As a previous thread of mine obviates, I've been doing a lot of thinking and experimenting with the issue of protective gear.
And I have come to the conclusion that when the sun is burning almost any level of protective gear is a greater menace than it is a saviour.
I assert this on two counts.
The first being: When the temps are in the high 20's, being wrapped in leather or Kordura, gloves, boots and helmet, is little more than being in a mobile sauna.
Thus the ever-increasing, almost impoosible to measure, stress caused by being over-heated cannot do any less than start shutting down the 'sauna'wrapped' rider's brain.
However, riding along in a t-shirt and jeans, or even shorts, allows full and free aircon to wipe away the effects of the heat.
'Arh, but!' I hear you all scream. 'What about if you go down? At least in full leathers or Kordura your skin will be in tact in the event of a bin!'
And, of course, you'd be absolutely right if said bin just happened to be say, and nice, low-side slide into a remarkably convenient patch of grass.
But what will all that gear do for you, when your brain has shut down due to heat-exhaustion, but you haven't noticed on account of it's a kind of creeping death, when you bin and there ain't no convenient patch of grass (like we have on the track) to slide over?
What happens is, you get to hit something rather solid, or go under the wheels of some other vehicle.
If we could bring you back from the grave and ask, 'What happened? Why did you go wide and hit?????' You would probably answer, 'I'm fucked if I know. One minute I was having a good time then next.... I don't know what happened.'
I do. You were suffering heat exhaustion and your brain had shut down.
And, of course, the next part of these frequent "death-plays" is the fact that the riders are mostly weekend warriors, given a leave-pass from the missus, one a week/fortnight/month. Dressed to give it death, the leathers or Kordura creating a sense of bullet-proofness...'Hey! I'm dressed to crash!'
Till they crash and hit something solid, then all the leather or Kordura in the world won't save their arse.
Add to that the feelings a sometimes-biker gets...Jesus, let's face it, even we frequent bikers get it. The throb, the power, the sounds, the freedom, the superiority over slow cagers...all the stuff which makes biking so good.
Now couple limited bike-time with heat-stress. Oh yeah, ya leathers will save you every time. BULLSHIT!
Last week I rode from Rotorua to Orks, in a T-shirt, gloves, and sandshoes. Two things revealed. First was; having none of the 'supposed' protection of all the good gear I remained extremely focused on the task in hand. Second was, because I was always quite cool, I was able to maintain my focus.
It was a freaky-hot day, yet bike after bike passed me going the other way, with the riders dressed to kill, and I thought, 'Buddy. You're an acident waiting to happen.'
Riding in a T-Shirt.
Yup. Agreed. No protection in the event of a slide onto nice flat grass, but about the same relative protection when hitting a Mac, head on, or T-boning a cage....Yeah, alright, maybe slightly less in the latter circumstance. But mostly, the end result is the same. Lose the plot, hit something solid, get dead.
And the quickest way to lose the plot is to enable environmental stress to take over from where you brain left off. Heta or cold. They're equal enemies.
Righto. Let's hear the screams of denial.
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There is no such thing as bad weather; only inappropriate clothing! 
Originally Posted by Drider87
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