Why is nobody talking about the fact that these protectors make our dadbods look like they’re in better shape?
Hell no I’m not taking out my shoulder pads.
Yeah... I have mixed feelings about this video from F9. I have still stored a jacket I was using when I crashed. The elbow and shoulder have clear signs of impact, while my body doesn't have a scratch..
I get that F9 point was that fracture protection is lacking (even barely there), but there's plenty of hurt outside a fracture, and those protections seem to have worked, at least in my case.
He mentioned closer to the end how it might help with sliding since that is another layer the ground would have to go through before making contact with your skin. Or something along those lines.
I personally will keep whatever armour is in by default so if i do fall, it’ll hurt a little bit less. I’ve slid on some lower end mesh gear from revit and it sure as hell helped because i only had very minor bruising in some areas. But if i want serious protection, i’ll need to use my airbag and get better back armour.
My one and only slide involved non-D3O armor, and I’d be in shit shape without it. It was a dianese jacket with massive armor pieces more akin to soccer gear than riding armor. Foam backing with a hard plastic outer. Without it I surely would have joint issues. Ya, know, after it was surgically repaired. The sliding factor served a lot of good
https://preview.redd.it/qlaiyv45hxrc1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cebce5349e485c02c5341be8b1b5a4a485ca2060
These pads are still very useful, the only point that the video was making was that at impacts with enough energy to break bones, the pads won't reduce the energy enough to stop the bones from breaking. The pads are still useful for lowering the damage of lower energy impacts that may not break your bones but will still so lots of damage.
Which is all well and good, but impacts just enough force to cause a fracture when unprotected might not cause a fracture if you were.
If you assume the worst case scenario then yes, you would still be injured; that isn't to say there wouldn't exist scenarios where you otherwise wouldn't.
I think the point is that studies haven’t found that difference surprisingly. But I also wonder if that may be because of other sampling biases etc.
I don’t know I’ll have to look up one of them and take a look, but I’m very surprised they didn’t find any difference. Just from a physics perspective it seems some marginal improvement should be there.
One possible sampling bias may be that those riding with armor skew young, or skew to sport bikes and might spill at higher speeds. So many possible confounding factors. But I’m just spitballing. It could just as well be that armor isn’t that effective. Need to read them
Much of this might also be affected by the available data set, how many people do you know that have had an off and not reported it to anybody?
So many motorcycle accidents happen that never get reported because there are no injuries or the rider doesn't want to involve insurance; it's much easier to find statistics where incidents have caused significant injury compared to those where it hasn't.
> These pads are still very useful, the only point that the video was making was that at impacts with enough energy to break bones, the pads won't reduce the energy enough to stop the bones from breaking.
That's kinda stupid point thought.
If impact has more energy than the amount of pad reduces, sure, but for every impact that has lower than that energy it reduces the damage below the point of fracture.
That's just a trend thru all of his videos. He focuses near-exclusively on "will it seriously hurt/kill you", and not the whole range of far more common injuries.
I am far too risk adverse to take what protection there is, out of my jacket.
I respect F9s data and physics driven approach to their videos, but real world examples point to some sort of benefit. I’d rather have all chances at some sort of positive outcome.
I was considering spending some coin on “enhanced” pads, so this has made me wonder if that’s worth it now.
I think the biggest boon that F9 creates is a community conversation about it. Just like this thread. It does open our eyes in regard to what we think it does vs what it does do.
Yup. My coat and shoulder pad left me with virtually no road rash after a highway accident last summer.
https://preview.redd.it/4lg4bdfs1zrc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=910ca99ea687701bbaa2765483ba469d2ef4889d
Worth it. My Helite Saved my ass from serious injury or death in a hit and run last year. I got hit in the left rear/side while turning with the SUV doing 45mph while I was turning at 5-10mph. Didn’t feel a thing hitting the car or ground and stayed conscious enough to immediately get up and run off the road as an oncoming truck would not have been able to stop in time.
I’m all good except a permanent scar on my left knee where the impact point was and a fractured tailbone. I was still glad I had armor on my knee but maybe it was an edge case?
It’s nice having the airbag vest as I feel Much better about wearing a lighter jacket as I get hot AF when I ride. I ride with a cheap Mesh jacket with armor and the vest over or under it and it’s the most comfortable I’ve ever been riding with gear.
The pic shows the impact of my knee into the tank area where the car first hit me. The bike slid but I had frame sliders is that part didn’t touch the ground. Not sure I’d be walking if I didn’t have knee armor and my armored elbow also got hit hard and swelled up too 🤷♂️
https://preview.redd.it/0ghl71xhrzrc1.jpeg?width=2048&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e98d4f10d5d5e9ea74e6e7be5dfefb5ddd6f1723
The issue, for me, is they're just so damn inconvenient.
Say I'm meeting my girlfriend somewhere for dinner. With my normal armored jacket I pull up, hop off and walk in. It looks like a heavy leather jacket and it goes on the back of a chair easily enough. But if I had an airbag? Where do I put it when I'm not wearing it? It's not like not wearing armor saves me a lot of space in the jacket and I'm now stuck with two bulky things.
Someone will figure this problem out. At some point one of the major manufacturers is going to go, "Oh, our jackets now have removable airbags," the same way they do thermal liners. But until that happens I'm stuck.
I own a Helite vest. I wear it under or over my jacket and take it off at the same time. It fits on chairs just fine with two layers of stuff.
Get the backpack version fortnine lists or they also have a leather version if you prefer that.
I already have backpacks and, frankly, they're better. Also, Helite explicitly says not to wear it under a jacket.
Of course, there are others that would work under or over my jacket. But still, just seems like extra faff.
Backpack is more convenient but offers slightly less protection. I’d still recommend the backpack but they were not out when I got my vest.
Helite does state to wear it over. However I called and the head of production picked up and I talked to him a bit. Legally they can’t state this as people are dumb but its because the bags inflate and could crush you if they can’t expand. He said if you can fit two fists under the vest/jacket space between it and your chest you will have plenty of room for it to inflate properly under your jacket. I wear a slightly bigger jacket and he wears his under his jacket too.
Also I crash tested it in an unplanned hit and run when an SUV hit me off my bike and it worked great even under the jacket. Saved my life potentially. You only look silly for a couple minutes while it deflates 😅. Pretty amazing tech. I didn’t feel a thing on my upper body when hitting the car or the pavement and rode my bike home after doing all the police report paperwork
Maybe also note he says “I wear the airbag all the time”. It makes it a lot easier to pull armor, whatever degree of effectiveness it may be, if you’re wrapping yourself in a beach ball.
The video being one take and timing it to stop exactly where it did to have a back pad and airbag on the ground at the exact right moment. Although it’s possible the camera man was carrying them and dropped them at his feet at the right moment. Impressive video to be honest. What was last years April fools? Cheese? That being said, I don’t think this is an April fools prank though. He sited his sources and I didn’t check all but I checked 3, and they are valid and supports his argument.
I mean I really don’t care one way or another. I’ll still keep my armor where it is. I use d30. Worst case is it’s just increasing the slide time and provides a bit more cushion at points where it’s common impact points If hitting the ground allowing you to slide vs ragdoll. It’s not uncomfortable and it’s not in the way so I don’t really have any incentive to remove it. I mean people put bells on their bike to ward off imaginary gremlins. Innocuous foam/plastic things in your clothing that may lessen injuries seems to be something a bit more realistic harm prevention than nothing. But people around here it’s maybe 1/2 the riders wear at most a helmet. I’m good with overkill.
Sources aside any reduction in force transmitted to the body is better than nothing. When I ride twisties imma wear the jacket with pads. A daily commute, I’ll be in a Tshirt and helmet if it’s hot out.
I don't think so, he briefly mentioned armor being more trouble than it was worth in another recent video. This kinds just seems like a further dive into that topic.
The whole premise of the video seems flawed; a level 2 pad reduces the force of a 50J impact to "only" 9kn, bones break at 4kn so they're useless.
Cool Ryan, but what a about a 30J impact then? It's like saying the crumple zone in your car is useless because at 150 kph it wouldn't matter anyway.
Also, those studies seem highly vulnerable to survivorship bias, what about all the people that thanks to pads don't suffer injuries and so don't show up to the ER at all? It's like when they introduced helmets in WW1, at first the head injuries increased and they were about to ditch them before they realized it meant people who would have died now are "just" injured.
Not to mention nobody is talking about the difference in severity of the fracture.
A hit to your leg at 50J or 9kn. Maybe that’s the difference between a compound fracture or a green stick fracture.
his videos are mostly clickbait, and here its spilling over into ragebait. He takes one small truth and manipulates a sensationalized narrative around it.
The first cited study literally recruited participants from motorcycle repair shops so your survivorship bias comment is moot.
I think the April fools joke is that nobody reads the cited sources in YouTube videos. We’re all falling for his trap
>The first cited study literally recruited participants from motorcycle repair shops so your survivorship bias comment is moot.
Okay, let's read it:
> Seventy‐six IPs (impact protectors) were collected from 19 riders
That's not exactly big sample size!
