It's worth mentioning that EN17092 tests garments with the pads *removed*. Meaning a AAA jacket or pant, which has been drop tested on the Darmstadt machine at 120kph, will still slide to a highway-speed stop without costing you skin (70kph for AA, 45kph for A). C-class garments have no abrasion resistance criteria whatsoever; this would be something like a mesh chassis for holding armour. Obviously, removing the pads from that would be silly, since its only purpose is to hold armour and you might as well wear a T-shirt instead. On that note, there *are* hero companies that make pads to greatly exceed CE 2 size and attenuation requirements. Aside from the Dainese back pad I showed, Rukka's D3O XTR comes to mind (link in description). Those pads are huge compared to the Type B template, and size matters if you're going to rely on pads to get to wherever your abrasion comfort level is. We don't always slide precisely on our shoulders, elbows and knees. It's usually the butt. We all have our own equations for balancing comfort v. practicality v. safety, which is why I made a point of *not* telling people to take the armour out of their jackets (twice!). Fortunately the CE standards make it fairly clear what your gear can and can't do, enabling us all to choose the stuff that achieves whatever we're after. ~RF9

Wait... did he just... DID HE JUST ROCK A 6 MINUTE SINGLE TAKE?!?! Respect.

having pads in my jeans is worth it just for the many times I'm on my knees trying to fix my moto on the side of the road

I’m an ER doc. I know armour won’t help in worst case, high energy scenario’s, but it helps mitigate the contusions, abrasions and lacerations in the kind of spills we are more likely to suffer. I had a low speed mishap riding off road in Iceland and diced up the elbows and arms of my riding jacket on volcanic rock. I had a few minor scratches from punctures through the Cordura fabric in the unpadded areas, but without armour protection it would have been a long complicated journey to a distant hospital to suture up contaminated, complex lacerations that would have terminated my bucket list trip. Some dabs of Polysporin for the skin and duct tape for the jacket and I was good to go.

I tripped and fell in my living room like an idiot, my foot got caught on something and I hit the ground hard enough that it would have almost definitely broken my knee, but I had just gotten home and was wearing my cheap motorcycle pants, and it almost didn’t hurt at all. Just because something isn’t 100% effective doesn’t mean it’s not worth having. If you hit something just hard enough to break a bone and the pad only takes 10% of the impact that’s still enough to save you.

As an orthopaedic surgeon (and a motociclist) I can say that its easier (and got better results) to fix lower Energy fracture than higher energy fractures... So, the benefit of using this gear may not protect you from having that fracture in the first place, but may shield you from months of reabilitation and permanent pain and limitation.

Body Armor is redundant as I ride around in chain mail and knight armour anyways.

I just crashed today because of an old man that did not see me. I landed extremely hard on my left shoulder without breaking any bones or any serious damage, just a lot of pain. It's crystal clear to me the importance that those stupid rubber things had during the crash: they helped me to soften the main impact and shielded my shoulder from the tarmac. Before this crash i thought they were useless as you said in the video, but i left them in my jacket just to be extra safe .. and I'm very glad i did.

Dude did a 6-minute video, 1 shot, no cuts yet still informative, engaging, and thought-provoking. Mind blown 🤯

Unfortunately, lack of quality armour is how we lost Ryan F9. This is his clone, Ryan F10.

Those studies don’t capture the 1000s of people who crash wearing the protection with no injury. Only the injured get captured in the data, similar to a survivorship bias.

I have fallen on pavement wearing a fully padded jacket and a pair of regular jeans. my hip was bruised, my knee was F'ed up for about three months, but my elbow, which hit the ground first, wasn't even bruised, nor was my shoulder or any other part of my upper body. Armor makes a difference, the 50J impact is just a number used for testing purposes, most likely to ensure that the armor will endure an unrealistically hard hit even if your bones wont. After that i high-sided on a hard packed dirt road going about 60 km/h, flew over the handlebars and hit the ground 5m in front of the bike. This time i was wearing padded jeans as well. Not a single bruise, got up and lifted my bike back up. Had I not been wearing armor my elbow would have been shattered and my knees wouldn't have been much better off. Don't spread misinformation, of course armor protects you from fractures, use common sense and don't over-analyze a lab test.

The comments and insight elicited from doctors, EMTS, engineers, and other riders in response to this video are more valuable than the video.

On behalf of Liz de Rome: In the research paper (AAP, 2011), we reported that riders wearing motorcycle clothing fitted with impact protection (IP) were significantly less likely to sustain any injuries than were riders wearing motorcycle clothing without IP and those wearing non-motorcycle clothing. The analysis compared injured and uninjured riders by level of protection taking other factors into account such as crash type, object impacted and speed. We were able to demonstrate significant reductions in open wound injuries associated with level of protection, but not fractures. In our discussion, we explain that the study sample (n=212) was too small to determine statistically significant evidence for the reduction of fractures. This is because fractures represent just 15% of riders’ injuries, compared to 71% soft tissue injuries across a population sample of crashed motorcycle riders. We strongly recommend that riders continue to wear impact protectors. Associate Professor Liz de Rome.

