Why is motobike gear all black?

[JustTrix400]

I have a yellow and white jacket which I got of ebay and ride a yellow CB400. When I was first learning to ride I put on a Hi-Vis although I don't think that helped much. I have seen pink, blue and red jackets in the Joe Rocket range. Spidi put out a black/red and Dionese have a whole black/red/blue/white range too. I thought they made black bike gear to hide the blood stains!!!

[slydesigns]

PS: If anyone tries to convince me that black (a colour which reflects next to no light) is no more or less visible than blue or yellow (colours which reflect a lot more light), I know they're full of shit.

Then I guess the worlds military are "full of shit" as you so eloquently put it. Black is one of the FEW colours not considered natural and thus is easily spotted when soldiers are trying to conceal themselves and their equipment.
Hence why front line weapons are NOT black nowadays, neither are boots etc. And before you ask, I'm speaking form 10 years service experience including operations and not plucking it out of my butt as some of the other "facts" in this thread have been.

Fact one. You see in black and white at night. Fact

Fact two. The colour receptive nerves (cones) in your eyes are concentrated to the centre of your eyes retina and are inefficient in darkness.

Fact three. The main stay of your eyes nerves are the black and white receptors (rods) which work in low light better than the cones and are located on the periphery of your eyes retina.

This is why in darkness you are blind directly in front of you yet if you turn your head side on or look to the side of an object it appears much clearer.

Test the theory yourself at night. It takes 20mins for the cones to shut down fully and the rods to take over. Then try the test.

Fact four. At range, you see shape, movement and CONTRAST but not colour.

Colour IS good, but its a minor part of the equation for being detected. Contrast and shape play a much bigger part.

With the threads Author's views in mind... why would anyone ride a naked bike like his SR? Would hi colour fairings, paint and graphics be the better option than a chrome finish that reflects its surroundings and blends in as well as masking movement? IF you were that worried that is?

[lanci]

Cause it's fucken tough looking!

[sAsLEX]

Black is one of the FEW colours not considered natural and thus is easily spotted when soldiers are trying to conceal themselves and their equipment.


Hence why front line weapons are NOT black nowadays, neither are boots etc.

Yes they are....... but we don't really need to hide on ship.

[homer]

Bright colours don't help. Some light colours blend you into a confusing background and help motion camouflage convince drivers you aren't really there. People identify shape and size before the identify colour and they most certainly don't view a motorcycle as the same sort of threat as a car or truck.

Wearing bright colours to make you more visible should be secondary to riding like you are invisible.

I answer to your question: Leather is either black or brown for most commercial clothing applications. Post war motorcyclists wore black because it made them look more menacing. It is now the core fashion in motorcycle clothing.

Black also goes with anything. Matching leathers or cordura to your current bike goes horribly wrong when you change from a lime green Kawasaki to a mostly red Honda.

Thats so true

grey cages blend in with the road,

White cars blend in with shop fronts

[Subike]

Then I guess the worlds military are "full of shit" as you so eloquently put it. Black is one of the FEW colours not considered natural and thus is easily spotted when soldiers are trying to conceal themselves and their equipment.
Hence why front line weapons are NOT black nowadays, neither are boots etc. And before you ask, I'm speaking form 10 years service experience including operations and not plucking it out of my butt as some of the other "facts" in this thread have been.

Fact one. You see in black and white at night. Fact

Fact two. The colour receptive nerves (cones) in your eyes are concentrated to the centre of your eyes retina and are inefficient in darkness.

Fact three. The main stay of your eyes nerves are the black and white receptors (rods) which work in low light better than the cones and are located on the periphery of your eyes retina.

This is why in darkness you are blind directly in front of you yet if you turn your head side on or look to the side of an object it appears much clearer.

Test the theory yourself at night. It takes 20mins for the cones to shut down fully and the rods to take over. Then try the test.

Fact four. At range, you see shape, movement and CONTRAST but not colour.

Colour IS good, but its a minor part of the equation for being detected. Contrast and shape play a much bigger part.

With the threads Author's views in mind... why would anyone ride a naked bike like his SR? Would hi colour fairings, paint and graphics be the better option than a chrome finish that reflects its surroundings and blends in as well as masking movement? IF you were that worried that is?

So anything , that was Black, Gloss or Matt Black,would stand out if it was moving across a night time back ground, Where as a rainbow spectrum coloured object would be harder to spot, as opposed to a white object which be blatently visibile. The black being the extreeme opposite to the white. Stark Contrast, MMmmmm interesting thinking


Good point on the crome reflections too, Be about the same as Polished alloy and stainless steel.

[Mikkel]

Yes they are....... but we don't really need to hide on ship.

Navy ships are not black though... But yes, camoflage for sidearms on a ship is pretty redundant.

So anything , that was Black, Gloss or Matt Black,would stand out if it was moving across a night time back ground, Where as a rainbow spectrum coloured object would be harder to spot, as opposed to a white object which be blatently visibile. The black being the extreeme opposite to the white. Stark Contrast, MMmmmm interesting thinking


Good point on the crome reflections too, Be about the same as Polished alloy and stainless steel.

U is doing it rong!

If there is no light colours become totally irrelevant. If there is only a little light a solid colour is easier to spot than something that has patterns of varying colour.
Also, you spot things that either reflect OR absorb colour easier in the dark. You "sense" a field that has another light level - the larger that field is the easier it is to pick-up.

