The other day, we watched a famous You-Tuber, who we actually usually enjoy watching giving an opinion on the memory foam and Padding that you find inside riding gear today.
He basically intimated that jacket and pant inserts are pointless.
We disagree with him and we’ll tell you why…
Whilst we do appreciate the views expressed by many of the famous people out there, very often, common sense is severely lacking and we hope you’ll do your homework before you just follow along. Manufacturers of rider gear spend zillions looking for the next big thing, from Cordura to Denim, Memory foam to Kevlar – and they integrate it all into the gear that you ride with. It’s all geared towards keeping a rider safer.
This man argues that memory foam padding does not really prevent broken bones – and he might be correct there – but it absolutelly helps to prevent roasties. you can ask anyone who has actually crashed.
Here’s a simple experiment.
Put on your normal jeans.
Go to your nearest brick wall – and drive your knee into it as hard as you can.
We’re waiting… Good!
Now do the same with your elbow wearing your favourite winter jacket.
Don’t hold back now just do it!
How are you feeling? A bit sore?
Well we can assure you that a simple drop off your bike will hurt a whole lot more…
Now:
Put on a pair of riding jeans and your riding jacket, with the foam inserts in place and repeat.
How did that work out for you?
A bit better? Yes we thought so.
Cant justify the cost?
All these good things do, unfortunately push the prices up – it’s technology, not unlike fitting a performance pipe on your bike – it needs to be paid for.
Specialised Rider gear is more costly than street clothing – for example – a cheap pair of jeans at your local will set you back anything from R250 – up to name brands that cost seven or eight hundred bucks, naturally depending on where you shop and what brand you choose…
A decent pair of motorcycle jeans will set you back around twice that, sometimes even more and they are absolutely worth the money spent because they offer far more protection than that comfortable pair of jeans that we so enjoy.
Here’s something that you might not know:
In South Africa, all motorcycle pants, shirts and jackets have a forty five percent (read that again) Levy imposed by SARS. This is paid as the gear lands in SA – and extra forty five bucks for every hundred that the goods actually cost us. The levy on gloves and boots is thirty percent.
For essential safety gear!
Add the VAT and do the maths.
We are told that this levy is imposed to protect our local manufacturers. To our knowledge, there are no MX boot or glove manufacturers in SA, but we do know of an outfit that does rallye gear and there are a few guys who do MX shirts.
But we digress:
Naturally there was backlash when Fort Nine posted his video. Was it just click bait? Not sure because he appears to be bigger than that. We guess that the point he was trying to make is that inserts generally do not help to prevent broken bones. I guess it depends on how you fall.
Gear manufacturers had a lot to say and hangings in the public square were threatened.
But hey!
They would scream because they need to sell their clobber.
Clobber that has all of those aforementioned “useless” memory foam inserts and things.
Our job as motorcycle media is to keep people informed about stuff that makes sense – and to us anyway, memory foam inserts do work and – they make a lot of sense.
But we are not telling you what to do – it’s a free country!
Feel free to try our little experiment out yourself and then make up your mind for yourself.
Motorcycle clothing ratings (CE and UKCA) show how well gear protects you in the event of a crash. For most riders, choose AA-rated clothing with Level 2 protectors for the best balance of safety, comfort, and versatility.
Always check the label, what protectors are included, and fit before buying.
Your supermarket bought jeans simply don’t cut it!
The clobber displayed in this feature is mostly CE Approved Metalize gear.