I'm an EMT. Been one for going on 13 years. I've seen more than my fair share of moto accidents. I can't say that gear has ever really prevented a fracture or not, but one thing I do think MUST be mentioned, that moto gear (with or without armor) DOES DO INSANELY WELL, is ABRASION resistance. Yes, a broken bone sucks, but I've seen a woman's breast belt sanded off by the asphalt because she only had on a sweatshirt. Down to the bone. Anecdotally, I have lowsided before at a pretty pedestrian 25-30mph. Armored jacket, regular denim pants. The jacket took the hit and I had no bruise or injury on my arm. The road went through my pants like they were tissue paper and I have a softball sized scar on my knee now. Armor wouldn't have really mattered there, but a pant with abrasion resistance absolutely would have. So while I can't critique the argument against armored pads because I'm not an expert on the literature and most severe motorcycle accidents I've seen have had broken bones with and without armor, I can say that road rash can be a nightmare and have never seen road rash on an area where someone was wearing proper gear, and ALWAYS seen it on every single person that wasn't wearing any. To that end, I think it's a bit of a disservice to leave that part of the equation hanging and not mentioned. That airbag is going to save you from a broken clavicle, but if you aren't wearing an abrasion resistant layer as well, the road might well grind your skin, fat and muscles down to the bone. We call those chest protectors with no sleeves "organ donor vests" for a reason.

In all of my on and offroad crashes, I have never once thought, man I wish I didnt have these pads on. I understand the point your'e conveying, but my knees and elbows have always been grateful for my padding. Im keeping my road armor.

Remember the difference between an open and a closed fracture? That is pretty important. They will also save you on any low speed crash. This is similar to complaining that you died in a car crash and that the car is not 'protective enough' while having hit a wall at 100km/h. You did hit a wall at 100km/h.

Credit to the cameraman for walking backwards for six minutes without falling over.

As someone that had a 10-15mph lowside in the BRC with no pads on legs, torso, and arms, I can tell you the bruising I got on my left knee and elbow was horrendous, lasting for about 2 weeks leaving me unable to work out or do anything strenuous. Over the winter I lowsided at roughly 2 times the speed of the BRC lowside, so 4 times the impact forces. However, this time I had CE level 2 pads in elbows, shoulders, back, hips, and knees. I walked away with nothing but a headache and was working out the next day. I really appreciate Ryan's philosophy on people making their own decisions, and just making sure they have all the information to make a well informed decision. For me, it's absolutely worth wearing the pads if it means there's a greater chance I won't be nearly bedridden for days.

"Life is so beautiful, our instinct is going to be to protect it. But our imperative, we have to remember, is to appreciate it."

As a motorcyclist myself who's been around couple of accidents, I STRONGLY DISAGREE with Ryan on this. I have been in a crash which fractured both my femur and my hand. Yes I was wearing an armoured jacket, knee pads and stuff and I was disappointed with its performance. I felt like wearing it was not worth it at all, having to deal with this mess. But this was before my wife met with an accident. She was on a scooter and the crash was on city speeds and didn't have any riding gear. She had a minor fracture which was not much to comment on. But the skin she lost - it took months of plastic surgery, hospitalization and the scars it made have still not healed after an year. As for me, I walked away in under 3 months, with just a week or two of hospitalization despite having two major fractures. That riding gear saved me a lot of time and pain by keeping my skin intact.

Respectfully I'm going to keep mine in. There are accidents where pads won't matter (either the impact was so soft that nothing would have broken, or the impact was so hard that no matter what you're wearing you'll break), but for that slight chance of an accident that the armor results in a bone bruise instead of a bone break I'll take that extra little bit of protection.

I never consider those pads as protective against bone fracture. But they are good for abrasion, small hits that can hurt you long time. And also some more serious knee or elbow injuries. But to be honest not for serious accidents. I would never remove them as "any protection is good protection"

Ryan, I fell 15 years ago. Jacket, helmet, boots, did the job. I wasn't wearing gloves. It still hurt sometimes... now I ride only fully armed.

Remember a few (like 15) years ago when there was a big hubbub about helmet ratings? And how the Snell standard was great when it came out, but maybe hadn't really kept up with industry capabilities? And there was a big study in one of the magazines about how the stiffer Snell rating transferred more energy to the skull than the softer CE rating? And how Snell was testing all of their helmet sizes with heads that weighed the same, despite obvious changes in volume? Pepperidge Farms remembers. I think Ryan may have just started another industry brushfire like that.

There are a number of issues with that research that I noticed as a researcher myself. First off the n (number of cases for x) for many of the categories are too small to derive reasonable statistical significance. Second it does not take into account the severity of the accidents for each case, which adds a massive statistical confound to the data. There is not sufficient data present to derive anything really. Also the studies for airbags on motorcycles are practically non existent for road users, and most airbags on the market offer little protection for legs, arms, and shoulders. Legs/feet are also the largest source of injury in most accidents. We do need better protection and better standards, but some protection in most cases will be better with none, I would rather hit the road with something to help cushion the landing. Airbags are not a perfect replacement for padding, they can fail to deploy, or break on impact, or be punctured. I use both pads and an airbag.

What studies often miss are the accidents that didn’t end up in the survey because the person was absolutely fine…because they had armour. That time you slowly dropped and landed elbow down on concrete? Might have been an arm breaker, but you had a pad so you didn’t end up in ER.