How low-light and biker clothing colour relates I fail to see - unless you insist on riding with your lights off at night. In which case I think you should worry about something else than the colour of your riding gear.

[ukusa]

Black also goes with anything. Matching leathers or cordura to your current bike goes horribly wrong when you change from a lime green Kawasaki to a mostly red Honda.

It's like the little black dress that chicks wear, looks good on (almost) anything

[Hinny]

Black isn't a bad colour - in fact it's a badass colour

A girl friend always asks me "what are you wearing" when she calls.
If I reply "Black leather" she makes a sort of moaning sound.
Could this be because she thinks it makes my ass look bad?

[Mikkel]

A girl friend always asks me "what are you wearing" when she calls.
If I reply "Black leather" she makes a sort of moaning sound.
Could this be because she thinks it makes my ass look bad?

Mate, you need to turn that situation around - QUICKLY!

It's a male prerogative to ask seedy questions like that - and preferably to girls too young and innocent to fully comprehend the entailed dodginess!

[Mr Merde]

.... Nothing will ever convince me that bright colours wont make a difference, nor will it convince the road workers in their hi-vis vests, or hunters wearing orange jackets. ....

I spent a number of years in the UK working as bike courier on inter city trips. The only time I had any really serious tussles with traffic was one day when riding my ZZR1100 in bright purple and blue with my headlights blazing and my bright flouro yellow jacket on. Car didnt see me and wrote the bike off.

As to hunter with the orange jackets. Not the safest colour in the NZ bush. The safest colour would be skyblue as in the Nato berets but we arent allowed to wear that. Some of the deer here have an underbelly collour that is very similar to the bright orange they sell for visibiolity.

After years riding bikes in all sorts of kit in all sorts of colours I am back to wearing black. Maybe other road users have been desensitised to colours with the multitude of diferent vehicles on the road. In my mind they will notice a black space as much as a colour.

The absence of colour stands out just as much as flouro coloured gear.

[Radar]

I might add, does anyone else ever feel people come onto this website solely to disagree with other people's posts? The more time I spend here, the more true it seems to be. I really can't see why anyone would disagree that visibility is a good thing?

SoulTrader makes a good observation. Indeed, why to people disagree with solid facts? My take on this question is that some people make a conclusion based on emotions, hearsay, shallow opinions, or something other than rationality. Try this on for size:

Research on motorbike accidents:
http://www.cs.wisc.edu/%7Ejohn/vfr/hurt.html

"The failure of motorists to detect and recognize motorcycles in traffic is the predominating cause of motorcycle accidents. ...Conspicuity [easily visible] of the motorcycle is a critical factor in the multiple vehicle accidents, and accident involvement is significantly reduced by the use of motorcycle headlamps (on in daylight) and the wearing of high visibility yellow, orange or bright red jackets."

Just in case you want to trash this research, here is where it comes from:
The "Motorcycle Accident Cause Factors and Identification of Countermeasures," is a study conducted by the University of Southern California (USC). With funds from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, researcher Harry Hurt investigated almost every aspect of 900 motorcycle accidents in the Los Angeles area. Additionally, Hurt and his staff analyzed 3,600 motorcycle traffic accident reports in the same geographic area.

[Ducman]

To answer the original question on why black? It's the easiest and cheapest colour to dye leather. That or leave it the natural brown.

[Lucy]

I drove to Wellington in a van last Thursday night, and must have seen over a hundred motorcyclists heading north. The one that was most visible had a white helmet on. Coming home on Friday I was overtaken by a few bikers in black, on black bikes, they blended with the road pretty much. They may have had their headlights on but I couldnt see that from the back.

[Ixion]

SoulTrader makes a good observation. Indeed, why to people disagree with solid facts? My take on this question is that some people make a conclusion based on emotions, hearsay, shallow opinions, or something other than rationality. Try this on for size:

Research on motorbike accidents:
http://www.cs.wisc.edu/%7Ejohn/vfr/hurt.html

"The failure of motorists to detect and recognize motorcycles in traffic is the predominating cause of motorcycle accidents. ...Conspicuity [easily visible] of the motorcycle is a critical factor in the multiple vehicle accidents, and accident involvement is significantly reduced by the use of motorcycle headlamps (on in daylight) and the wearing of high visibility yellow, orange or bright red jackets."

Just in case you want to trash this research, here is where it comes from:
The "Motorcycle Accident Cause Factors and Identification of Countermeasures," is a study conducted by the University of Southern California (USC). With funds from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, researcher Harry Hurt investigated almost every aspect of 900 motorcycle accidents in the Los Angeles area. Additionally, Hurt and his staff analyzed 3,600 motorcycle traffic accident reports in the same geographic area.

I do not think anyone is arguing that hi-vis is more visible. Indeed, the very name implies it. But (some) people are unconvinced that the difference, nbowdays, is of any significance.

I wore flouro gear years and years ago, long before it was common (it was very hard to get back then). And the fact that it was so rare made it very noticeable. People went "What the hell is that".

I think Mr Hurt's research comes from a similar environment (it was also many years ago now) . The brightly coloured riders in his study were visible because they were rare. We notice exceptions.

Nowdays hi-vis is so common, it is everywhere, people are used to it, it has lost its effect.It is still more visible than non-fluoro, but the difference may be negligable.