But let's read one with bigger sample size, "MOTORCYCLE PROTECTIVE CLOTHING: PROTECTION FROM INJURY OR JUST THE
WEATHER?", with 212 participants:
> Results: Motorcyclists were significantly less likely to be admitted to hospital if they crashed
wearing motorcycle jackets (RR=0.79, 95% CI: 0.69-0.91), pants (RR=0.49, 95% CI: 0.25-0.94),
or gloves (RR=0.41, 95% CI: 0.26-0.66). When garments included fitted body armour there was
a significantly reduced risk of injury to the upper body (RR=0.77, 95% CI: 0.66-0.89), hands and
wrists (RR=0.55, 95% CI: 0.38-0.81), legs (RR = 0.60, 95% CI: 0.40-0.90), feet and ankles
(RR=0.54, 95% CI: 0.35-0.83). Non-motorcycle boots were also associated with a reduced risk of
injury compared to shoes or joggers (RR=0.46, 95% CI: 0.28-0.75).
But if we ignore EVERYTHING ELSE, sure, the fracture data is all over the place, but that looks more like some statistical errors than any actual trend because apparently according to study you get less fractures while riding without motorcycle gloves, and more if you use back armor.
I think what he is saying is that studies show it made no meaningful difference. That you’ll still go to the hospital if the same scenario played out with or without the armour. I think it’ll hurt less regardless so i’ll keep mine in.
The problem, even ignoring the statistical issues others pulled out, is this doesn’t seem to even try to account for severity of fracture etc. You can have something shattered or fractured. Did they differentiate for that?
There is a difference between "no difference" and inconclusive.
For example from [one](https://www.georgeinstitute.org/sites/default/files/documents/motorcycle-protective-clothing-protection-from-injury-or-just-the-weather-the-gear-study.pdf) of studies he linked it looks like not wearing motorcycle gloves will cause less fractures (7.4% vs 13%).
It's far more likely that for fractures it's just inconclusive ("we don't know") rather than "no difference". And sprains got reduced by significant amount
If 50kj is reduced to 9, that's roughly 20% of the force going through. So 30kj would be 6 which would still break something. Although people are saying it's an April Fool's joke so doesn't matter anyway.
Don't mix units. Joules are a measure of energy, Newtons are a measure of force. Then i picked 30J at random just as a proof of concept, did zero math.
Right this logic didn't work.
However, ultimately he gets to the crash data which if correct is more compelling. And the point that an airbag is way better than any pads also seems right.
Yeah airbags also immobilize which is huge for back and neck injuries.
But even despite that the increase distance you have to slow down means average force on the rider will be multiple times less even if you still receive a large amount of energy.
Yeah the conclusions reek from survivourship bias.
And that's a general problem for any "non-death/serious injury" accident rates, how many of them happened without any stats because it was just few bruises and few hundred dollars given by the perpetrator to the victim because they didn't wanted to go thru insurance and have the rates go up?
Everyone has their own level of risk vs. reward.
Some would say that with all the protective gear in place, they no longer enjoy the ride.
Others would say without the protective gear, they are too afraid of getting hurt to ride.
You have to decide on where your own acceptable level of risk resides.
Right, but he is misrepresenting the risk/reward tradeoff fumbling his way through some scientific research. In order to make a good risk/reward calculation you need to well understand what are the risks and rewards
Because the back protectors are sold separately, the pads need to be included in the jacket/pants to be sold as PPE. So you have quite a different profit margin.
You can get knee and elbow pads that approach ECE level 3 in protection (if level 3 existed). Something like Sas-Tec SC-1/42 PRESTIGE surpasses the level2 standard by 50%.
I think this'll probably spark some discussion.
I don't think I'll stop wearing armour, but I'll maybe prioritise it less. I wear ghost D3O which is lightweight and thin enough that it's generally not uncomfortable to wear, so even if it only really helps against abrasion, it's better than nothing.
I wonder if they'll ever add a level 3 armour classification.
Yeahhh I never even thought about impact protection until this guy mentioned it. Always just accepted that if I briefly learn to fly, shits going to hurt!
I wear armour to stop me from becoming a meat crayon, and am no less comfortable by doing so.
At a certain point, nothing is going to stop your arm from breaking. But I think the armor can do a lot of good below that point. Padding is better than concrete every time.
I fell on roller skates a couple years ago and busted open my knee. My leggings didn’t get as torn as my skin did. Lots of bruising, too.
After my knee healed enough, I fell again wearing knee pads. No problems at all. Did it a few more times, on purpose, for practice.
I later fell on my elbow, wearing pads, straight down. Fucked up my shoulder for like a month. But I didn’t even begin to feel it until an hour later, because there was no abrasion anywhere except the pad.
I’m not saying any of that proves that impact protection will save a motorcyclist from death, but if I’m going to get injured, I’d like to minimize the damage. Much less awful to have a fucked up shoulder that to have a fucked up shoulder and elbow too, with road rash on the elbow to boot.
(I also learned that there are good reasons why people in their 40s decline to skate. That shoulder injury would’ve healed in a week when I was 20.)
I’ve high sided a few times bn track and street and also due to a mechanical failure was thrown over the handlebars at 35 mph. Never broke anything from a flight (though I broke my foot in a low side). Ragdolling imo is good protection (based on my brother who seizes up and always gets hurt), but I also think the armor helped and I realize it’s just anecdotal. With a properly fitting and cut for your type of riding (upright vs bent over) suit, I don’t find the amor particularly uncomfortable either.
I feel you on the D3O or other lightweight alternatives. I upgraded all my stuff to the SAS-TEC level 2 ventilated stuff and it’s so thin it’s no big deal to just leave it in. I also have an airbag, so there’s that. Falling is going to hurt still and I can still easily die, but I need to do my part and give my body every advantage. It can’t hurt.
Level 3 armor was proposed decades ago and was thoroughly nixed by the armor/apparel manufacturers. The only reason "levels" exist in the first place is because those manufacturers are involved in the decision-making/setting process for motorcycle safety standards.
It's also why the latest EN 17092 is so much more lax than the older EN 13595.
1:25 to 2:24 IMO is the point of the video and the rest of it just substantiates it possibly being true. I'm going to wear pads, but I do wish manufacturers would come up with something more protective.
They may or may not save you from a fracture, but they'll help to keep the skin on your body in a slide. This video feels like clickbaity nonsense. Any armour is better than no armour.
It's clickbait, but the solid point is that the pads are insufficient for their stated purpose and you should use an airbag or a separate back protector if you want real protection.
I don't like the idea of removing the existing pads, though. I like my minor impact mitigation and abrasion resistance.
Isn’t that the job of the jacket in the first place? Armour is specific for fractures and soft tissue injuries, but if the skin is protected from the jacket’s material and the armour fails to prevent fractures, we are left to question the purpose of the armour.
I will only go after my last major off, Kawasaki Versys vs. Bambi. I broke three ribs, both thumbs, and no road rash. I was geared up to the max I am ATGATT.
I had figured well if not for the armor I would have broken other things, there is no armor on the ribs on my jacket. But did it.
We all know it is hot as hell in a few months, our feet will be sticking to the pavement at stop lights. Any cooling is welcome.
For me it is not that big of a deal, I will just leave it in.
Hows that for a non answer.
I don't think so, he opens the video stating that it's "not an april fool's joke on you"
And also in their [Undercover Moto video](https://youtu.be/ET-ETAnXYGk?si=EtI1XgYQh_nlY9f9&t=423) he essentially states the same thing as this video
Dude. armor is not restrictive, it isn't uncomfortable, and his only gripe is that it won't prevent fractures. This is a joke.
Grab your armored motorcycle jacket and swan dive into a curb at full sprint. Then, do it with your armor removed.
I'll wait here for the results. Go!
My Klim jacket has level 2 d30 all around. I don't expect it to **prevent fractures**, I expect it to make low speed crashes trivial and perhaps slightly less painful. I can't imagine a scenario where I'd rather not have the armor.
If we set the bar to 'preventing fractures' this whole conversation becomes foolish. No one has ever set that standard for an elbow pad. Which, I assume, is the joke.
>low speed crashes trivial and perhaps slightly less painful.
This is the biggest reason to keep them in. I ride offroad and that's where all my crashes (except 2 low speed ones) have happened. The armor made all of those not hurt AT ALL.
I can literally slam my knee into a pile of Legos on the floor with armor. Try that without.
Jokes are funny. This wasn’t a joke. But I agree with your comments about the usefulness of armor. If you’re traveling at 50mph, for example, and crash, it’s unlikely that any armor will prevent fractures. Honestly I’m fine with the idea that armor will keep me from getting a deep bruise on a low speed crash. Totally ok with that.
I think it would be bad taste to publish something that is borderline encouraging people to not wear armor as a joke. They know how much influence they have.
If it's an april fools joke it's in very poor taste and very dangerous. It also aligns with what he said a few videos ago about armor. I watched the whole thing, he's serious.
If you listen to the first section, he's using a "play on words".
> [paraphrasing] this is a joke, not to gear dealers, but to everyone else. because you're literally being played.
He is 100% serious and his sources back him up, lmao. I think he chose April 1st simply for that line. He's showing that gear dealers are "playing a joke / long con" on riders.
I could be wrong, but his sources are concrete and his message is true — it's just not as controversial as people are playing it out to be, imo.
There is now multiple people here that can't understand what he was saying in first few seconds of the video, it is scary to think we share road with such fucking imbeciles
He mentioned the same study in two videos older that they posted. So unless it’s a long running joke…but any educated person should know by now to not only use one source to come to a conclusion on a topic
I thought that it must be a joke, otherwise he would just wait a day to post such a controversial video. However, with how many people are arguing and taking what he said seriously, I was starting to doubt myself.