I was a London despatch rider for nearly 10 years and I can tell ya - if I hadn't have had something between my kneecaps and shoulders other than just a bit of weave on the many (slow speed, which is why I'm still alive) offs I had in that period, I wouldn't be walking. There's no question that the padding provided by the CE stopped my kneecap from being shattered, or fleshy bits from being shredded. I shall add that I frequently didn't wear standard bikers gear because most of it wouldn't last a month of despatch riding, it's a very different experience compared to the average weekend warrior or even hard core commuter, and I wouldn't spend a penny on some of the crap the average biker buys. My stuff was a mix of army surplus, industrial fishing stuff and other things that actually worked. But I always had troos and jackets with CE pockets.

It is always shocking to me to see how little experience most motorcyclists have with crashing. First thing I did was ride an enduro and crash on dirt. Once I knew how to do that I started crashing on asphalt. Never got any serious injuries BECAUSE I ALWAYS WORE LEATHERS WITH ARMOR. Nowadays I have enough experience to know pretty exactly what would happen if I crash in any given situation. Sure, armor can't prevent me wrapping my spine around a guardrail, but it sure keeps my kneecaps where they belong, and my flesh inside the skin. There's not just abrasion OR fracture. Imagine your kneecap hits a pebble while sliding over the asphalt at 80 km/h. When that happens, armor is the difference between a hurting knee and picking the kneecap out of your sock.

I'm absolutely here for Ryan's airbag activism and continued call-outs of safety standards. Kudos

The more I see the way the gear companies and government use outdated and shoddy standards really makes me think that their priority is making people feel safe rather than actually being safe, because feeling safe is much cheaper then being safe.

One instance I had was I was going on a little winding road along a river through the mountains. I was coming up on a corner, and I kid you not, a bumblebee flew inside my helmet and landed right on my glasses. It distracted me enough that I forgot about the corner, and I was going to hit the guardrail head on. I didn’t have time to stop or complete the corner, and I dropped the bike down on its side so the wheels would hit the guardrail first. I landed on my side and slid with the bike until it stopped. I didn’t get a bruise, my only injury was my jacket rubbing my skin. I guarantee that if I didn’t have my armor on, my hip and elbow would have gotten a major bruise. They may not protect against really high crashes, but a crash like mine worked great. I picked my bike up and kept riding through the day, with only a few scratches from my jacket where the armor wasn’t on my arm. I think it’s silly to remove the armor, especially if it’s good flexible armor, and I won’t because of my one and only crash on pavement.

I'm not sure if you ever had an accident. But I had where I rolled across the street like a ball for about 60 meters . And believe me, I was happy to wear clothing with good protectors. Because I was rolling like a ball, most impact was on my knees, elbows and shoulders ... exactly where the protectors are. And looking at the wearness at these points, I'm glad, that the impact was not directly on my knees, elbows or shoulders. Maybe worth mentioning: I only wear good protectors made of rubber, not thees cheap foam ones you have shown in the video.

FWIW, I was wearing a Vanson jacket with elbow and back armor of their design, a pair of jeans with CE2 hip and knee armor, and a pair of Racer gloves with carbon knuckle armor when a drunk did a last second left in front of me. My knee punched a dent into the side of his truck and my brake lever, which was the first contact with the vehicle, came down hard on the carbon knuckle protectors of my last two fingers. I technically fractured my knee, but it was the kind of fracture where it looks weird on an MRI but none of the parts are displaced to different locations, and I was able to walk away from the wreck. Also, all of my fingers were still on my hand despite the guillotine brake lever. When I came off the bike I landed hard on my back, on my back protector, and while my ribs were badly bruised in the back, none were broken and my spine wasn't bruised. (Quick pitch for the sort of out of fashion Vanson brand: after landing on my back and sliding on the asphalt, the back of my jacket wasn't even scratched. The leather they use wears like iron). This is anecdote, not data, and I agree with your concerns about regulatory capture and undersized protection. However, I think saying "it's not enough protection so I won't wear it all" is a contrarian but self-defeating choice. It seems like "this isn't enough protection so I'll wear more" would be a more rational response. Impacts vary, and I'm not sure that "break a femur" is the right threshold to be using as a baseline. There are plenty of impacts, like the one on my right knee, that are below the "break a femur" threshold but may have still broken my knee without the marginal protection that my knee pad offered. Those pads absorbed some of the force before it got to my knee. Given i had a partial but not complete fracture, maybe it was enough. There are also a lot impacts on a motorcycle that will get to "break femur" territory even in the presence of non-existent CE3 or 4. The armor isn't protecting you from that existential 100mph low side into a steel barrier. I'm not sure why this marginal protection isn't showing up in the study you cited, but studies aren't impervious to flaws and are designed to answer yes / no questions, not illuminate nuance as you are well aware. Btw, my take away from my accident was that I should have been wearing my air bag vest that day. It would have saved me a lot of pain where the gas tank hit my pelvis and would further lessened my rib bruising. But it certainly didn't have me thinking I should ditch the knee, hip, and elbow armor. If anything, it had me thinking about ways to improve the protection at my extremities. With all of that said, I salute your willingness to call it like you see it despite where your bread is buttered.

No gear necessary at all, if you don't crash. If you do, you'll be grateful for every scrap of gear you're wearing, even if its an extra bit of padding. My armor pieces are staying in!

