frying! Also, those cooling towels work good too.

Next week I'm planning a ride out to Santa Barbara (about 550 miles). I'll be riding through Las Vegas and expect it to be 100F plus. So I'll be taking my liner and towel with me.

Riding without gear on, no thanks! The good thing about riding in 105F+, with no gear on, at least you'll get cauterized, after scraping your skin off!

I have crash tested gear three times. The first time was in '87, when there really wasn't much gear out there except leather.

I hit the ground @ 65mph (I was going 85 and got it down to 65, before my bike decided it didn't like me on it any longer!) My gear consisted of fullfaced helmet, gloves, heavy boots, polyester jeans and a ski jacket. My helmet had three really nice scrapes on it (would have been my head) My left glove shot off the moment my hand hit the road. I grabbed my chinbar on the helmet, which saved my hands from further damage. I had a hole in the toe of my left boot, and a hole in my sock, but my toe was fine. My ski jacket and pants did NOTHING to save my skin, so I had 2nd degree burns on my elbows and knees and a few scrapes here and there.

Then my accident in 2008, slow speed knocked off. gear was destroyed, but body wasn't, and same in 2019.

 

[STRider]

I rarely ever ride a motorcycle to work but I did ride the RT to work one day last week. I don't like riding in rush hour traffic but that day I was on schedule to 6 PM and traffic would be calming down by the time I got on the bike and headed home. Conversely if I left home at 6 AM I could ride rural roads 2.5 hours before getting to work so I took the ride.

Like much of the country it's been very hot here and that day the high was to be 97 degrees so I took a half cover to keep the bike under shade in the treeless parking lot. I locked the helmet in the top box under the Oxford cover thinking it would be relatively cool there. Wrong-o, my helmet must have been 150 degrees when I donned it after 9 hours. I have never felt a completely heat-soaked helmet on my head. My pants and jacket were ambient temp and not bad but I literally thought my brain would melt the 20 minutes of the ride home. The next day I mentioned this to a co-worker that occasionally rides his Suzuki GSX-R liter sport bike to work. He said "you wear too much gear and you should have brought your helmet inside for the day." I couldn't argue about the helmet storage but the thing about risk perception stuck with me. I didn't respond with my usual somewhat snarky reply when asked by riders and non-riders alike "isn't that get-up hot?" which is "Yes it is but I'd rather take a cool shower later rather than endure skin grafting." I didn't discuss our different views on gear to his comment and I don't post this to start a bash fest against riders than choose not to wear the gear but I did think awhile that day about how we in the riding community view risk differently. From what I know he is exclusively an urban rider but is contemplating a 700 mile round trip to visit family across the state. I go to that same area often, it's my home town, and know a lot of small roads to get there. You know the type... make a 350 mile slab ride more like 425 small road miles. I-10 goes straight there of course and that it his plan. I think I might offer to go that same weekend and offer to show him the long way.

@dduelin I feel your experience from the opposite side of the continent. I concur with all your comments.

I learned to bring my gear inside work every ride, both to keep them cool in the summer and warm in the winter!

My second skin is a 2-piece Aerostich Roadcrafter 2. Days like today I may detach the pants and wear the jacket only to a nearby lunch spot. Mostly to ease riding gear management at the eatery than because of the comfort in high temperatures.

When I win the lottery I'm sure I'll add a Roadcrafter R3 , but they're 1-piece only, which was a deal breaker for my primary suit, but as a back up.... ?

Then there are those mesh and other options with greater airflow than any Aerostich product. Too bad they didn't pick my lottery numbers this week

But filling the Aerostich pockets with ice and letting them melt and evaporate is pretty effective too.

 

[gmtech94]

At some point in my life I seemed to have fallen off the odd bike at speed and even through a good set of leathers I ended up with a lot of road rash so now I think about if I go down on the street how will I grow skin back . Simple solution mesh when hot and a variety of combos other times . We used to have Fox Paw gloves with the studs in them and it was neat to fall off at night and see the sparks those gloves made til they got really hot and burned as well .

 

[motornut]

Oh sh...t,

 

[Da Bear]

Just plan on the accident you weren't planning on having...

 

[Da Bear]

Forcast is for 103° on Tuesday. I expect, if things go as usual, that they will miss the mark by about 3 to five degrees.
It's gonna be hotter than they predict. It's days like these that make me very mad at science. Where is my personal force field?
Possibly, there's conspiracy by the folks at First Gear, Alpenstars, and Dianese; that they're buying up the patents on that sort of tech, so we have to keep buying ablative armour... They're working hand in hand with the bottled water people...

 

[DannoXYZ]

Dang, I hope that isn't you...

Nah, someone else at Laguna Seca. I prefer gloves with metal studs on palms. Slides across pavement much easier than plastic.

 

[TotaledTL]

I wear mesh 1-piece suit over my office clothes. It has vents all over and doesn't really heat me up any more than riding without. Staying constantly hydrated is key, even for my 1/2-hr commute (2.5-hr by car). In anything over 90F and I drink about 0.5-ltr light sports-drink per hour with extra electroytes.

On demanding race or trackdays, it goes to 1-ltr sports drink per hour with extra electrolytes. On this particularly warm day at Thunderhill, flies and dragonflies were falling out of sky dead!

Salt deposits from sweat!

How does a 1/2 hr. motorcycle commute equate to 2.5 hrs. by car?

 

[TotaledTL]

Got my first street bike when I was 16. I went to show it to my Grandfather, the male influence in my life. He lived on a quiet residential street with very little traffic. I parked out front and he came out to look at the bike...
"Follow me" he said. You didn't argue with gramps. At 75, he did 150 sit ups, 75 pull ups, jumped rope for ten minutes... You get the idea.
He walked across the street and told me to take off my shirt. I did. "Lay down on your back..." I did.
He grabbed my feet and slowly dragged me back to the other side. I was scraped and scratched. "That was zero miles an hour. Imagine what it's gonna feel like at 65... Buy the best protective clothing you can. Upgrade when you can. Never ride without it." He never disproved of the bike, he just made sure I rode safe. I have yet to go back on the promise I made to him regarding gear. There are some that say it was abuse, that slow drag across the street; but I'm telling you, it worked...

Loved the story. A wise man he was.

 

[TotaledTL]

All of these posts have me rethinking the use of riding gear. I alway wear a helmet, boots, & gloves but often skip the jacket when it's hot. Have not worn the riding pants very much either. Just can't tolerate the heat nearly as well as I once could. Age is a factor. Probably safest to skip the hot rides or take the car.

 

[Sadlsor]

I have supreme confidence in my street skills, and if that was the only factor in determining what I wore while riding, I assure you I would dress much differently than I do.
But where I lack confidence, is that everyone else on the roads will always do the right thing, and at the right time.
Therefore, I wear more than I would like to, in order to avoid injury, or minimize it if the worst were to happen.

 

[Da Bear]

Loved the story. A wise man he was.

He had some of the most awesome friends, one of whom was Ansel Adams. He was also the day lead journeyman tool and die maker on the Golden Gate Bridge project back when it was being built. An Eagle scout recocgnized by the BSA national counsel. Tried to join every branch of the service at least three times when WW2 broke out. Too short and too important to the war effort...
Wisest man I have ever known; he gave me the love of reading I still have today... The man would give me a new book to read every time I went out on a solo back packing trip. One of them was written by a guy that would later become one of our best friends; Gregory Benford.

 

[Donk]

I wear Aerostich Darien jacket and pants. About the most comfortable I have found for summer riding. Nylon hiking pants and a C9 shirt underneath. I wear it all the time. Its reasonably comfortable and a lot more comfortable than road rash or sitting in a hospital bed