Full gear all the time?

[caseye]

Berries, seriously, how many riders do you know who have "never" fallen off their bikes, anywhere?
I'm over 50, been riding since I got my licence at 19, hadn't ever taken a tumble on the road, until 3 years ago. Lucky for me I was wearing all the usual gear. Didn't expect it to happen, it did. I fell off, picked up bike and pride, inspected both, decided the bike was OK and I was terminally in need of anesthetic.
It was my wife's 2fiddy cruiser, I'd stopped on the side of the road, executed, well attempted, a 180 degree turn to head back to her and dropped the steering too far into a cambered road and simply fell off over to the side protecting the bike with my body, no damage to it.
Lesson learned though, less lock, more throttle don't f..k about on open roads.
Point though, we all know it can happen, if it doesn't, well and good, but if it does, surely having what you are prepared to take with you, on, is better than not??? and in most case it is the difference between badly grazed or broken and or getting off much lighter.
I don't know anyone else who rides, who has never fallen off, not one.Lost a couple of mates to the right wrist syndrome, none to cagers, sad but true.

[jrandom]

I'm over 50, been riding since I got my licence at 19, hadn't ever taken a tumble on the road, until 3 years ago. *tried to do a U-turn and fell off*

Dude, I hate to say it, but you're the classic example of someone who's been riding a long time and just stayed a n00b throughout.

[mossy1200]

Dude, I hate to say it, but you're the classic example of someone who's been riding a long time and just stayed a n00b throughout.

47years without a hitch then a drop during a U turn.
If all n00bs had that record our insurance costs and acc levies would be low.

I low sided in a Boy racer diesel patch in 1989. Bike hit the ground but I was left standing beside it. Does that count?

[Ocean1]

That's just simply not true, man. It's a false statement.

Not playing games with you, dude, it's perfectly true and you know it. If there's the slightest chance an event might occur then a long enough iteration makes that chance a certainty. If you're a novice it'll take fewer miles before you chuck it away. If you're a certifiably paranoid riding legend it'll take more.

If you can get up one day and go to bed again without falling off your bike, there's no reason not to do it every day of your life.

You can certainly try to make that so every day. How long you succeed depends on how hard you try, how well you manage your machine and how many days you ride.

Get your own take on life vs non-life, you don't do Katman any better than the original.

[jrandom]

If all n00bs had that record our insurance costs and acc levies would be low.

For sure, but unfortunately with n00bs the statistical-likelihood-to-bin thing does apply. Therefore you're inevitably going to get some at one end of the bell curve who've only binned once in the last 30 years, etc.

[jrandom]

Get your own take on life vs non-life, you don't do Katman any better than the original.

Agreeing with someone else doesn't make a position less valid, man. You sound kinda upset, this sort of fallacious dismissal isn't your usual style.

[Ocean1]

Agreeing with someone else doesn't make a position less valid, man.

I'm not arguing positions, just facts.

You sound kinda upset, this sort of fallacious dismissal isn't your usual style.

Upset? Not. I'd be disapointed if your "position" genuinely was an indication of your world-view.

I'd be slightly miffed if your "position" in any way led you to believe you have the right to dictate anyone else's.

If you actually atempted to dictate terms regarding said "positions", then I'd be upset.

[jrandom]

I'm not arguing positions, just facts.

We should probably carefully define what we actually disagree with. I think it's just a matter of position on a scale. Obviously the probability of falling off a motorbike is non zero. My position is that it can be extended out to be improbable enough that one could reasonably expect not to fall off in any given lifetime. Your position is that it can be extended, but not quite that far, and that the average lifespan would be expected to contain one or more bins.

Perhaps it's not really enough of a difference to argue about. I don't think there's any way of getting enough data to construct any sort of proof. We're just going off gut instinct.

Edit: And, hey, I've binned on the road or track 15 times the last I counted. This is only a theoretical position, partially based on what I've learned from binning.

[Ocean1]

Perhaps it's not really enough of a difference to argue about. I don't think there's any way of getting enough data to construct any sort of proof. We're just going off gut instinct.

No, no, there's a lot more hard data around than this wee snippet:

I've binned on the road or track 15 times the last I counted.

This is only a theoretical position, partially based on what I've learned from binning.

Theories like that always seem to support our very deepest wishes, eh?