I remember I specific incident when I first started riding where I wish I had been wearing armored pants. I totally botched a turn on a hill from a stop sign. I popped the clutch, which made my newb brain grab the front brake too hard, which made me lose control and get all kinds of wonky. I ended up in the ditch on the other side of the road, and I had banged my knee against a stone as I went down. Having that armor would absolutely have saved my knee from the punishment it received that day. I could barely ride home. Would it have saved me from a break had I gone down a different way? Maybe not. But, I sure wished I had it that day. And now, I wear full gear, with armor, every time I ride. You do you.

He's basically making the assumption that every impact will be 50J or greater, but if at 50J it reduces the force to 9kN, and 4 is enough to break a bone, that still means there is a large amount of impacts that could have between 4kN and probably around 25J where the armor will be the difference between breaking a bone or not. Also, as another commenter mentioned, the is a wide variety of what a broken bone is. It might be the difference between something that can heal and a bone that is completely shattered or will never heal properly.

"Life is so beautiful our instinct is going to be to protect it, but our imperative, we have to remember, is to appreciate it". That's a great quote.

Alright, you put up a good argument. **Pulls the rolled up Amazon package bubble wrap out of my jacket pockets**

Last year I started to practice moto gymkhana. Of the dozen time I have fallen on the ground I landed mostly on my side so: hip and elbow. Couple of times the bike landed on my feet and pinned me on the ground. I’m very grateful that I had full external armor and extra knee protection and a proper pair of hard boots.

A 6 min straight with no cuts !! love it! massive kudos to the camera dude who never tripped walking backwards. Bet your arms were killing ya!

I high sided on the expressway last May doing approximately 130kph after hitting a metal patch on the road. I was airborn for what seemed like an eternity and knew it was going to hurt when I finally made contact with mother earth. When I landed I broke my collarbone and damaged my shoulder ((now titanium man ) however I also slid a long way alongside my bike. The motorcycle jeans I was wearing were damaged but the road never made contact with my skin due to the fabric and armour. My Jacket was like wise badly damaged but the material and armour protected my skin. My gloves had sliders on the heel of the palm and were both badly worn (trying to slow myself down ) but my hands were fine apart from a small cut on one finger. I never believed that so called armour would protect my bones and it did not, but there is no doubt what so ever, that if I had not been wearing it I would have suffered serious skin and tissue damage. I understand the points Ryan is making but his almost dismissive " It may save you a bruise" is, in my mind, a little dismissive of the very real possibility of serious slide injuries. His airbag may protect his bones in a crash but it will not stop him wearing away his elbow. Armour is there to help save the rider from unintentional weight loss due to skating on your ass down a strip of tarmac.

This is anecdotal: I have had one fall / laydown of my bike on gravel in a corner. My elbow hit the ground and I was very happy to have this type of soft impact protection. No injury. I wore a knox mesh jacket.

Sure, they may not stop fracturing of bones, but what the study doesn’t provide is the significance of the fracture. Yes, person A and B may both have a fractured elblow, but the person with the pads may have a much less serious injury compared to the person without the pads.

Crash test dummy here.. flung myself off into the woods up in the Catskills after hitting a blind corner covered in sand from the prior winter. 7 broken ribs and a collapsed lung. Helicopter ride as well to a trauma center. Thankfully had a forcefield sub 4 back protector and level 2 everywhere else. Astar super tech boots saved my ankles, the bike landed on them and pinned me under the bmw. Knox handroid gloves..the ones with the exoskeleton saved my hand which was buried in a pile of river rock. Had yellow bruising around all the body armor but all good. I landed with my arm up on a pile or river rock which did the damage to my ribs. Full airbag vest could have helped, i suspect. The hospital bill was over $100,000! Do your self a favor and add as much armor as you can afford. Riding 15 years till that event. It will happen, and there is no need to end up in a wheelchair!

For someone who rides dual sports and has a lot of low speed falls the armour really does help. Probably doesn’t make much of a difference if you hit a wall at 90.

At 62 years old I got knocked off my Honda goldwing driving through California coast fog and smoke I was trying to be careful going 25 mph as it was getting dark Hit a construction patch and it threw me off the bike there is no way you can tell me that my gear didn't save me from having broken bones it was worth every penny my full year including gloves I hit the pavement I spun I don't know how many times The only thing that happened to me and it didn't show up on x-rays was probably a fracture a hairline one in my foot that took a long time to heal Yes I had a bruised kidney but I was able to get a new face shield on get my bike out of the ditch which hardly had a scratch and proceed another 250 mi to my destination anyone who doesn't ride with armor protection is just a fool we see them in the street riding with flip-flops shorts personally I won't go to pick up groceries without my gear Yes my next thing is to get one of those inflatable vests it's been on my wish list hopefully this year

Ive been down a few times with and without armor. The times without armor took a few months extra to recover even though I was going slower than the times I went down with armor. Sure its anecdotal, but its good enough for me to always have gear when I ride.