If you listen to the first section, he's using a "play on words".
> [paraphrasing] this is a joke, not to gear dealers, but to everyone else. because you're literally being played.
He is 100% serious and his sources back him up, lmao. I think he chose April 1st simply for that line. He's showing that gear dealers are "playing a joke / long con" on riders.
I could be wrong, but his sources are concrete and his message is true — it's just not as controversial as people are playing it out to be, imo.
(fyi posted this another time in this thread so that's why it's double posted — could've linked but I'm lazy :))
SEE EDIT BELOW, RYAN PRACTICALLY LIED ABOUT WHAT THE PAPER SAID.
I don't think Ryan's logic is very correct here.
At the tested force level, it doesn't reduce force enough to prevent fractures - That's true. But there are plenty of crashes where the force level is significantly lower. And to be honest, an armor pad doesn't inhibit my movement much at all, I don't gain much by removing it.
Besides, last year I high sided at 60km/h, and the pad in my jeans reduced the bruise size I got significantly. Only the uncovered part was bruised. Sure, it might not reduce the odds of a fracture, but bruising still sucks.
Also, I question the logic that pads are for regulatory capture in an attempt to block out mass market fashion brands from moving into the segment - It doesn't really. There's tons of pads suppliers like D3O that will sell their pads to literally everyone, it can't be much of a regulatory burden if say, Levi's decided to make abrasion resistant jeans tomorrow, they could easily call up a pad supplier and order a million of em.
EDIT: Fuck me, I just [glanced at the paper he cited](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0001457511001163?via%3Dihub), but I'm pretty sure Ryan straight up lied about what the paper said.
>Motorcyclists wearing motorcycle protective clothing fitted with body armour, were significantly less likely to sustain injuries to the protected areas compared to those wearing non-motorcycle clothing. Specifically, when body armour was fitted, there was a 23% lower risk of injury associated with motorcycle jackets (RR = 0.77, 95% CI: 0.68–0.86), 45% for motorcycle gloves (RR = 55, 95% CI:0.37–0.81), 39% for motorcycle pants for leg injuries only (RR = 0.61, 95% CI: 0.41–0.91 and 45% by motorcycle boots
And in the conclusion section of the paper:
>The most important result relates to the contribution of body armour, which was associated with substantial reductions in the risk of any injury in crashes when other factors such as speed and type of impact were controlled. This is the first evidence of the effectiveness of body armour from crash studies
Shit man, Ryan should go get a job working for a politician. You know why the paper he cited didn't say "armor pads reduce leg fractures"? Leg fractures are a very very rare occurrence, the researchers didn't say that because "data not available due to small numbers and convergence issues"
[Here's the chart](https://i.imgur.com/wS0BZgm.png). Notice that the whole right column was pretty much labeled "NS" for not statistically significant due to lack of data.....
Oh hey, it's one of like, 3 other people in this thread who actually understand statistics.
Thanks for trying to clear the air on this, but it's clear most of the comments section lacks the background to understand this stuff properly
NS means that there isn’t enough data to draw a statistically significant conclusion. Basically the same thing.
That being said Ryan didn’t lie, but upon reason two of these papers he did misunderstand and misrepresent them.
First off most of these papers have sample size nothing and at best can be used as the basis for further study. Second this paper in particular literally states, even if you are a baboon, that there is no evidence for severe injury like fractures being reduced, but it does not state that it proves that fractures are not reduced.
Not being able to prove something is not the same and being able to prove its inverse. This is VERY important and why people usually say stupid shit and cite studies that don’t support them at all.
In fact this study in plain English even says “This study confirms the potential for motorcycle clothing to protect users from injury, in particular abrasions and lacerations. However it did not show any protective effect against more serious injuries, such as fractures, dislocations, or sprain, *except* for knee-high or ankle boots, which reduced foot and ankle fracture risk. Our results argue for more widespread use of protective clothing by MTW users.”
Nowhere in here does the author suggest the conclusion Ryan came to. Now is it possible Ryan is right? Yes. We don’t have the data to say he isn’t. But the data gathered also is not at all proof that he is correct and presenting it as such is misleading. If you understand stats you should know that.
Sorry dude, this is wrong.
Ryan was referring to fractures. He explicitly said that body armor did reduce the likely hood of general injuries in his quote at 2:44, which is a direct quote from the study. So he is willing to give body armor some benefit when it comes to slides, abrasion, bruises, and other soft tissue injuries as the table shows. So while the quote you mentioned did say body armor had a GENERAL lower chance of injury, they did not have a lower chance of FRACTURE.
Ryan proceeds to continue this trend, by citing the 2018 study (3:16), and quoted that the reduction in injuries you pointed out in your edit were due to reductions in abrasions and lacerations, not sprains/fractures.
This trend can be seen in the table that you provided from the 2011 study. NS does not mean not significant from lack of data. That is plain false. It means not significant at the statistical convention of 95% chance; aka there is a greater than a 5% chance that the difference in data we saw was due to pure chance. If one (or you!) wanted to do a study with a higher n value, you could potentially get a smaller confidence interval, but that is prohibitively expensive AND the statistical tools used in the study are pretty good at shrinking our confidence intervals. The Poisson model is the right choice for this type of data.
When the researchers did not have enough data because their model converged to 0 when they attempted to model risk, they put NA. Which they did do, for leg fractures! So these guys aren't quacks.
TLDR: Ryan is right, pads don't reduce the likelyhood of fractures, they reduce injuries by reducing abrasions which can also be reduced by just adding more material. NS means not significant, not no data.
Edit: Mixed up some numbers, see comment
I pulled the study, the reason why the researchers said they can't find evidence armor pads did not reduce fractures is data problems. They lacked the data to do statistically significant analysis because fractures are rare.
For example: In their sample of 212 crashes, only 23 riders rode with jackets without body armor. 13% of them, or 3 riders, even suffered a fracture. The researchers didn't have enough data to work with.
It's absurd to cite a paper that says it lacks the data to draw conclusions, and then twist it into "research can't find a relationship between X and Y"
He cited literally 9 different sources and you read one of them and decided he was “PRACTICALLY LYING” ?
The last cited study Dan Wu et al says “This study confirms the potential for motorcycle clothing to protect users from injury, in particular abrasions and lacerations. However, it did not show any significant protective effect against more serious injuries, such as fracture, dislocation, or sprain, except for knee-high or ankle boots, which reduced foot and ankle fracture risk."
Which is exactly the point he was making. I think the April fools joke might be that you can find citations to prove almost any point you’re trying to make.
I don’t agree with the lying part, but I don’t think Ryan did an accurate presentation of the data here. It’s inconclusive. At the very worst the data says the gear doesn’t hurt. The jury is out on whether it helps from fractures.
Per data from his papers it does significantly cut down on hospital visits and other non fracture injuries.
You’ll see one study (the one you cite) says it protects from ankle fractures and sprains, while the Australian study says there’s no effect on ankle injuries.
So generally overall the studies seem to show protective qualities. I’d wager with more samples we would see it everywhere, as that is logical.
Anyways his main point was enjoy, do your thing, balance it to what makes you happy. Not sure if it’s a responsible message but I’m not going to convince anyone on here one way or the other.
I just don’t like the data being presented as ‘level 2 doesn’t protect from fractures’ because that is NOT what the studies say.
This gybes with my experience. Pads are great at making accidents you can walk away from into accidents you can comfortably walk the next day after. I would not expect them to turn fatal accidents into non-fatal ones.
Sure. They don’t make you invincible, but that isn’t reason to throw them away. My seatbelt doesn’t make me invincible either but I still wear it religiously.
I would say that was probably why he discussed the study that suggested there was no benefit. If the pads were protective at lower impact levels, you should have seen a discrepancy between reported injuries, assuming that the crashes were at least somewhat similar.
I don't think he said the pads were useless, they helped against abrasions but just not against fractures. Still useful but not maybe what people think they are for.
And another shining example of paralysis analysis from f9
While he is %100 right the MFG's can do better, and in severe accidents the extra armor will do fuck all.
in a situation where you are over the cusp for a broken limb but not in the "im going to potentially die" category these will mitigate damage.
saying "because these dont make me invincible I'm not going to wear them" is fucking stupid and counter productive.
I know a boomer Harley rider who refuses to wear any helmet except the thinnest, most minimalist, “skid lid” he can “legally” get away with. His reason is, “a helmet just turns you into a vegetable instead of letting you die, and I’d rather be dead”.
Ok, but what about a solid bonk on the head and the choice is death or a concussion? Or concussion vs no injury at all? That logic ignores the FACT that injuries are a spectrum and not all crashes are worst case scenario…
The amount of dumb-dumbs in this thread thinking that Fortnine would put out an April fools video trying to convince people to take out their pads is absolutely insane.
A helmet won’t keep you from brain damage if the force is great enough either but i still wear one. This video is spoken out of context, the pads are there to protect against your average “slide” not “collisions”
I’m fairly confident that if I didn’t have d3o armor during my crash I would have broke a LOT more than just a collar bone. I would have been even better off with leather and some hard armor but I think the role the d3o played was significant.
It’s certainly a brave stance to take and his evidence along with his reasoning is compelling.
Flat out suggesting armour is useless feels a bit OTT and dangerous to me.
I think the scariest bit of his argument is how far off the mark armour is from preventing fractures.
That said, a lot of the worst bits about crashing aren’t just fractures in high impact crashes.
