|
Fear and Clothing in Minnesota
by Gary Charpentier |
 |
I
was riding down Grand Ave. in St. Paul the other day, on one
of the hottest days of the year. Dressed in my usual riding
outfit of jeans, boots, gloves, helmet, and that same
leather jacket I wore while roosting around town this past
Winter, I was really beginning to feel the heat. It was rush
hour, after all, so the normal 30 mph breeze was absent,
replaced by the exhaust fumes and thermal radiation coming
from the gridlocked cars all around me. I was beginning to
daydream of giving up all this armor for the free and easy
garb of shorts and a t-shirt, sandals and sunglasses that I
see all the squids wearing nowadays. Why not? I am an
experienced rider, and can avoid accidents better than most.
As long as I behave myself and remain vigilant against brain
dead motorists, what do I have to worry about? Maybe I'll
install open headers so they can all hear me coming and stay
out of my way. "Loud pipes save lives!" right? About that time
the light turned green. There was a van in front of me,
nobody behind, and as we crossed the intersection a guy in a
brand new Jeep Grand Secondmortgage, waiting to turn left,
was talking animatedly with his female passenger looking at
her and not the road, gesturing with one hand while cranking
the steering wheel with the other. As soon as he passed, he
accelerated, not seeing me or my bike right in his path. I
was watching the whole scene unfold, so I was ready for it,
and I meeped my pathetic little horn; but if I had not
accelerated at the same time, I would have been hit and sent
tumbling to the scorched pavement. Dressed as I was,
it would have been simply another mishap, with me walking
away pissed off and bruised, but otherwise intact. Things
would have been much different had I been sporting squid
fashion garb, with a trip to the emergency room the very
least of the possible consequences. I didn't even look
back. These kinds of close calls happen almost every day
when you commute on a motorcycle through the city. But I
stopped fantasizing about riding in beach wear right then
and there. Motorcycling is a dangerous pastime. When we
engage in other dangerous activities, we usually wear the
appropriate safety equipment. Why is riding a bike any
different? Because it just isn't "cool" to arrive at your
destination with your helmet-molded hair plastered to your
sweaty head? Because you want the babes to dig your handsome
mug, wrap around shades and chiseled calves? So it would
logically follow that this is worth the risk of losing yards
of skin and permanently disfiguring yourself just so you can
look "cool" going down the road, right? Maybe if you are 18
years old and invincible. It's funny though,
the better I get at riding motorcycles, the more I am
compelled to wear the gear that will save my ass in a crash.
Let's do the math: more experience = smarter rider = better
skills = more safety gear. I believe this is Moto-Darwinism
at work; survival of the fittest, let the traffic and the
cruel pavement weed out the stupid. I don't want to ride
with them anyway... Do you know what I
hate about tirades like this? The only people still reading
by this point are the ones who don't need to. I neglected to
mention horsepower, quarter-mile times, wheelies, burnouts,
or breaking the law in the first two paragraphs, and as a
result I have exceeded the notoriously short squid attention
span. The windblown hair boys have already left the
building, and I am stuck preaching to the helmeted choir.
Motorcyclists are
funny that way. We often don't listen to other people's
wisdom unless they have impressed us first with unwise
behavior. Even then, some of us don't listen, period. We
prefer to learn all our lessons the hard way. How else can
we accumulate "war stories" to tell other riders who won't
listen? It's a vicious
cycle, pun intended, which leads some of us to ruin. Many
older, luckier, and by default experienced riders have tried
in vain to educate their novice peers. It just doesn't work,
because the attitude is: "You're just trying to keep me from
having as much fun as you did!". Yeah Junior, that's right,
if you classify road-rash, broken bones, brain damage and
financial ruin as fun. Am I wasting my editorial breath
here? Probably. But for those of you still with me, let's
talk about this compromise between comfort and safety.
As I mentioned
earlier, I ride year-round in the same jacket, jeans, and
boots. The only things that change are what I wear
underneath. Long-johns and sweatshirts in Winter, nothing
and a t-shirt in Summer. There are better, more high-tech
approaches to this, but my budget doesn't support them. You
can buy a well-vented jacket for the warmer weather, and
some of these come with zip-in liners to keep out the cold.
With few exceptions, you get what you pay for. Things to look for
in a jacket are: double or triple stitching in stress-prone
areas, padding at shoulders and elbows, overlapping material
at the zipper, and a good fit so that it will not flap and
billow at speed. The most important things to determine are
that the jacket will be comfortable to wear, and will stay
together in case of a spontaneous impact and extreme
friction exposure event, (CRASH!). Gloves are another
item that can be tailored to suit the weather. In the
winter, I go with a good pair of snowmobile gloves,
sacrificing some of the heavy leather road-rash protection
for insulation from the cold. For summer, you
can choose any of several types of padded, studded, and
kevlar armored gloves specifically designed to save your
hands from direct exposure to the pavement. Most of the
better ones will be a bit warm in the heat of July and
August, but with gloves especially, there is an inverse
relationship between safety and comfort. If you choose the
lightweight leather with holes intentionally punched in
them, or if you want to be real silly and buy gloves without
any fingers at all, you may be comfortable, but don't put
your hands out to try and save yourself. Next, let's talk
about pants versus chaps. I have to laugh when I see people
wearing chaps on a motorcycle. Like the fingerless gloves, I
view these as silly, because they leave exposed a part of
your anatomy that a properly designed pair of riding pants
would strive to protect. I'm talkin' about your ass here.
Leather riding
pants, when properly designed, will protect you a lot better
than chaps. They will have padding in all the right places,
be flexible where they need to be, and best of all, they
will cover your ass when it is on the line. I don't know for
certain, but I have to assume they are also more comfortable
than chaps, which usually go over a pair of jeans anyway.
I don't have space
here to get into the whole footwear thing, except to say
that boots specifically designed for motorcycling are worlds
ahead of anything else, in both safety and
comfort. The point is, we
each have to assess the risks involved in our style of
riding, versus the "rewards" derived from our style of
riding gear, and dress accordingly. I will always err on the
side of safety, because I never know when the sudden urge to
twist the grip and drag the pegs will overwhelm
me. You may not have
these aggressive tendencies, preferring instead to hoon
about the countryside on a full dress touring barge, so your
requirements may be weighted more towards comfort. That's
fine. Just remember that the unexpected hazard is out there,
waiting for that moment of inattention, while you are gazing
at the sunset instead of the road ahead. You will really
miss that extra layer of cowhide you stuffed into your
saddlebag, or decided not to buy in the first place, when
you are sliding down the road at 70 miles per hour. The
laughter you hear at that moment is the bovine donor's ghost
watching your skin burn away on the asphalt. Is anybody
listening? M.M.M.
Archives,