For everybody in Germany, you must also remember: If you take it out, your insurance WILL take this as an oportunity to shorten your claim

I have landed on my CE1 knee pads in a parking lot, and I have no doubt they prevented a fracture or a worse injury. Barely. I felt the pad stiffen, I felt my knee hit, I swear I practically felt the texture of the pavement, and it hurt for a few hours after. I've wondered ever since why they did such a barely okay job at under 10 miles per hour. I noticed the same with my CE2 gear; hit something at road speeds and any of my gear feels barely adequate on the impact front. Thank you for explaining this, and for starting this conversation

I'm a little suspect of the methodology here, since it only concerns people who are alive to report their results. Because we only hear back from the people who weren't in fatal crashes, this seems like a form of selection bias. Why don't we try asking all the people who've died whether their armor or lack thereof helped? Information about what the dead motorcyclists wore seems important to have if we care about whether the armor has any effect. If I had to guess, I would imagine the armored people had a much higher chance of survival than the ones with less effective armor, but the study doesn't seem to address that. It's suggesting that IF you survive the crash, then the armor doesn't do much good. Which is fine and dandy, but doesn't seem to be what these studies or the video implies. Many less-armored people were involved in fatal crashes and thus weren't here to report how much the impact protection totally would've helped. There are tons of data points here that are missing from the full picture; it's hard to conclude that armor doesn't do much when we have no information about the most severe crashes one can get into, which seems like it'd be the entire point of a study like this. This would be like interviewing crash survivors and saying "80% of people who wear a helmet in crashes still get serious concussions. But hey, not a single person who didn't wear a helmet and got in a crash had a concussion! In fact, 80% of the people who didn't wear a helmet were totally unscathed, and 20% only had minor inconveniences afterwards. So I guess there's no reason to wear a helmet, since it actually does more damage!" This is clearly because the only people surviving a crash without a helmet are gonna be extremely low-speed cases, or, obviously, nonfatal ones. Every other case higher than a certain mph would result in almost certain death, as the studies have actually shown. The ones helmets protect you from are the more severe ones, so of course more injury occurs. I've been going through the rest of the sources at the end of the video relatively thoroughly to verify whether I'm wrong (maybe I missed something and they do check the armor of the wheeled-in corpses), but so far nothing has come up. Someone feel free to correct me if I'm mistaken, because this is definitely important information to make sure we get right. By all means correct me or find a study to show the opposite if one exists. If one doesn't exist then it needs to be done, and for this video to hold merit, we're looking for something that suggests that, even including fatal crashes, there is little correlation with armor and survival rate.

I don't believe anything I see on the Internet today, but I am a believer that knee pads should extend farther around the side rather than simply covering the knee cap. The response to finding that existing armor is less effective than one would hope should not be to abandon all armor. It should be to demand innovation from makers to offer more effective armor. Nothing stops them from exceeding the regulatory standard but consumer expectations. Edit: Then again, I may be missing the more nuanced conclusion that broken bones are inevitable right now and the thing to invest in after adequate abrasion resistance isn't padding but wearable airbags to prevent more serious neck injuries. RF9 did include the Helite on his recent list of starter gear for 2024, after all.

As a guy who's had 3 unfortunate 'offs' (in 60+ years of riding - none of which were avoidable - and 2 of which resulted in helo rides), I gotta believe that the gear I had on saved my bacon, at least to a degree. In my latest 'event' I hit sand on a shaded road in the mountains of SW VA early in the morning while negotiating a corner at 50 (+/-) mph and the bike simply slammed me to the asphalt. I have no memory of the accident, but I have to believe the KLIM gear I had on significantly reduced my injuries (as did my helmet). The ER doc at the hospital in Johnson City, TN where I was life-flighted commented that he sees a lot of m/c related incidents resulting in permanent and sometimes fatal injuries, many from incidents where no 'gear' was worn and he attributed the lack of major injuries to me to my gear. I consider myself to be an experienced rider who doesn't ride above my skill levels, but I do ride a lot, and the more we ride the more the odds are against us. I'm merely trying to mitigate the chances of an off resulting in permanent or fatal results. I'll continue to use my pads.

I had a lowside wearing an armoured two piece and was spared cuts, roadrash and significant damage to my left forearm that took all the sliding/impact with the bike post crash. The biggest consequence to me was having my elbow jammed into my ribcage - that smarted for a few days. I was grateful to be all ATGATTed at the time. I won't be removing my armour from my kit, but Ryan's got a point that the armour is presently market-neered downwards in spec and could be better. As consumers, we make clear market demand signals by what we buy. if "we" keep buying and demanding armoured gear, it will only get better. Its basic consumerist feature drive to manufacturers. Thanks for the presentation and the thinking its generated.

"Life is so beautiful that our first instinct is going to be to protect it. But our imperative, we have to remember, is to appreciate it." Great words. Thanks.

I am a history teacher and I am using the final statement of this video in my lectures on war (with careful citations of course) . "Life is so beautiful, our instinct is gonna be to protect it. But our imperative, we have to remember, is to appreciate it". That's beyond profound!

This 6 minute one-take is the best example of how good video planning can save you hours in editing😮

Having had 2 relatively low speed low side crashes, i am thankful my jacket and pands were padded. The only damage i had was on the second wipeout the bottom of my palm where it meets the wrist hit the pavement hard. Those were crappy gloves. Lesson learned. My jacket popped a stitch where i had repaired it previously and my pants were just scuffed (luckily the road had dirt and gravel so i slid on a thin layer of crap and not so much the pavement, although i would not have lost traction if the road was clean!) Anywho, like I said, no damage to me besides my hand thanks to the pads in my gear. I will definitely continue buying armoured clothing. 👍

A highway speed slide with a AAA garment, with the pad removed, will still hurt a lot more than with the pads installed. I'd rather fall from 5ft high with pads than without. That's all they are there for. That last line you threw in there about appreciating life, supports the idea that a marginal safety item, which doesn't have much downside, should be worn.