[Berries]

Berries, seriously, how many riders do you know who have "never" fallen off their bikes, anywhere?

Well, I have fallen off three times in 25ish years, no, make that four after the latest petrol station incident. No forwards movement at the time in any of them though so I am not sure you can call them crashes. Of the couple of regular riders I do know one has had a big smash. And I have some mates who also happen to have bikes but I have never ridden with them and have never asked that question. Never really been interested.

I am amazed that I survived my early riding days unscathed, three friends didn’t. One slid off in town in to the path of a truck and died. One wheelied off the road in to a tree and died, and another one which was particularly traumatic for my family was when a mate went between a car and horse float it was towing at high speed and died. I was young and stupid but luckily I eventually grew up. Then I got a job where I had to start looking at some of these fatal crashes and time and time again I saw errors that don’t matter quite so much when you are on four wheels surrounded by metal but on a bike they will kill you just like that. At some point I made the decision to do my best not to become a statistic.

I just don’t buy in to this fatalistic approach that having a crash is inevitable. Why should it be? Are we all so crap at riding? Why would anybody do something that is guaranteed to hurt you when you don’t know how much pain will be involved? Some people seem to treat getting on the bike like Russian roulette. If that is the way you think (not you personally) then I firmly believe you are half way to having a crash anyway. And will then be able to pass it off as inevitable and get on the bike again without taking a good look at what really played a big part in the crash happening.

Shit happens, I’m not saying that it doesn’t, people get struck by lightning after all. But the majority of bike crashes could have been prevented if the rider had been on it, for want of a better term. Too often ‘we’ aren’t. That is the main factor in the crash whatever the cause, not the inevitable hand of fate waiting to flick you off on the next wet corner or making a car not give way to you at an intersection. IMHO.

[caseye]

Always been of the opinion that you make your own luck and that you are the master of your own destiny and lived by that.
I'm still here.
I don't approach my bike with fear or trepidation, I actually like riding it and soon will be doing so again and enjoying it I can assure you.
Always thought that if I do as much as I can to make sure I will be OK, then the odds are better stacked for me, as a motorcyclist that is.
The last thing I would have done if I really thought that being involved in a crash was inevitable is buy my wife a bike to learn on.
I did, she did and was then brought down by a coil over shock spring that was rolling broadside towards her in the dark, almost 1 year to the day after she had started riding.
Two years later, she has a slightly bigger bike and is still learning what her machine and her can do and is loving it, as I knew she would.
jr, some people are just that, "noobs' for all time, I'd object, but there's no point, you got your one in and it's not going to matter what I say now.
Until recently I used use my bike for work 5 days a week and rode as much as I could on weekends, I've travelled the length of the North Island with others and on my own, I've pulled all of my bikes apart and made them better for me and them, I enjoy my bikes and will have one forever.
Noobs rule I say.

[Ocean1]

I just don’t buy in to this fatalistic approach that having a crash is inevitable.

You refering to my comments? It's not much like what I said.

I think there's at least two point of view being occasionally poorly expressed, here. The first seems to be that, since most accidents have a human error component then if we eliminate that from our riding we should be all good.

The second is simply stating that statistically, no matter how hard they try, (and let's face it, you gota assume that with the concequences such as they are most people are trying pretty hard) eventually the holes in the cheese will all line up, you're attention will be less than perfect or something completely unforseen will intefere in the real world and you'll sucumb to an undesirable event.

I don't think the two are irreconcilable, they're both perfectly valid observations. I think only a fool would ride believing he had the power to avoid every accident. Only a fool would claim he had no control over his fate.

[Berries]

You refering to my comments?

Nah, it was a general comment in response to some of the views I read on here that we are all going to crash at some point simply because we are on two wheels. I don't agree, if I did I would give it up.

[Nasty]

Read lots of this thread .. and a perspective I go with is:

The gear will not save you (people die wearing full gear the impact from a crash can have extreme ability to ensure that your insides get a little mushy) but if you do survive (most the time people do) it will aid recovery.

I generally wear ATGATT but my gear includes draggins ... I wore those for the first year of riding as they were the best fitting gear I could find.

[Katman]

It suggests that if you just believe hard enough and try hard enough then you’d be perfectly safe.

Cold, hard statistical facts suggest otherwise.

Perhaps many of us are just not trying hard enough.