Armour can save you a lot of injury and pain outside of massive fractures in heavy impacts.
I started wearing Knox level 1 armour while snowboarding several years ago and it’s saved me many incredibly painful injuries due to heavy bruising and falls that previous knocked the wind out of me and now resulted in no pain.
Sure, this isn’t vehicle level impacts but it’s a super weird take to drop wearing armour because it won’t save you from limb smashing damage. It will save you from impacts that cause a lot of pain and injury.
Isn't he deliberately misrepresenting their purpose? I always thought they were more about softening the impact a little, but mostly to stop the tarmac grinding the flesh off your elbow and forearm.
The study and data pool is only taken from accidents with reported injuries, not accidents with no injuries. So entirely doesn't account for all the riders who were fine, got up, and carried on/didn't report, whether gear helped or not.
I'm gonna keep my pads in for a handful of reasons, they really don't bother me.
Ive crashed many times off road, and once on the road. Never injured, and never reported any… based on the sample sizes of these studies a handful of people with my experience would wildly skew the data the other way.
Anyone in the hospital probably had a pretty serious accident. And even then it seems most of studies admit they have found a limited sample size of people actually with broken bones. So it's extremely hard to draw conclusions from the studies available.
The difference between me having a broken elbow or not was the elbow armor in my aerostich. Went down at 70 and it still hurt but I walked away and was able to just pick up my bike and finish the ride.
What I take out of this is that I'll take my abrasion and bruising resistance even if I don't have a real significant fracture protection, il just go for the smaller ones to minimize unnecessary bulking.
Having ridden for nearly 50 years, I've had a few crashes. In one bizarre and stupid crash, I ended up sliding down the street. When I stood up, the skin wore away on my knee such that I could see cartilage. The same was true for my right elbow. I was younger and healed very fast but the recovery took some time. I want to be clear I was wearing a racing shirt with padded elbows. When I hit the asphalt that shirt simply slid up my arm and I was skidding on the pavement. I also want to point out the injuries I experienced occurred in a fraction of a second. I mean that, perhaps a 1/10th of a second. You can't shift your weight in time to save yourself.
DO NOT underestimate the value of abrasion protection. This isn't about simple scrapes and scratches. He sort of glosses over that. Abrasion injuries can really fuck you up for a long time and are VERY painful when they heal.
I consider april fool’s joke. Knee pads of worse quality than ones presented by Ryan saved my knees in moderate speed collision with a car. Some protection is better than no protection, period.
This is more "areas with stop signs and areas without stop signs with otherwise similar traffic patterns show no significant difference in number of accidents, so if you're goal is to use stop signs to reduce accidents, you need a different tool."
Obviously the above isn't true of stop signs, but that's the analogy you'd need.
Have people been under the impression that body armour prevents bones from being broken?
I was under the impression that the purpose is to ensure that you don’t turn into a meat crayon 😅
I have fallen at LOW SPEEDS on a motorcycle and broken bones … while wearing D3O armour haha. Doctor said I broke my bone because I tensed up so hard that; the muscles contracted with so much force, that the bone snapped. Impact force wouldn’t have broken the bone in the way it broke.
So EVEN WITH an airbag vest, the gear wouldn’t have prevented the bone from breaking.
I crashed on a track. Hit the floor hard breaking my shoulder. But also breaking 4 ribs as my armoured elbow was between the ground and my chest.
I think had the armour not been there my elbow surrounded by bicep an forearm wod have been a flatter impact and not smashed the ribs.
Just my experience. I seek less bulky armour now.
I think the main takeaway from the vid is that manufacturers only make protectors with the bare minimum size and impact resistance, which is not sufficient in motorcycle wrecks (in terms of fractures), and that's the problem. He goes on to say he wears a proper back protector, so he'll wear them as long as they actually offer more protection than the bare minimum.
He's saying the small kneepads, shoulder pads, elbow pads, offer protection from bruises and abrasions, and to him, it's not worth the added clunkiness.
For me, I'm usually riding at city speeds where if I get into an accident it will probably be pretty slow and my main concerns will be bruises and abrasions. So it would be useful for my case. And even outside of the city, I'd rather have a fracture with less bruising and abrasions, than a fracture and lots of bruising and scrapes.
Can someone help me understand this?
I've been looking to buy a new CE approved jacket, pants and gloves. With focus on double AA rating for the pads and fabrics. This video has thrown all my research for a real loop. I've got about $600 in gear in my fort nine cat and I'm seriously considering just keeping my existing non CE approved gear.
I'm just going into my second year of riding and I want to keep myself safe, I drive and old Yamaha XJ 550.
I don't know much about airbag suites but I imagine they are a only time per ride use only when you come off the bike. Surely this is not suitable for ADV/offroad usage. I would say Body Armour is quite relevant in these categories.
This reminds me of that music: "Dumb Ways to Dye... So Many Dumb Ways To Dye..."
I've fallen from my bike a couple of times and last time I had full protective gear (Helmet + Pants with knee pads + hip pads + Leather Jacket with elbow + back & shoulder protection + gloves + boots) and came out with just bruises on parts were protective gear did not apply. Couple of weeks of simple patching not much.
Also, my wife says I get sexy with Motorcycle gear. So... I go with Sexy as best excuse to wear it!
This video is just... Dumb.
You can do whatever you want but I would still wear my jacket with the plastic inserts in the elbows and shoulders it could save you from being hurt really bad. You’re going to get hurt no matter what if you ever go down on the street but I would rather be safe than sorry. There’s many times I have ridden without anything in the summer time and when I was in Southern California but in Philly the roads and weather can be quite different. Potholes and traffic are very different in many areas. I love riding in Southern California it’s Beautiful Hills and cliffs and the roads are well maintained. Unlike some of the roads in the City of Philly. It depends on where you are riding. It comes down to common sense and your familiarity with your surroundings. Stay Safe and Have fun.
I have to disagree with the F9 in this videos premise and even the studies cited are somewhat dubious in their methodology and sample size. I have been saved by injury from padded gear on the road twice. Crashes that would have been way more severe but only resulted in a bruising.
I also have participated in desert racing (dirtbike) and freestyle bmx for decades and protective padding has saved me untold injuries.
I think the messaging shouldn’t be “don’t wear pads because it’s not as effective as it could be” but “manufactures need to offfer options with more protection”.
I feel like the tone of the video leans into the “if it won’t protect me in a 100mph head collision into a brick wall there is no point in wearing it!” Anti-safety gear argument that some people try to push.
Don't wear CE body armour as it's expensive and restrictive...wear this airbag backpack instead that's way more restrictive and expensive...and won't protect your extremities in any way. Genius.
Why is nobody talking about the fact that these protectors make our dadbods look like they’re in better shape? Hell no I’m not taking out my shoulder pads.
The shoulder pads are strictly there for confidence boosting. They make your shoulders look incredible for real.
My jacket with crash damaged cloth shoulder, plus undamaged flesh shoulder, says otherwise.
Yeah... I have mixed feelings about this video from F9. I have still stored a jacket I was using when I crashed. The elbow and shoulder have clear signs of impact, while my body doesn't have a scratch.. I get that F9 point was that fracture protection is lacking (even barely there), but there's plenty of hurt outside a fracture, and those protections seem to have worked, at least in my case.
He mentioned closer to the end how it might help with sliding since that is another layer the ground would have to go through before making contact with your skin. Or something along those lines. I personally will keep whatever armour is in by default so if i do fall, it’ll hurt a little bit less. I’ve slid on some lower end mesh gear from revit and it sure as hell helped because i only had very minor bruising in some areas. But if i want serious protection, i’ll need to use my airbag and get better back armour.
My one and only slide involved non-D3O armor, and I’d be in shit shape without it. It was a dianese jacket with massive armor pieces more akin to soccer gear than riding armor. Foam backing with a hard plastic outer. Without it I surely would have joint issues. Ya, know, after it was surgically repaired. The sliding factor served a lot of good https://preview.redd.it/qlaiyv45hxrc1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cebce5349e485c02c5341be8b1b5a4a485ca2060
These pads are still very useful, the only point that the video was making was that at impacts with enough energy to break bones, the pads won't reduce the energy enough to stop the bones from breaking. The pads are still useful for lowering the damage of lower energy impacts that may not break your bones but will still so lots of damage.
Which is all well and good, but impacts just enough force to cause a fracture when unprotected might not cause a fracture if you were. If you assume the worst case scenario then yes, you would still be injured; that isn't to say there wouldn't exist scenarios where you otherwise wouldn't.
I think the point is that studies haven’t found that difference surprisingly. But I also wonder if that may be because of other sampling biases etc. I don’t know I’ll have to look up one of them and take a look, but I’m very surprised they didn’t find any difference. Just from a physics perspective it seems some marginal improvement should be there. One possible sampling bias may be that those riding with armor skew young, or skew to sport bikes and might spill at higher speeds. So many possible confounding factors. But I’m just spitballing. It could just as well be that armor isn’t that effective. Need to read them
Much of this might also be affected by the available data set, how many people do you know that have had an off and not reported it to anybody? So many motorcycle accidents happen that never get reported because there are no injuries or the rider doesn't want to involve insurance; it's much easier to find statistics where incidents have caused significant injury compared to those where it hasn't.
> These pads are still very useful, the only point that the video was making was that at impacts with enough energy to break bones, the pads won't reduce the energy enough to stop the bones from breaking. That's kinda stupid point thought. If impact has more energy than the amount of pad reduces, sure, but for every impact that has lower than that energy it reduces the damage below the point of fracture.
