Motocross Safety Gear & Accessories

Video Transcript

"Probably the most important aspect of riding a motorcycle in general is having the right safety gear from the beginning, will prevent injury and, and just make you feel a lot more confident when you're on the bike. Motocross has gotten, I believe, kind of a bad reputation as a dangerous sport because a lot of times, you'll read in the newspaper of people get, being injured riding down the road, that weren't wearing a helmet or didn't have their right safety equipment. So I can't stress enough how important it is to invest in good, quality, protective safety equipment, it's going to pay dividends down the road for you. The base of my safety protection actually you can't see right now, underneath my pants here is the CTi2 custom fit knee brace I, in the past, back in the seventies and eighties, knee injuries were a major, major threat in motocross and a lot of the top professional riders had their careers ended prematurely by injury. With kind of the innovation that went into the knee brace, the CTi knee brace, it's pretty much taken that, that injury almost out of play completely or at least a lot less than, than it used to be. I won't ride without these, some people just wear knee cups or knee pads but I prefer the safety and the stability that I get from a knee brace. After that, obviously you have your protective riding pants that, you know, are special thicker material, they've got leather on the inside to stop from, from burning yourself on a hot exhaust pipe, and also they look super cool. We also have here, your racing jersey, which you know, it's vented in some spots to get the airflow through but it's also a little bit, you know, thicker than a normal shirt and gives you a little bit added protection. The motocross boot is a specially designed boot to give you stability in your ankles, to be able to maneuver to get to your brake pedal and your, your shift lever. But also you know, it, it keeps your foot mobilized so if you were to catch a foot in a rut or on a jump you know, it makes you much less susceptible to injury. It's also got a steel toe so if you do kick your foot into the ground, you know, it's, it's not doing quite as much damage and you know, a reinforced sole. Moving on that foot peg, you know, back and forth, that's a, that's a lot of wear and tear on the, on the soles of your feet and on your arches if you don't have proper, proper equipment and I can't stress enough, how important it is to really invest in a good pair of boots. It's in my opinion just as important as, as a helmet or you know, a lot of the other kind of key safety pieces. Underneath the shirt, a kidney belt, will kind of help, you know help you on Monday morning if you're riding on Sunday afternoon and you're getting on a rough track with lots of bumps and jumps from kind of moving, moving your insides around and giving you that feeling of sickness that you might sometimes get after a long ride. A chest protector, you know they call them roost guards but I think it's a lot more than a roost guard, you know, I've several times gotten tangled up with other riders and gotten into somebody's rear wheel where this saved me, or you might take a handlebar when you crash into, into the gut and this will kind of disperse that impact and, and move it along and you've got protection in the shoulders and on the back so it's a, a very important piece that I think gets overlooked by some of the professional riders but. The next piece of equipment that, that I wear is called a Leatt brace and this is a recent innovation from a company called Leatt. And it's similar to maybe a HANS device in auto racing, but what it does, is it, it, it stops the backward and forward movement of your head and it's a pretty trick device that you actually don't even really feel, you know, I don't feel it at all when I'm riding but it gives me that little bit of extra stability and that, that knowledge that I have, you know, added protection should I take a really hard crash. Now this is one of those things, just like knee braces, that now I, I really don't like to ride without it. After that, you've got your, your helmet which is your most important piece, if you were picking one piece to wear, never ride without a helmet. It's, it will save your life, it really will and investing in a good quality helmet, I think, you know there's a lot of really, really low end helmets and it's better to have something than nothing but if you can afford it, I mean if you're going to invest in one thing, invest in your head. Also you have your gloves, which I'm wearing right now, but they give you the padding on the bottom to stop you from getting blisters, to allow you to hold onto a, you know a powerful, motor, motorcycle like the Honda 450 here. And they give a little bit of protection on the top in case you do get hit with the roost or rocks or dirt when you're riding. And then last, your eye protection, you know, they've got shatter proof lenses, you can also put tear-offs on and they keep the dust and debris, the dirt and everything from, from getting in your eyes. You can also, you know interchange lenses, on a bright day, you can wear a tinted lens, you know, much like a sunglass. And those are your safety pieces and if I can, if I can say you know, how important that is yet again, it's just, nobody likes to see motorcycles get a bad rap so please wear your safety equipment and, and keep yourself safe and, and have fun."