Our Gear vs. Harley Riders Gear ??

I stopped at a gas station today and noticed a rather large fellow on a big flat black Harley something with a giant front end on the bike, bags, stereo and a big seat. Him and his wife had stopped for a few minutes to grab a drink and a snack.

It got me to thinking about the choice of gear that most Harley riders wear compared to the gear that most riders like us would wear.

My jacket...
Choice of two jackets, one well vented and properly fitting full leather with removable liner. One very versatile textile with a fully lined and removable liner, good for almost all weather conditions. Both jackets with all the normal armor built in.

Harley Riders jacket...
Black leather, no liner that I could tell. No ventilation that I could see. Absolutely NO protective armor built into the jacket. Very loose fitting jacket. It did have a very cool looking Harley logo on it.

My boots...
Just normal heavy duty full leather work boots. Nothing special.

Harley Riders boots...
Black leather with thick soles and cool looking silver studs on them with big buckles.

My Gloves...
Choice of two pairs that I have. Both full leather with normal protective armor built in. One pair is just vented better for hotter weather.

Harley Riders gloves...
None worn.

My pants...
Just normal jeans most of the time.

Harley Riders pants...
Normal looking jeans with wallet chain attached.

My eye protection...
Full visor on my helmet.

Harley Riders eye protection...
Sun glasses.

My helmet...
Normal full face helmet with normal ventilation and an second flip down sun shade.

Harley Riders helmet...
Cool scarf wrapped around his head. Looks to have very good ventilation.

My girlfriend has all the same gear I have. 5'-2" at about 110 pounds and very nice looking.

Harley guys wife had all the same gear that he had. Also looked to be about 5'-2" and maybe 175 pounds +/- a few pounds. Looked like maybe she had been ridden hard and put up wet more than a few times.

My cool factor...
I have had a lot of kids think it is really cool when I walk in somewhere wearing my leather motorcycle jacket and carrying my helmet and gloves. I always wave with a smile at the kids. My good looking girlfriend also thinks it is very sharp looking.

Harley riders cool factor...
They do have a certain cool look to them. Guess most kids like that, "Don't mess with me. I am bad mother F@*#er!"


I don't know a lot about most Harley's and I have seen a good number of them that I thought were pretty sharp looking rides. I have met and know a good number of Harley riders that are really nice guys and gals and some that are not so nice too.

But one thing that always gets me is how about 95% of almost all Harley riders wear gear, (if they wear any gear at all), that would do them almost no good at all in not so perfect riding conditions or an accident of any type. Even a good size bug in the face at 60mph could be really nasty.

Not trying to bash anyone hear. I have thought many times about finding an old Sportster to rebuild and black out with drag bars and such. Something to play with around town. But I would still wear decent riding gear.

Just don't get the choice of gear, or lack of.......

 

I gave ridden with several harley doods, the lifers and oldschool guys that dont care what you ride as long as its got 2 wheels abd an engine that works most of the time.
They werent in full gear, but always had chaps, leather jacket, gloves of some sort (as explained to me, a bee sting given the force from 60mph makes a hand swell to softball size) and a brain bucket of the just more than skull cap type. They never though they needed more since the wrecks they had been party too hadnt done much other than road rash.

My common gear isnt much different, full faced helmet and good work boots. Learned on dirt bikes to have jacket and gloves. Im looking at updating my gear, just haven't pulled the trigger yet

 

I see a lot of them with nothing more than a half lid.
To me, that's like saying "I'm never going to crash".
Ok then, don't wear a seatbelt in your car, eh.
It's insulting to other, "gear wearing" riders.

 

What kind of cruel person posts about how hot his girlfriend is and doesn't include some pics other than a tiny avatar picture?


Rollin

 

I get nailed for that one every time !!

 

I'm still learning this site but there are a couple for you guys. Just click on the little picture!!

 

Good thinking Rigger.

What the harleydood was thinking, was asking your girlfriend to show him her tits.