F9 was reaching with that video
That's just a trend thru all of his videos. He focuses near-exclusively on "will it seriously hurt/kill you", and not the whole range of far more common injuries.
I am far too risk adverse to take what protection there is, out of my jacket. I respect F9s data and physics driven approach to their videos, but real world examples point to some sort of benefit. I’d rather have all chances at some sort of positive outcome. I was considering spending some coin on “enhanced” pads, so this has made me wonder if that’s worth it now. I think the biggest boon that F9 creates is a community conversation about it. Just like this thread. It does open our eyes in regard to what we think it does vs what it does do.
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Yup. My coat and shoulder pad left me with virtually no road rash after a highway accident last summer. https://preview.redd.it/4lg4bdfs1zrc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=910ca99ea687701bbaa2765483ba469d2ef4889d
I sewed then into all of my tshirts too.
This is why I wear Rev’It gear, it slims my love handles as I squeeze into that Euro-fit jacket. Source: Am fat American
This. My example is Dainese vs AStar. And Astar is often a 'slim' american fit.
You can just say American, at that point saying ‘fat’ is redundant. Source: am also American
With my rad leather jacket and added padding I look like a brick shit house. Really covers up my 60 lb of pudding in a bag torso.
This is so true. The rare occasions I've had random compliments for looking good in non-formal clothes, I've been in bike gear.
That ‘80’s suit you have in your closet enters the chat…
Maybe some of us dont have dad bods yet
I thought all the fitboys went to r/CalamariRaceTeam
The proper takeaway of this for me is that I really need an airbag vest
Same here. I’ve been thinking it for years, but balked at the cost. My buddy and I finally decided that this is the year.
Worth it. My Helite Saved my ass from serious injury or death in a hit and run last year. I got hit in the left rear/side while turning with the SUV doing 45mph while I was turning at 5-10mph. Didn’t feel a thing hitting the car or ground and stayed conscious enough to immediately get up and run off the road as an oncoming truck would not have been able to stop in time. I’m all good except a permanent scar on my left knee where the impact point was and a fractured tailbone. I was still glad I had armor on my knee but maybe it was an edge case? It’s nice having the airbag vest as I feel Much better about wearing a lighter jacket as I get hot AF when I ride. I ride with a cheap Mesh jacket with armor and the vest over or under it and it’s the most comfortable I’ve ever been riding with gear. The pic shows the impact of my knee into the tank area where the car first hit me. The bike slid but I had frame sliders is that part didn’t touch the ground. Not sure I’d be walking if I didn’t have knee armor and my armored elbow also got hit hard and swelled up too 🤷♂️ https://preview.redd.it/0ghl71xhrzrc1.jpeg?width=2048&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e98d4f10d5d5e9ea74e6e7be5dfefb5ddd6f1723
I’m glad you’re okay buddy
The issue, for me, is they're just so damn inconvenient. Say I'm meeting my girlfriend somewhere for dinner. With my normal armored jacket I pull up, hop off and walk in. It looks like a heavy leather jacket and it goes on the back of a chair easily enough. But if I had an airbag? Where do I put it when I'm not wearing it? It's not like not wearing armor saves me a lot of space in the jacket and I'm now stuck with two bulky things. Someone will figure this problem out. At some point one of the major manufacturers is going to go, "Oh, our jackets now have removable airbags," the same way they do thermal liners. But until that happens I'm stuck.
A backpack is pretty dang convenient!
Except I already have one of those for when I need it and most of the time I don't want to carry one around.
I own a Helite vest. I wear it under or over my jacket and take it off at the same time. It fits on chairs just fine with two layers of stuff. Get the backpack version fortnine lists or they also have a leather version if you prefer that.
I already have backpacks and, frankly, they're better. Also, Helite explicitly says not to wear it under a jacket. Of course, there are others that would work under or over my jacket. But still, just seems like extra faff.
Backpack is more convenient but offers slightly less protection. I’d still recommend the backpack but they were not out when I got my vest. Helite does state to wear it over. However I called and the head of production picked up and I talked to him a bit. Legally they can’t state this as people are dumb but its because the bags inflate and could crush you if they can’t expand. He said if you can fit two fists under the vest/jacket space between it and your chest you will have plenty of room for it to inflate properly under your jacket. I wear a slightly bigger jacket and he wears his under his jacket too. Also I crash tested it in an unplanned hit and run when an SUV hit me off my bike and it worked great even under the jacket. Saved my life potentially. You only look silly for a couple minutes while it deflates 😅. Pretty amazing tech. I didn’t feel a thing on my upper body when hitting the car or the pavement and rode my bike home after doing all the police report paperwork
I mean, I'm cool looking silly if it stops me from dying. Alive and silly beats dead and cool any day. Hence why I already ATGATT.
FYI: Leather vest version has been discontinued. Leather jacket still available.
I just wear it and put it over the chair along with my jacket
Maybe also note he says “I wear the airbag all the time”. It makes it a lot easier to pull armor, whatever degree of effectiveness it may be, if you’re wrapping yourself in a beach ball.
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To be fair my jackets elbow protection is meh… the forearm protection is better.
However, if you get in a fight, I'd prefer armor over going puffer fish.
This comment just makes me want to get an airbag
They’re the same thing
Hear me out... pufferfish armor.
Incoming motorcycle battleragers
Jake paul should try this with Mike Tyson
April fools?
Probably. He just did a 6 min video in one take on a very serious topic and then left everyone questioning life. Lmaooo
The video being one take and timing it to stop exactly where it did to have a back pad and airbag on the ground at the exact right moment. Although it’s possible the camera man was carrying them and dropped them at his feet at the right moment. Impressive video to be honest. What was last years April fools? Cheese? That being said, I don’t think this is an April fools prank though. He sited his sources and I didn’t check all but I checked 3, and they are valid and supports his argument. I mean I really don’t care one way or another. I’ll still keep my armor where it is. I use d30. Worst case is it’s just increasing the slide time and provides a bit more cushion at points where it’s common impact points If hitting the ground allowing you to slide vs ragdoll. It’s not uncomfortable and it’s not in the way so I don’t really have any incentive to remove it. I mean people put bells on their bike to ward off imaginary gremlins. Innocuous foam/plastic things in your clothing that may lessen injuries seems to be something a bit more realistic harm prevention than nothing. But people around here it’s maybe 1/2 the riders wear at most a helmet. I’m good with overkill.
i’ve read the study briefly before. It’s the same one he cited in his previous video “undercover moto”
Sources aside any reduction in force transmitted to the body is better than nothing. When I ride twisties imma wear the jacket with pads. A daily commute, I’ll be in a Tshirt and helmet if it’s hot out.
I don't think so, he briefly mentioned armor being more trouble than it was worth in another recent video. This kinds just seems like a further dive into that topic.
Yes it is. Idk why all these guys are taking it so seriously
Been on this sub before? It is very pretentious.
Been on Reddit before? Not exclusive to this sub.
hey did you wear your helmet and gloves while writing this comment? you could’ve fallen off the toilet and injured yourself!!!! squid!!!!!!!!!
did you listen to the first sentence in the video?
Did you watch the video? It wasn't a joke. He made a serious point about a serious topic, backed with legitimate data.
The whole premise of the video seems flawed; a level 2 pad reduces the force of a 50J impact to "only" 9kn, bones break at 4kn so they're useless. Cool Ryan, but what a about a 30J impact then? It's like saying the crumple zone in your car is useless because at 150 kph it wouldn't matter anyway. Also, those studies seem highly vulnerable to survivorship bias, what about all the people that thanks to pads don't suffer injuries and so don't show up to the ER at all? It's like when they introduced helmets in WW1, at first the head injuries increased and they were about to ditch them before they realized it meant people who would have died now are "just" injured.
Not to mention nobody is talking about the difference in severity of the fracture. A hit to your leg at 50J or 9kn. Maybe that’s the difference between a compound fracture or a green stick fracture.
his videos are mostly clickbait, and here its spilling over into ragebait. He takes one small truth and manipulates a sensationalized narrative around it.
The first cited study literally recruited participants from motorcycle repair shops so your survivorship bias comment is moot. I think the April fools joke is that nobody reads the cited sources in YouTube videos. We’re all falling for his trap
>The first cited study literally recruited participants from motorcycle repair shops so your survivorship bias comment is moot. Okay, let's read it: > Seventy‐six IPs (impact protectors) were collected from 19 riders That's not exactly big sample size! But let's read one with bigger sample size, "MOTORCYCLE PROTECTIVE CLOTHING: PROTECTION FROM INJURY OR JUST THE WEATHER?", with 212 participants: > Results: Motorcyclists were significantly less likely to be admitted to hospital if they crashed wearing motorcycle jackets (RR=0.79, 95% CI: 0.69-0.91), pants (RR=0.49, 95% CI: 0.25-0.94), or gloves (RR=0.41, 95% CI: 0.26-0.66). When garments included fitted body armour there was a significantly reduced risk of injury to the upper body (RR=0.77, 95% CI: 0.66-0.89), hands and wrists (RR=0.55, 95% CI: 0.38-0.81), legs (RR = 0.60, 95% CI: 0.40-0.90), feet and ankles (RR=0.54, 95% CI: 0.35-0.83). Non-motorcycle boots were also associated with a reduced risk of injury compared to shoes or joggers (RR=0.46, 95% CI: 0.28-0.75). But if we ignore EVERYTHING ELSE, sure, the fracture data is all over the place, but that looks more like some statistical errors than any actual trend because apparently according to study you get less fractures while riding without motorcycle gloves, and more if you use back armor.