The 2 biggest flaws of this this video are: 1: The video is assuming because the armor doesn't meet 4kN in distribution, the armor's effect is near negligent. This is inaccurate. 2: The study said results are inconclusive. Yet the video pedals it as though there is no relation between armor and less injury/fracture. As a researcher myself I get frustrated when this happens. My first thought when I saw the data put on screen was this: "How do we know that the people wearing gear weren't going faster and getting in worse accidents?"

Almost. If a fracture occurs at 4kN and our substandard (I agree) padding reduces the force of the impact (i.e. 6kN) as well as the disruption of the impact to below 4kN, the fracture will likely not occur. This will be a moot point for anyone riding a street bike into a concrete barrier at highway speed. But as some who have taken hard falls on elbows, hips and knees off-road, fall on my CE2 pads and Leatt knee and shin pads have saved my day more than once. Most of us have tried it both ways and regretted the days we left the padding at home. It is also important to remember the stats are only collected when someone presents at the hospital. This data is completely void of all the impacts that occurred, with padding, and no serious injury occurred.

Any material between you and the road is welcomed. Jeans over wearing shorts when riding is worth the difference. I understand you are talking collision where protection is a broad topic. But if Im going to crash, I would take my chances with my moto jacket and gloves every time even to just minimize road burn when sliding You cant always pick the type of mishap that may occur but a few points of protection is good in my book. Even boots are better than wearing tennis shoes. Back to your point, a jacket wont help you in a head on collision with a car so why wear any protection at all is a silly thought.

I've been down numerous times and i know that armor lessens the impact. Because I've gotten hurt more from getting knocked down playing basketball. Simple test is run on ice, both would hurt but having gear on will lessen the pain.

I'd concur, if I hadn't been dragged 50 yards under my Blackbird fifteen years ago, and *almost* worn through the shoulder pad in my jacket. No pad, no shoulder. A single data point, maybe, but it's *my* single data point. Two years later my femur was smashed by my handle bar, but that was where there were no pads.

I'm glad I wore them a few days ago, the bruises in those slightly better protected areas are on a lighter yellow than the almost blue ones on my arm, my forearm, my leg or my foot. More important, a rider should never forget that wearing a certain level of protection doesn't mean being safe.

Take away the subject matter, the narrative and analysis, and what remains is the fact that this was a single shot where Ryan delivered his script and arrived at the tree with props without sounding rushed. Just brilliant pacing and video work.

It definitely helps I should impacts. I’ve Took dingers off road that would have ended the day without some type of pads. Still hurt but my elbow could have been shattered or fractured had there not been a 1 inch pad on my elbow. Directly fell on a rock.

This channel is an absolute blessing to the motorcycling community.

“Life is so beautiful our instinct is to protect it… but our imperative is to appreciate it.” Good lord, what a line.

This has got to be one of the best videos of yours that I’ve ever seen. Bravo, my friend!

I had an accident a time ago last year, I fractured my right leg femur, but I didn't had any single bruise or lacerations of any kind. Good thing they can operate my leg right away because of that. I think pads only save you from scratches òr very light incidents but the sum of all have some height overall

That's why the motto is: "dress for the slide, not the ride". Pads don't protect that much against the impact itself (minus the helmet), but is all about making the slide comfortable.

Maybe an April Fool’s joke, but I would never take out my armor based on anyone’s video. I have been smacked in the chin’s with road debris and knew what if I didn’t have armor on I would have been recovering instead of riding.

Don’t forget that the pads also insulate you like a beer coozy when you are laying spread eagle post-crash on the 180*F asphalt in Arizona.

Padded motorcycle gear is phenomenal for snowboarding. Didn’t feel a thing when eating crap learning how to hit the rails. Haven’t bought another bike since my throttle got stuck open in 2nd gear after a blip downshift right before a 90 degree turn (wish I didn’t do that, but could’ve been way worse, padded gear really helped at that speed), so now I use the gear for snowboard season. 3 years bike sober so far and dying to go back when it’s fiscally feasible. I bloody babied that 750 too… Head engineer of Suzuki finally got back to me right after I sold the bike for parts lol, so there was nothing they could do about the situation. Probably for the best I suppose. Always loved your content btw!

To an extent this is true but it is missing a lot of real life use cases where protection does in fact make a huge difference. The major point being the abrasion/laceration protection. The focus in this video on broken bones, which are not a big deal in most cases. Scraping off part off your elbow or hip bone is a different matter, just like skin grafts or deep laceration that hit a major artery. Having had a whole bunch of accidents, on and off the bike, with and without protection, I can unequivocally say it does make a huge difference. The people that the research didn't approach were the more minor crashes, where people slide out or something to that extent and those crashes are much more common. In those cases, the protection absolutely does its job really well. There is also more than snapping a bone in half. You can chip or crack your elbows, shoulder or hips, which can create much bigger issues than a single, clean break. Bones also bruise, which takes months and months to heal, if it ever does. In my opinion this video is too narrow-minded, focussing too much a broken bones as being the worst injury you can have (which it isn't in most cases) and the fact the major brands have had a hand in setting that a standard that could be better. Instead of shooting down the concept of pads based on these two aspects of protective gear, you could argue for a better standard like the horse-girls get and include the situations where protection absolutely serves its purpose. Realise how many people take your opinion as gospel, even if you formulate in such a way you are not liable for people taking your advice to heart.