 

Good observation Rigger. I have another one for you. We easily ride year round here in San Diego, so this is a scene you will see this almost any week of the year here. I'm having brunch or lunch in one of the little towns on PCH, sitting by an open window watching the roller bladers/skate boarders/hot girl joggers(you get the idea) going by when a string of sport bikes rips past with Hot Passengers on the P-pads, pilots wearing tennis shoes, board shorts(cool) and wife beater shirt(ok, some wearing t-shirts) hot passenger wearing tank top or spaghetti strap top, shorts and fashionable thongs.........hey, they look great!........ I don't think they've seen Brittany Morrows blog!
ALL THE GEAR, ALL THE TIME! If you don't got, please get it!
Rant-observation finished.
John

 

It's very funny how riding a different brand/type of motorcycle can change the gear one wears. I have a colleague that has a Harley and a dirt bike. We had a conversation about gear one day when he saw me remove my knee/shin armor that I had under my Kevlar pants and that he noticed I also wore a full face helmet (Hi-Viz), and jacket with armor (elbow/forearm and shoulder) + Knox back protector. He openly admitted to me in our conversation that when he rides his dirt bike, hear wears full protection. Meaning full face off road helmet with goggles, chest/back protector, gloves, full length boots and typically thick jeans. However, when he rides his Harley, he usually wears typical "street clothes", jeans or sometimes shorts (Yow!), t-shirt sometimes w/button down shirts (short or long sleeve) maybe a jean jacket if it's warm or a "biker" style leather jacket when it's cold, tennis or other low cut street shoe (on occasion "engineer" boots), no gloves and the "obligatory" salad bowl helmet.

When I asked him why doesn't he go ATGATT when riding the Harley as he does when rides off road, he says "It just doesn't look right if I wear safety gear" but after we discussed the nature of how dangerous it is being on the street, regardless of what bike you ride, he was reconsidering wearing at least knee/shin armor underneath Kevlar pants (jeans) and maybe get a better covering helmet too (3/4) and maybe a more protective jacket i.e. one with armor.

As much as we like to think that it's just the "Harley guys" that don't gear up, there are plenty of sport riders that don't either. John's observation is a common scene in beach communities. I see it all the time in Seal Beach, Sunset Beach, Huntington Beach, Newport Beach, etc., etc., ...

 

A road crayon is a road crayon no matter what they ride. Just because they havent been out of the box yet doesnt meant they wont ever.

 

I especially like those guys who wear no safety gear whatsoever except gloves. After all a blister on your hands is much more painful than sliding down the asphalt on your back at 40 mph while wearing shorts and t-shirt.


Rollin

 

I see your point, but we -I shall speak for myself- I need more pictures of your girlfriend.
j/k

 

Sounds like the "beachboys" have some T&A watching on their minds too.

 

I know a lot of sport guys ride with little or no gear too. Take today for an example.....

We had a very small ride for a children's cancer charity today. Maybe a 120 riders showed up, it was their first year on this one and they had little advertisement but still a nice variety of riders came. A lot of cruisers, decent number of sport bikes and a handful of adventure machines and some sport touring bikes. (I was the only VFR in the ride.)

Out of the cruisers, probably half were cruisers, maybe 5 of them had real gear on.
Out of the sport bikes, there was a couple of younger guys riding stupid with no gear.
Most everyone else that rode had the right stuff on.

During the ride, I took a bug in the face shield of the helmet. It seemed to have 10 pounds of green guts in it!! Really nasty too!! I could not even imagine that thing in my face with no helmet on.

 

I had a bird strike my helmet once. It felt like someone hit the front of my helmet with a hammer. The bird shit on the visor was just a bonus to my sore neck.


Rollin

 

And then they go back to their pencil pushing, bean counting, pocket protector life....

 

Living oot in the everglades, you get alot of small insect that can pass for birds. Best was when I was commuting back from a job and was tucked in and oot of the corner of my eye, I saw something. I almost thought part of a inner fairing came loose or something. When I got home, I looked at my mirror and saw blood and feathers. One for Viffer, zero for small bird.

I am not gona touch the thing aboot getting bug stuff on your face. I am a gentleman, at least sometimes, and that one is too easy...ound:

 

I can only imagine where you could take that one! Lucky me though, only about 3.78 seconds before the bug hit, I had the shield up a tad and that thing would have made it up inside the helmet!