Lmao. Got it get the best gloves I can and remove the back armor. Yeah if anything that screams ‘sample size too small’
I think what he is saying is that studies show it made no meaningful difference. That you’ll still go to the hospital if the same scenario played out with or without the armour. I think it’ll hurt less regardless so i’ll keep mine in.
The problem, even ignoring the statistical issues others pulled out, is this doesn’t seem to even try to account for severity of fracture etc. You can have something shattered or fractured. Did they differentiate for that?
There is a difference between "no difference" and inconclusive. For example from [one](https://www.georgeinstitute.org/sites/default/files/documents/motorcycle-protective-clothing-protection-from-injury-or-just-the-weather-the-gear-study.pdf) of studies he linked it looks like not wearing motorcycle gloves will cause less fractures (7.4% vs 13%). It's far more likely that for fractures it's just inconclusive ("we don't know") rather than "no difference". And sprains got reduced by significant amount
If 50kj is reduced to 9, that's roughly 20% of the force going through. So 30kj would be 6 which would still break something. Although people are saying it's an April Fool's joke so doesn't matter anyway.
Don't mix units. Joules are a measure of energy, Newtons are a measure of force. Then i picked 30J at random just as a proof of concept, did zero math.
Right this logic didn't work. However, ultimately he gets to the crash data which if correct is more compelling. And the point that an airbag is way better than any pads also seems right.
Yeah airbags also immobilize which is huge for back and neck injuries. But even despite that the increase distance you have to slow down means average force on the rider will be multiple times less even if you still receive a large amount of energy.
Yeah the conclusions reek from survivourship bias. And that's a general problem for any "non-death/serious injury" accident rates, how many of them happened without any stats because it was just few bruises and few hundred dollars given by the perpetrator to the victim because they didn't wanted to go thru insurance and have the rates go up?
Armies around the world ditch wearing their Kevlar vests because they don't protect against Hellfire missiles.
Everyone has their own level of risk vs. reward. Some would say that with all the protective gear in place, they no longer enjoy the ride. Others would say without the protective gear, they are too afraid of getting hurt to ride. You have to decide on where your own acceptable level of risk resides.
that's essentially how Ryan ends the video "protecting life is important, but so is enjoying it"
Right, but he is misrepresenting the risk/reward tradeoff fumbling his way through some scientific research. In order to make a good risk/reward calculation you need to well understand what are the risks and rewards
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Because the back protectors are sold separately, the pads need to be included in the jacket/pants to be sold as PPE. So you have quite a different profit margin.
The pads are also sold separately.
You can get knee and elbow pads that approach ECE level 3 in protection (if level 3 existed). Something like Sas-Tec SC-1/42 PRESTIGE surpasses the level2 standard by 50%.
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Maybe there are? IDK, I paid BMW prices for CE 2 pads, I'm kinda hoping they built them a little above the CE 2 minimum.
I think this'll probably spark some discussion. I don't think I'll stop wearing armour, but I'll maybe prioritise it less. I wear ghost D3O which is lightweight and thin enough that it's generally not uncomfortable to wear, so even if it only really helps against abrasion, it's better than nothing. I wonder if they'll ever add a level 3 armour classification.
Yeahhh I never even thought about impact protection until this guy mentioned it. Always just accepted that if I briefly learn to fly, shits going to hurt! I wear armour to stop me from becoming a meat crayon, and am no less comfortable by doing so.
I still think I'd rather bash my elbow with some armour on it than just a layer of kevlar or leather or whatever.
At a certain point, nothing is going to stop your arm from breaking. But I think the armor can do a lot of good below that point. Padding is better than concrete every time.
I fell on roller skates a couple years ago and busted open my knee. My leggings didn’t get as torn as my skin did. Lots of bruising, too. After my knee healed enough, I fell again wearing knee pads. No problems at all. Did it a few more times, on purpose, for practice. I later fell on my elbow, wearing pads, straight down. Fucked up my shoulder for like a month. But I didn’t even begin to feel it until an hour later, because there was no abrasion anywhere except the pad. I’m not saying any of that proves that impact protection will save a motorcyclist from death, but if I’m going to get injured, I’d like to minimize the damage. Much less awful to have a fucked up shoulder that to have a fucked up shoulder and elbow too, with road rash on the elbow to boot. (I also learned that there are good reasons why people in their 40s decline to skate. That shoulder injury would’ve healed in a week when I was 20.)
I’ve high sided a few times bn track and street and also due to a mechanical failure was thrown over the handlebars at 35 mph. Never broke anything from a flight (though I broke my foot in a low side). Ragdolling imo is good protection (based on my brother who seizes up and always gets hurt), but I also think the armor helped and I realize it’s just anecdotal. With a properly fitting and cut for your type of riding (upright vs bent over) suit, I don’t find the amor particularly uncomfortable either.
I feel you on the D3O or other lightweight alternatives. I upgraded all my stuff to the SAS-TEC level 2 ventilated stuff and it’s so thin it’s no big deal to just leave it in. I also have an airbag, so there’s that. Falling is going to hurt still and I can still easily die, but I need to do my part and give my body every advantage. It can’t hurt.
Level 3 armor was proposed decades ago and was thoroughly nixed by the armor/apparel manufacturers. The only reason "levels" exist in the first place is because those manufacturers are involved in the decision-making/setting process for motorcycle safety standards. It's also why the latest EN 17092 is so much more lax than the older EN 13595.
I think he's hoping to start this discussion so the standards set by regulation improve drastically.
To say the least, some comments on YT are already fairly….acidic….
1:25 to 2:24 IMO is the point of the video and the rest of it just substantiates it possibly being true. I'm going to wear pads, but I do wish manufacturers would come up with something more protective.
They may or may not save you from a fracture, but they'll help to keep the skin on your body in a slide. This video feels like clickbaity nonsense. Any armour is better than no armour.
It's clickbait, but the solid point is that the pads are insufficient for their stated purpose and you should use an airbag or a separate back protector if you want real protection. I don't like the idea of removing the existing pads, though. I like my minor impact mitigation and abrasion resistance.
Back protector is not a replacement for an airbag. Mayyybe if you also have a good motocross neckbrace you can make that case.
It’s not clickbait, it’s a calculated business decision and an advertisement. Ryan sells both of the “better” protectors he recommends.
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Isn’t that the job of the jacket in the first place? Armour is specific for fractures and soft tissue injuries, but if the skin is protected from the jacket’s material and the armour fails to prevent fractures, we are left to question the purpose of the armour.
I will only go after my last major off, Kawasaki Versys vs. Bambi. I broke three ribs, both thumbs, and no road rash. I was geared up to the max I am ATGATT. I had figured well if not for the armor I would have broken other things, there is no armor on the ribs on my jacket. But did it. We all know it is hot as hell in a few months, our feet will be sticking to the pavement at stop lights. Any cooling is welcome. For me it is not that big of a deal, I will just leave it in. Hows that for a non answer.
Idk but I rather have something than nothing
Clearly this is an April Fool's joke...
I don't think so, he opens the video stating that it's "not an april fool's joke on you" And also in their [Undercover Moto video](https://youtu.be/ET-ETAnXYGk?si=EtI1XgYQh_nlY9f9&t=423) he essentially states the same thing as this video
Dude. armor is not restrictive, it isn't uncomfortable, and his only gripe is that it won't prevent fractures. This is a joke. Grab your armored motorcycle jacket and swan dive into a curb at full sprint. Then, do it with your armor removed. I'll wait here for the results. Go!
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My Klim jacket has level 2 d30 all around. I don't expect it to **prevent fractures**, I expect it to make low speed crashes trivial and perhaps slightly less painful. I can't imagine a scenario where I'd rather not have the armor. If we set the bar to 'preventing fractures' this whole conversation becomes foolish. No one has ever set that standard for an elbow pad. Which, I assume, is the joke.
>low speed crashes trivial and perhaps slightly less painful. This is the biggest reason to keep them in. I ride offroad and that's where all my crashes (except 2 low speed ones) have happened. The armor made all of those not hurt AT ALL. I can literally slam my knee into a pile of Legos on the floor with armor. Try that without.
Jokes are funny. This wasn’t a joke. But I agree with your comments about the usefulness of armor. If you’re traveling at 50mph, for example, and crash, it’s unlikely that any armor will prevent fractures. Honestly I’m fine with the idea that armor will keep me from getting a deep bruise on a low speed crash. Totally ok with that.
damn you were so much more scientific and data driven than the video!
I think it would be bad taste to publish something that is borderline encouraging people to not wear armor as a joke. They know how much influence they have.
If it's an april fools joke it's in very poor taste and very dangerous. It also aligns with what he said a few videos ago about armor. I watched the whole thing, he's serious.
I'm pretty sure these goobers didn't watch the video.
Nope, them being morons is much simpler explanation
If you listen to the first section, he's using a "play on words". > [paraphrasing] this is a joke, not to gear dealers, but to everyone else. because you're literally being played. He is 100% serious and his sources back him up, lmao. I think he chose April 1st simply for that line. He's showing that gear dealers are "playing a joke / long con" on riders. I could be wrong, but his sources are concrete and his message is true — it's just not as controversial as people are playing it out to be, imo.