Eh this is kinda like not using a lock at all because all locks can be cut with a grinder. Having crashed with and without armour I know first hand how much less it hurts when you have armour. You know why that difference isn’t in the numbers? None of those impacts with the armour did I report. Basically will pads stop you braking bones in a bad crash? Nope. Will they make a smaller crash less painful and maybe protect from a small fracture? Yep

Love the way you wrote this and delivered with that strong phrase at the end! 👌 I’ll keep my pads anyway for the moment, as i’m get used to and don’t bother me at all. But totally understand the point of view.

Despite your arguments, as my own crash test dummy, I can say with utmost confidence that pads & back protectors have saved me from all sorts of ugly bruises, burns etc. from binning race bikes at high speeds. I don't expect them to 100% prevent the forces that can break bones in various circumstances & they haven't. They certainly reduced some of the injuries. Better to break a collarbone but not have to deal with massive impact bruising & sliding burns as well. My first race seasons were without any armour & I can tell you those crashes hurt! Even a basic elbow protector would have saved me a chipped bone in the first one. Just get someone to strike your bare elbow a glancing blow with a heavy hammer or concrete slab... I agree the sizing is crap & the designs are poor. What use is a small pad that barely covers the area & can shift out of place just before you hit the wall... They need to wrap round far more. Most regulation suffers from the watering down by lobbiests problem.

I was expecting an April fools video, but now I don't know what to think.... hmmm

New rider here buying my first bike soon. I appreciate Ryan never taking safety gear promises at face value, especially regarding helmets. But I'll join most others here saying: I'll definitely be wearing pads. I expect I could take a spill or two and the less damage I take the more quickly I'll get back on that horse. I like my skin where it is.

I had a low speed get off with elbow armor which shifted in my summer fabric jacket causing scrapes and slight bruise on my elbow It opened my eyes to what could have happened on a high speed get off. I say this much next time I pick a jacket its ability to secure the armor from shifting is going to be a huge priority

Appreciate the input, but I wear full gear even in sweltering August. Just had an acident and I walked out of it with only some serious bruises. Ah, but what I DID DO a long time ago, I removed elbow and knee inserts from the jacket and pants respectively, and I replaced them with protectors tied directly to my body, under the jacket and over the pants. My latest accident confirmed and reinforced my initial guess, that they will stay put in case of a slide, and very literally saved my elbow from shattering into a million pieces. Of course, protection works at low/average speed, and it works quite well. At high speeds, it only allows your mom to properly identify the body. Either way, my armor is here to stay. Now, if only I could find something like a kidney belt that comes with a hip protector, because the hip inserts in my pants did well, but could have done so much better.

I know a guy who was on the way to a viking re enactments show who fell off going into the Dartford tunnel under the Thames. The shower of sparks his mail shirt gave was most spectacular and absolutely freeked the people in the cars following him .the best bit was when he got up checked himself and with a few bruises carried on to the show .....he got a few more bruises from the Saxon hord he fought 👍

This video has started a huge debate that will surely improve impact protection on jackets , improve standards for jackets and better rider understanding on how protection works and what to buy. For this alone , it was worth it. Thanks !

"Life is so beautiful that our instinct is going to be to protect it, but our imperative, remember, is to appreciate it." Loved the ending ❤. Love from India

Been riding for 59 years. Raced for ten of those years. Got my engineering degree in 1977. I am quite familiar with the good and the bad with respect to research, publishing results, and suffering through the broad spectrum of interpretation and hidden agendas. Motorcycle gear is about abrasion resistance, period. Nothing short of a fully-inflated pneumatic bubble-boy suit, which would make a motorcycle completely unridable, will stop broken bones, dislocations, etc. Motorcycle airbags are a primitive attempt to create an instant bubble-boy suit with thus far inconclusive results. Promising anecdotes, yes, but definitive repeatable results, no. Regardless of what the original design intentions were or are, and regardless of the testing methods involved in creating ratings, pads in motorcycle gear are also about abrasion resistance, period. Every once in a while they might prevent or minimize a minor bruise, but that's it. Off-road, some of the hard plastic armour can sometimes prevent puncture wounds from tree branches and rocks, but they are also not going to prevent broken bones, etc. From my multiple personal experiences, broken bones heal fairly painlessly, all things considered. Abrasions and soft tissue damage, especially if they include skin grafts, are among the longest recovery time and most painful injuries. Look up Mick Doohan. Keep your pads in your gear, and just remember that the best way to prevent broken bones is to use your head for something other than modeling the latest helmet graphics. Ryan - individual industry research papers, regardless of the industry, are meant to be taken as merely one data point in a broader research effort incorporating multiple avenues of research and experimentation. They are guidelines for creating a theory, which drives a hypothesis, which in turn drives a proposal for an experiment, which if done properly done produces repeatable results under controlled circumstances to either verify or disprove the hypothesis. Gathering anecdotal results created under varying uncontrolled circumstances ain't science, it is merely anecdotal data compilation, similar in concept to circumstantial evidence in legal circles, i.e., while it does tend to point one in a certain direction, it does not conclusively prove anything. Be careful with your hypotheses, and I hope your personal amourless experiment does not produce unfortunate results which would make you physically incapable of repeating the experiment in the future.

