Boots
The following is from an article titled "Martin Fitzpatrick's Guide to Motorcycle Leathers"
"…. Now, the following piece is based on the Good Doctor's knowledge of the statistics. Me, personally, I don't want to argue with the guy. It seems to me that he's been in contact with most of the major hospitals in the UK. I can't compete with that personally. The Good Doctor tells me that, statistically speaking, you want to protect yourself from the feet up. He tells me about this idea of a rating of the frequency with which an injury occurs (over, say the UK in a year) and the dehabilitation caused by the injury. Turn the statistics into betting odds, and we're talking about your chances of not being able to walk after a crash. Now, the Good Doctor says that this rating DECREASES as you go up the body, ie.fewer people are dehabilitated from chest injuries or back injuries than from foot injuries. Yes, I found it hard to believe too, but he's got the statistics ! That means, protect your feet first, then your legs, then your body. He admits that there's a peak at the head, ie. the head causes more dehabilitation than the body, but from there down, this rule holds. ... He tells me that broken ankles are the most common injury you can imagine. Compare them to broken backs and you're talking mountains and molehills. Surprising stuff. Time to revise my ideas on protection. ... The next point is very interesting - you need more protection to your feet and legs than to any other part of the body (apart from the head). How many salespeople have you heard saying that ? "None" is my answer. So don't believe the salespeople. So to sum up, my advice to anyone thinking about leathers would be as follows:
- Before you do anything else, go out and buy yourself a decent pair of boots, with built-in ankle protection. By that, I don't mean armour in the boot, what's more important is that the boot grips the ankle so that any twisting or bending action is prevented. Take a look at a good quality pair of mountaineering boots for an example of this. They're built specifically to protect against this, since it's easy to break an ankle on uneven ground and it's then a big problem getting home.
- Then buy yourself a good pair of leather jeans, double-layered in the right places, and padded (in the same places) with Polynorbonene (if you can find it).
- Lastly, buy a jacket with the same double-layering and padding rules."