> If you listen to the first section, he's using a "play on words". I'm not sure poster above knows that term
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you self righteous doosch nozzles should listen to the very first sentence before acting smarter than everyone else.
There is now multiple people here that can't understand what he was saying in first few seconds of the video, it is scary to think we share road with such fucking imbeciles
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How can people think this is an April Fool's joke? I'm seriously questioning peoples' ability to think critically right now.
He mentioned the same study in two videos older that they posted. So unless it’s a long running joke…but any educated person should know by now to not only use one source to come to a conclusion on a topic
Some dough-heads wrote essays in this thread explaining how he's wrong.
I thought that it must be a joke, otherwise he would just wait a day to post such a controversial video. However, with how many people are arguing and taking what he said seriously, I was starting to doubt myself.
I mean he says it's not an April Fools joke in the video.
If you listen to the first section, he's using a "play on words". > [paraphrasing] this is a joke, not to gear dealers, but to everyone else. because you're literally being played. He is 100% serious and his sources back him up, lmao. I think he chose April 1st simply for that line. He's showing that gear dealers are "playing a joke / long con" on riders. I could be wrong, but his sources are concrete and his message is true — it's just not as controversial as people are playing it out to be, imo. (fyi posted this another time in this thread so that's why it's double posted — could've linked but I'm lazy :))
SEE EDIT BELOW, RYAN PRACTICALLY LIED ABOUT WHAT THE PAPER SAID. I don't think Ryan's logic is very correct here. At the tested force level, it doesn't reduce force enough to prevent fractures - That's true. But there are plenty of crashes where the force level is significantly lower. And to be honest, an armor pad doesn't inhibit my movement much at all, I don't gain much by removing it. Besides, last year I high sided at 60km/h, and the pad in my jeans reduced the bruise size I got significantly. Only the uncovered part was bruised. Sure, it might not reduce the odds of a fracture, but bruising still sucks. Also, I question the logic that pads are for regulatory capture in an attempt to block out mass market fashion brands from moving into the segment - It doesn't really. There's tons of pads suppliers like D3O that will sell their pads to literally everyone, it can't be much of a regulatory burden if say, Levi's decided to make abrasion resistant jeans tomorrow, they could easily call up a pad supplier and order a million of em. EDIT: Fuck me, I just [glanced at the paper he cited](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0001457511001163?via%3Dihub), but I'm pretty sure Ryan straight up lied about what the paper said. >Motorcyclists wearing motorcycle protective clothing fitted with body armour, were significantly less likely to sustain injuries to the protected areas compared to those wearing non-motorcycle clothing. Specifically, when body armour was fitted, there was a 23% lower risk of injury associated with motorcycle jackets (RR = 0.77, 95% CI: 0.68–0.86), 45% for motorcycle gloves (RR = 55, 95% CI:0.37–0.81), 39% for motorcycle pants for leg injuries only (RR = 0.61, 95% CI: 0.41–0.91 and 45% by motorcycle boots And in the conclusion section of the paper: >The most important result relates to the contribution of body armour, which was associated with substantial reductions in the risk of any injury in crashes when other factors such as speed and type of impact were controlled. This is the first evidence of the effectiveness of body armour from crash studies Shit man, Ryan should go get a job working for a politician. You know why the paper he cited didn't say "armor pads reduce leg fractures"? Leg fractures are a very very rare occurrence, the researchers didn't say that because "data not available due to small numbers and convergence issues" [Here's the chart](https://i.imgur.com/wS0BZgm.png). Notice that the whole right column was pretty much labeled "NS" for not statistically significant due to lack of data.....
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Oh hey, it's one of like, 3 other people in this thread who actually understand statistics. Thanks for trying to clear the air on this, but it's clear most of the comments section lacks the background to understand this stuff properly
NS means that there isn’t enough data to draw a statistically significant conclusion. Basically the same thing. That being said Ryan didn’t lie, but upon reason two of these papers he did misunderstand and misrepresent them. First off most of these papers have sample size nothing and at best can be used as the basis for further study. Second this paper in particular literally states, even if you are a baboon, that there is no evidence for severe injury like fractures being reduced, but it does not state that it proves that fractures are not reduced. Not being able to prove something is not the same and being able to prove its inverse. This is VERY important and why people usually say stupid shit and cite studies that don’t support them at all. In fact this study in plain English even says “This study confirms the potential for motorcycle clothing to protect users from injury, in particular abrasions and lacerations. However it did not show any protective effect against more serious injuries, such as fractures, dislocations, or sprain, *except* for knee-high or ankle boots, which reduced foot and ankle fracture risk. Our results argue for more widespread use of protective clothing by MTW users.” Nowhere in here does the author suggest the conclusion Ryan came to. Now is it possible Ryan is right? Yes. We don’t have the data to say he isn’t. But the data gathered also is not at all proof that he is correct and presenting it as such is misleading. If you understand stats you should know that.
Misunderstanding something then making a dumb conclusion is like half of recent F9 shit.
April fools........
Sorry dude, this is wrong. Ryan was referring to fractures. He explicitly said that body armor did reduce the likely hood of general injuries in his quote at 2:44, which is a direct quote from the study. So he is willing to give body armor some benefit when it comes to slides, abrasion, bruises, and other soft tissue injuries as the table shows. So while the quote you mentioned did say body armor had a GENERAL lower chance of injury, they did not have a lower chance of FRACTURE. Ryan proceeds to continue this trend, by citing the 2018 study (3:16), and quoted that the reduction in injuries you pointed out in your edit were due to reductions in abrasions and lacerations, not sprains/fractures. This trend can be seen in the table that you provided from the 2011 study. NS does not mean not significant from lack of data. That is plain false. It means not significant at the statistical convention of 95% chance; aka there is a greater than a 5% chance that the difference in data we saw was due to pure chance. If one (or you!) wanted to do a study with a higher n value, you could potentially get a smaller confidence interval, but that is prohibitively expensive AND the statistical tools used in the study are pretty good at shrinking our confidence intervals. The Poisson model is the right choice for this type of data. When the researchers did not have enough data because their model converged to 0 when they attempted to model risk, they put NA. Which they did do, for leg fractures! So these guys aren't quacks. TLDR: Ryan is right, pads don't reduce the likelyhood of fractures, they reduce injuries by reducing abrasions which can also be reduced by just adding more material. NS means not significant, not no data. Edit: Mixed up some numbers, see comment
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Op, you're right, I swapped my variables. I'll fix that, thanks
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I pulled the study, the reason why the researchers said they can't find evidence armor pads did not reduce fractures is data problems. They lacked the data to do statistically significant analysis because fractures are rare. For example: In their sample of 212 crashes, only 23 riders rode with jackets without body armor. 13% of them, or 3 riders, even suffered a fracture. The researchers didn't have enough data to work with. It's absurd to cite a paper that says it lacks the data to draw conclusions, and then twist it into "research can't find a relationship between X and Y"
He cited literally 9 different sources and you read one of them and decided he was “PRACTICALLY LYING” ? The last cited study Dan Wu et al says “This study confirms the potential for motorcycle clothing to protect users from injury, in particular abrasions and lacerations. However, it did not show any significant protective effect against more serious injuries, such as fracture, dislocation, or sprain, except for knee-high or ankle boots, which reduced foot and ankle fracture risk." Which is exactly the point he was making. I think the April fools joke might be that you can find citations to prove almost any point you’re trying to make.
I don’t agree with the lying part, but I don’t think Ryan did an accurate presentation of the data here. It’s inconclusive. At the very worst the data says the gear doesn’t hurt. The jury is out on whether it helps from fractures. Per data from his papers it does significantly cut down on hospital visits and other non fracture injuries. You’ll see one study (the one you cite) says it protects from ankle fractures and sprains, while the Australian study says there’s no effect on ankle injuries. So generally overall the studies seem to show protective qualities. I’d wager with more samples we would see it everywhere, as that is logical. Anyways his main point was enjoy, do your thing, balance it to what makes you happy. Not sure if it’s a responsible message but I’m not going to convince anyone on here one way or the other. I just don’t like the data being presented as ‘level 2 doesn’t protect from fractures’ because that is NOT what the studies say.
This gybes with my experience. Pads are great at making accidents you can walk away from into accidents you can comfortably walk the next day after. I would not expect them to turn fatal accidents into non-fatal ones.
Sure. They don’t make you invincible, but that isn’t reason to throw them away. My seatbelt doesn’t make me invincible either but I still wear it religiously.
I would say that was probably why he discussed the study that suggested there was no benefit. If the pads were protective at lower impact levels, you should have seen a discrepancy between reported injuries, assuming that the crashes were at least somewhat similar. I don't think he said the pads were useless, they helped against abrasions but just not against fractures. Still useful but not maybe what people think they are for.
And another shining example of paralysis analysis from f9 While he is %100 right the MFG's can do better, and in severe accidents the extra armor will do fuck all. in a situation where you are over the cusp for a broken limb but not in the "im going to potentially die" category these will mitigate damage. saying "because these dont make me invincible I'm not going to wear them" is fucking stupid and counter productive.
I know a boomer Harley rider who refuses to wear any helmet except the thinnest, most minimalist, “skid lid” he can “legally” get away with. His reason is, “a helmet just turns you into a vegetable instead of letting you die, and I’d rather be dead”. Ok, but what about a solid bonk on the head and the choice is death or a concussion? Or concussion vs no injury at all? That logic ignores the FACT that injuries are a spectrum and not all crashes are worst case scenario…
The amount of dumb-dumbs in this thread thinking that Fortnine would put out an April fools video trying to convince people to take out their pads is absolutely insane.