I generally like your content...and understand the argument, but having had a good few crashes over 40 years of riding, I have experienced crashes both with and without CE armour. I currently wear Forcefield armour and it has, without a doubt, been highly effective at reducing injuries. As has the sorbothane armour in my old BKS leathers. Major impacts will break bones, but the trauma and damage will be reduced or eliminated for lower impacts. I continue to wear CE armour.

Had a crash last year and fell on my ellbow. I am convinced my level two protector spared me a fracture. I am keeping my level twos in. I want as much protection as possible!

This one made me double take. I usually trust you for information, but this seemed so irresponsible that I had to go check sources and find out you were largely mis-representing them. Please reconsider this video. I know you're saying "you" are not using it, and not "recommending" others do or do not, but come on.. you're a role model for a lot of us out there.

I came across this vid looking for ideas to add Kevlar lining to normal jeans and jackets I already own. I'm 6'3" 275# it's a challenge to find normal clothing that fits me, riding gear is kinda unobtanium. No one local stocks gear that fits, nor can it be found online. Even if I want to buy direct from the manufacturer and spend hundreds for single garment they generally don't stock my sizes.... So my choices are skip it, or pay $400 for a pair of pants that I have to wait for the manufacture to make, or sew some Kevlar in to the clothing I already have....🤔After watching this vid I think I'm gonna order that Kevlar cloth. The risk/reward/cost ratio for wearing the full motorcycle gimp suit just doesn't work for me. Adding a little Kevlar to keep my skin attached is probably the right level of protection for me.

I really believe that you make some good points, Ryan, but I can tell you that I probably would not be walking without a cane or walker now if I did not have armor in my knees and full armor in the rest of my gear when I had a serious accident. In 2006, a huge SUV made a left turn in front of me and I impacted the front wheel at around 45 mph. I was thrown up and over the vehicle, knocked unconscious, and woke up to EMT’s cutting off my damaged helmet (would have dead or suffered severe brain injury without it) and new armored leather jacket. I was transported to the hospital where I was evaluated and released that day. I had no injuries or abrasions. My fingertips were very bruised (jammed between the brake lever and the vehicle) and were saved from serious injury because my gloves had finger tip armor. I also had a small fracture in my lower back. When I went to look at my beautiful Kawasaki ZRX1200R, I noticed that the steel tank had a huge dent in it (about 3” deep) where my right knee had impacted the tank. The guys at the salvage yard were surprised that I was still alive and walking, given the severe damage to the bike. I had very slight bruising on my right knee! It is surprising that my armor worked so well, especially so, given the fact that my back pad was just foam and none of my other armor was CE rated. I had another crash a few years later where I had no injuries or abrasions because I was wearing armored gear. I was never asked about what gear I was wearing in the first crash and I did not report the second crash, so it begs the question-how accurate is the data if motorcyclists walk away uninjured from a crash and don’t report the incident? Personally, I am so grateful and appreciative that we have such great protective gear and, at 77 years old and still riding, I will always ride with armor. Just my perspective, everyone. Feel free to do what you like. BTW, if you don’t like bulky armor, try ghost armor - you hardly know it is there. Ride safe and enjoy the ride for as long as you can!

My bones are strong and haven't broken, but after a severe off-roading accident, I damaged the ligaments/joint in the side of my hip. This experience made me consider how much better protected the more vulnerable parts of my body, like the hip area, would have been with armor. You do state this when you say "specifically in relation to fractures."

The issue with looking at those crash test reports is they only include reported incidents. For example this winter a combination of bad riding, loose gravel and a nice bend in the road briefly introduced my knee to a concrete partition. Luckily it was only a glancing blow and though bruised I was out riding the next day, but there was a big hole in my riding pants and a chunck of padding missing from my knee pad. Without that protection my knee could have been smashed. This minor setback to my pride was not reported and so not included in any statistics. Cases where armour successfully prevents injury must be hard if not impossible to quantify. PS Incase you we worried no motorcycles were harmed in this story.

I think these are quite efficient for average rider that drive lower HP bikes on lower speed, everyone who drives faster bikes usually exchange the protection for better and more expensive protection. This is a lot better than nothing but if you drive a sport bike you make sure you are protected with quality...

Everybody who did off-road riding knows why you need at least knee and elbow pads.

"Helpul against abrasion and laceration". not inconsequential

been down hard twice, both from road hazards i just missed while on the highway (was not a great rider at the time). Both times the pads did nothing. Switched to a low friction jacket that would save my skin. My full face though worked great, the damage it took would have cost me my jaw. I will never ride without a full face.

Hit a van at 40mph side on, I was wearing full body armour and walked away without a single break. The trade off was head to toe bruising instead of shattered limbs.

Hmm, strange approach here. I had a bad motorbike crash 10 months ago. My knee was injured with a fracture. I was full gear equiped BUT, without my knee armor, my knee would be destroyed, not just fractured, and today, repaired. I think the armor goal, was not to prevent fracture, but to absord energy to reduce the damage. Sorry for my english, i'm a french rider who wear full gear... still ^^ Have a nice day, and I hope for you that you will never had a bad crash, without your armor gears. Ride safe people, life is too short ;). Best regards.