Motorcycle Safety Essentials: Gear and Accessories Every Rider Needs
Sep
When it comes to motorcycle protective gear, there’s a lot more than you might initially think to consider. Motorbikes can be fun, safe machines that make for wonderful experiences in speed and thrill. They’re great for getting out in the open air, and wonderful forms of transportation.
But what makes them great also makes them risky. After all, they lack the protective walls and safety features of cars, and can travel at much faster speeds too. This means that in the event of an accident on a motorbike, it’s just you, your increased force of impact, and the world around you. With this in mind, it doesn’t take a terribly great leap of brain power to see why a little extra Accessories & More might be beneficial when riding a motorbike.
Today, we’re going to take a quick look at what safety gear you may need to look at if you’re looking at or have a motorcycle you intend to use regularly.
Essential Gear Every Rider Should Own
As with most things to do with safety, there is a small host of things that you should be using every time you take a ride. The following list represents these essentials:
Helmet
The head is the nexus of everything, it’s important to protect, and in the increased risk of high-impact accidents presented by motorcycles, there is possibly no more important piece of motorcycle protective gear that you can own.
Impacts to the head can have long and lasting damage on the brain and its functioning. Helmets that pass the Australian standard, and fit well, offer a hard outer shell to absorb the initial shock of any significant impacts, and a cushioned surface directly around the cranium to further absorb any physical shock and mitigate the injury or chances of significant brain damage to the wearer.
Gloves
You might not think about gloves as being a particularly essential piece of protective riding gear, but the truth is that going at fast speeds without any buffer between you and your skin means that you’ll get cold…really cold. Doubly so if you’re riding in rainy or foggy weather. Imagine driving up the road at 60 k’s per hour with no walls or glass around you in a winter Melbourne’s early morning in nothing but your skivvies.
Doesn’t spark too much joy does it?
When riding, make sure you’re wearing motorcycle gloves. Not only do they improve your grip on the handlebars, but they protect your hands against wind chill and weather. Remember, there’s nothing surrounding you on a motorcycle, so you have to surround yourself. And if you have the misfortune to come off your bike while riding, your gloves will provide an added layer of protection between your skin and the asphalt. They’re an essential part of motorcycle, quad bike or pit bike safety gear.
Jacket and Pants
No, bikers don’t just get about in leather because it makes them look badass, they’re actually looking after themselves. If you’re just wearing normal clothes, guess what’ll happen if you get thrown and your body goes skimming down the road at high speed. Those clothes tear. And not only do they tear; they get embedded in your flesh. Ever picked gravel out of a scrape? Now imagine that the gravel is soft and has absorbed some of your blood and actually stuck inside the wound. Nasty.
Motorcycle jackets and pants are essential motorcycle protective gear because they are typically made out of leather or similar textile in order to avoid this. Where other clothes don’t resist the friction of the road, leather does, and it’s harder to break as well – even at high speed and impact. Not only this, but most standard-compliant (CE certification) motorcycle jackets and pants contain some form of armouring, offering further protection to major impact zones.
Boots
Your feet are just as important as the rest of your body, and on a motorbike they’re very close to the ground too.
Boots that comply with national safety standards offer protection for your feet, so if you accidentally skid the ground with them you’ve still got all your toes left. However, they also provide support for your feet during extended rides, ensuring that you aren’t injured or overly uncomfortable while riding your bike.
Motorcycle Accessories That Improve Safety
While these following items aren’t technically an essential part of your protective riding gear, they are certainly useful and should be considered wherever possible.
Protective Eyewear and/or Visors
Most motorcycle helmets have some kind of facial protection with a visor on it, as riding a motorbike with your face out would be uncomfortable to say the least. See the section on gloves for details.
If your motorcycle helmet doesn’t feature face or eye protection, then it’s essential that you either replace the eye protection, or invest in some kind of Fixtures And Fittings to keep you safe. This is doubly true if you do a lot of dirt or night riding, where detritus or insects are most likely to assault your face and vision.
Braking Upgrades and Good Tyres
A lot of accidents are caused by two things, drivers not paying attention, and brakes not working. When drivers aren’t aware of what’s around them, they can’t react in time, and their first reaction will generally be to slam on the brakes. But if the brakes are old or faulty, then they might as well be putting their foot to the tar.
Ensuring that your Accumulators Safety Blocks are in good condition is essential to being able to reliably control your vehicle.
Additionally, that weird pattern on your tyres? That’s called a “tread.” It’s there to stop you sliding along on wide turns, or skimming out of control when you apply your brakes. Make sure the treads on your tyres haven’t been worn down by use, and that they still meet the legal standards.
Lighting & Visibility Accessories
Depending on the light or visibility part you’re going for, this could be essential, especially if you’re a regular night rider. Some lighting systems are legal requirements, and if they’re faulty they need to be repaired or replaced as soon as humanly possible.
Visibility accessories aren’t just for your safety, they’re for the safety of those around you. How quickly someone can react to you is determined by how soon they can see you, so making your vehicle as visible as possible means that people are more aware of you, and less likely to accidentally T-bone you.
There are many Dc Servo Motorand visibility accessories available. It’s simply a matter of finding what options you have, and what you can apply to your vehicle.
Crash Protection
This is the advantage that cars have over motorbikes is the fact that they’re tiny houses on wheels with safety straps to hold drivers and passengers in the safety zone in the event of a crash.
Motorbikes lack such provisions. They are open to the world, and in the event of a crash can send their rider flying meters away. While you’ve got a helmet, gloves, jacket, pants, and boots, a bike doesn’t exactly slip on its armour before each ride. Luckily, there are things you can get that protect your bike in the worst case scenario.
Most of the time these components are installed at the factory, and help to mitigate damages to the bike through shock and impact absorption.
Why Quality Matters
We all love a bargain, but if you’re getting your motorcycle protective gear from Temu, chances are you’d be better off with a rain coat.
It’s important that when you’re buying your protective equipment, you’re not just going for the cheapest possible option. Go with what’s tested, what meets Australian standards, and with reputable brands guaranteed to keep you safe.
It may be more expensive in the short term, but in the long term it will save you having to buy replacement gear every time some cheapy bit of kit wears out or breaks. Not only that but the higher quality items will ensure your safety more reliably due to their superior construction and materials.
When it comes to safety, you get what you pay for, but if you’re having trouble navigating the absolute ocean of options available, give interactivefiction a call on 0403 317 352 and our experts will do the best we can to advise you. Alternatively, you can contact us here.