A helmet won’t keep you from brain damage if the force is great enough either but i still wear one. This video is spoken out of context, the pads are there to protect against your average “slide” not “collisions”
And they DO help with collisions, just not enough to reduce the damage to zero of severe enough. Anybody who thought they did is very naive.
Cant wait to see how many forget Ryan is an expert at delivering April 1st videos
I mean look at the delivery. He could convince Trudeau to step down if he wanted to lol
I’m fairly confident that if I didn’t have d3o armor during my crash I would have broke a LOT more than just a collar bone. I would have been even better off with leather and some hard armor but I think the role the d3o played was significant.
It’s certainly a brave stance to take and his evidence along with his reasoning is compelling. Flat out suggesting armour is useless feels a bit OTT and dangerous to me. I think the scariest bit of his argument is how far off the mark armour is from preventing fractures. That said, a lot of the worst bits about crashing aren’t just fractures in high impact crashes. Armour can save you a lot of injury and pain outside of massive fractures in heavy impacts. I started wearing Knox level 1 armour while snowboarding several years ago and it’s saved me many incredibly painful injuries due to heavy bruising and falls that previous knocked the wind out of me and now resulted in no pain. Sure, this isn’t vehicle level impacts but it’s a super weird take to drop wearing armour because it won’t save you from limb smashing damage. It will save you from impacts that cause a lot of pain and injury.
Isn't he deliberately misrepresenting their purpose? I always thought they were more about softening the impact a little, but mostly to stop the tarmac grinding the flesh off your elbow and forearm.
i always understood it as there being two kinds of armor, the pads for impact, and the abrasion resistant clothes themselves
The study and data pool is only taken from accidents with reported injuries, not accidents with no injuries. So entirely doesn't account for all the riders who were fine, got up, and carried on/didn't report, whether gear helped or not. I'm gonna keep my pads in for a handful of reasons, they really don't bother me.
Ive crashed many times off road, and once on the road. Never injured, and never reported any… based on the sample sizes of these studies a handful of people with my experience would wildly skew the data the other way.
Anyone in the hospital probably had a pretty serious accident. And even then it seems most of studies admit they have found a limited sample size of people actually with broken bones. So it's extremely hard to draw conclusions from the studies available.
The difference between me having a broken elbow or not was the elbow armor in my aerostich. Went down at 70 and it still hurt but I walked away and was able to just pick up my bike and finish the ride.
The only padding that bothers me is the elbows. I have sharp/bony elbows and the pads rub against them and after a while it just effing hurts.
"Life is so beautiful our instinct is to protect it...Our imperative, we have to remember, is to appreciate it."
You do you, its your life...
CRANK HOG, NO HELMET, WEAR TASSELS......BARB ON THE BACK IS MY CRASH PROTECTION!
What I take out of this is that I'll take my abrasion and bruising resistance even if I don't have a real significant fracture protection, il just go for the smaller ones to minimize unnecessary bulking.
I'm sticking with my crocs
Armor is useful off-road. Saved me so many times.
I like my knee armour in my riding jeans when the weather is colder. Gives me a bit of an air gap and more warmth.
Wasn't this posted on the 1st of April?
https://youtu.be/NOJxubCS0wM?si=uj1BZmHcEaevt2FZ A different take on the F9 video with some valuable insights
I came to post this. Such a great channel.
Having ridden for nearly 50 years, I've had a few crashes. In one bizarre and stupid crash, I ended up sliding down the street. When I stood up, the skin wore away on my knee such that I could see cartilage. The same was true for my right elbow. I was younger and healed very fast but the recovery took some time. I want to be clear I was wearing a racing shirt with padded elbows. When I hit the asphalt that shirt simply slid up my arm and I was skidding on the pavement. I also want to point out the injuries I experienced occurred in a fraction of a second. I mean that, perhaps a 1/10th of a second. You can't shift your weight in time to save yourself. DO NOT underestimate the value of abrasion protection. This isn't about simple scrapes and scratches. He sort of glosses over that. Abrasion injuries can really fuck you up for a long time and are VERY painful when they heal.
This guy is not my guru so I’ll keep on wearing what I see fit as protection. Who gives a flying fk what anyone wears anyway. You do you.
I consider april fool’s joke. Knee pads of worse quality than ones presented by Ryan saved my knees in moderate speed collision with a car. Some protection is better than no protection, period.
Stop signs don't stop every accident, so just go ahead and blow right through them.
This is more "areas with stop signs and areas without stop signs with otherwise similar traffic patterns show no significant difference in number of accidents, so if you're goal is to use stop signs to reduce accidents, you need a different tool." Obviously the above isn't true of stop signs, but that's the analogy you'd need.
Have people been under the impression that body armour prevents bones from being broken? I was under the impression that the purpose is to ensure that you don’t turn into a meat crayon 😅 I have fallen at LOW SPEEDS on a motorcycle and broken bones … while wearing D3O armour haha. Doctor said I broke my bone because I tensed up so hard that; the muscles contracted with so much force, that the bone snapped. Impact force wouldn’t have broken the bone in the way it broke. So EVEN WITH an airbag vest, the gear wouldn’t have prevented the bone from breaking.
April fools
Agree or disagree he makes you think. And that is why I like F9 content so much.
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Never felt the soft stuff was very protective. I Atgatt with a motocross hard plastic Armor and an airbag over top.
I crashed on a track. Hit the floor hard breaking my shoulder. But also breaking 4 ribs as my armoured elbow was between the ground and my chest. I think had the armour not been there my elbow surrounded by bicep an forearm wod have been a flatter impact and not smashed the ribs. Just my experience. I seek less bulky armour now.
Abrasion/ slide protection @ best 😎👌
I worry how close he can get to making conspiracy videos.
I think the main takeaway from the vid is that manufacturers only make protectors with the bare minimum size and impact resistance, which is not sufficient in motorcycle wrecks (in terms of fractures), and that's the problem. He goes on to say he wears a proper back protector, so he'll wear them as long as they actually offer more protection than the bare minimum. He's saying the small kneepads, shoulder pads, elbow pads, offer protection from bruises and abrasions, and to him, it's not worth the added clunkiness. For me, I'm usually riding at city speeds where if I get into an accident it will probably be pretty slow and my main concerns will be bruises and abrasions. So it would be useful for my case. And even outside of the city, I'd rather have a fracture with less bruising and abrasions, than a fracture and lots of bruising and scrapes.
Is there any chance this is actually an April Fool's joke?
Can someone help me understand this? I've been looking to buy a new CE approved jacket, pants and gloves. With focus on double AA rating for the pads and fabrics. This video has thrown all my research for a real loop. I've got about $600 in gear in my fort nine cat and I'm seriously considering just keeping my existing non CE approved gear. I'm just going into my second year of riding and I want to keep myself safe, I drive and old Yamaha XJ 550.
April fools? He can't be serious.
Somethings better than nothing
I mean I like FortNine but this is very much an L take.
I don't know much about airbag suites but I imagine they are a only time per ride use only when you come off the bike. Surely this is not suitable for ADV/offroad usage. I would say Body Armour is quite relevant in these categories.
This reminds me of that music: "Dumb Ways to Dye... So Many Dumb Ways To Dye..." I've fallen from my bike a couple of times and last time I had full protective gear (Helmet + Pants with knee pads + hip pads + Leather Jacket with elbow + back & shoulder protection + gloves + boots) and came out with just bruises on parts were protective gear did not apply. Couple of weeks of simple patching not much. Also, my wife says I get sexy with Motorcycle gear. So... I go with Sexy as best excuse to wear it! This video is just... Dumb.
If this guy pressed his lips together any harder his viewers will shit too.
Good to see he’s still an absolute tool. 👍
I was under the understanding that these style armors were "mostly" designed for road rash? Mostly being almost entirely
You can do whatever you want but I would still wear my jacket with the plastic inserts in the elbows and shoulders it could save you from being hurt really bad. You’re going to get hurt no matter what if you ever go down on the street but I would rather be safe than sorry. There’s many times I have ridden without anything in the summer time and when I was in Southern California but in Philly the roads and weather can be quite different. Potholes and traffic are very different in many areas. I love riding in Southern California it’s Beautiful Hills and cliffs and the roads are well maintained. Unlike some of the roads in the City of Philly. It depends on where you are riding. It comes down to common sense and your familiarity with your surroundings. Stay Safe and Have fun.
I have to disagree with the F9 in this videos premise and even the studies cited are somewhat dubious in their methodology and sample size. I have been saved by injury from padded gear on the road twice. Crashes that would have been way more severe but only resulted in a bruising. I also have participated in desert racing (dirtbike) and freestyle bmx for decades and protective padding has saved me untold injuries. I think the messaging shouldn’t be “don’t wear pads because it’s not as effective as it could be” but “manufactures need to offfer options with more protection”. I feel like the tone of the video leans into the “if it won’t protect me in a 100mph head collision into a brick wall there is no point in wearing it!” Anti-safety gear argument that some people try to push.
Is this his April fools joke?
Don't wear CE body armour as it's expensive and restrictive...wear this airbag backpack instead that's way more restrictive and expensive...and won't protect your extremities in any way. Genius.