All The Gear All The Time

Also known as ATGATT. Basically, every time you get on your motorcycle you need to put on all your gear, no mater what distance your riding or the condition. You'll see this mantra floating around various motorcycle forums across the web. Users will be spouting this like bible thumpers, so I wanted to weigh in on the subject.

All the gear, all the time, that's what the safety conscious say. Well let's face it, skin grafts are expensive. Personally I think you should live and ride by this, no questions asked. This shit is LAW, like gravity, or the speed limit. Disrespect the law and there is going to be trouble. Wear all your gear all the time. End of story.

Get real. Rules are meant to be broken, we ride motorcycles for christsake. No matter who you are or what you ride the root of what we do there is an underlying sense of freedom and rebellion. Plus it feels amazing to zip down the road with your only protection being your favorite pair of sunglasses with the wind whipping through your hair.

Don't get me wrong, I cut my teeth riding in the mountains of North Carolina and Georgia, both states have helmet laws. Plus the thought of dragging my face across the pavement, let alone my exposed brain, isn't one I'm comfortable with. The first time I legally rode without a helmet or rode without a helmet for an extended period of time was in Indianapolis Indiana. My two best friends and co-workers at the time rode up from Hayesville, NC to see Moto GP in 2009. Those Rizla Suzukis sounded amazing. I was lucky enough to be on the back of a BMW K1200LT for the weekend. We weren't lucky enough to dodge the hardest rain I've ever ridden through, Charles' gloves even stained his hands.

Shortly after we arrived and dumped all our gear at the hotel, helmets included we jumped back on the bikes to ride over to Indianapolis Motor Speedway to catch the last bit of the practice runs. I was excited and comfortable at surface street speed. That ended shortly after we merged onto the raised interstate, within seconds I was up to 70 miles an hour. As Lucas stadium passed to my right I recognized a feeling I hadn't had in a long time. It was the feeling of being completely terrified at speed on the back of a bike. You know, the feeling you had the first time you rode a motorcycle at highway speed. You are completely exposed in a foreign environment, in control of an instrument of death, capable of propelling your fragile body to large triple digits within moments. All the while you have this cold feeling running up your spine, head on a swivel to see if you'll be lucky enough to catch a glimpse of what may deliver your horrendous death in the seconds to come or if you'll manage this situation unscathed. Compete terror.

After a weekend of helmet-less sprints from red light to red light with my buddies and high speed jaunts on the interstate I was hooked.

Like many things I enjoy and participate in, I don't entirely condone it. A odd proposition you say? I agree. Our hobby is dangerous and if everyone is out to kill us why then would we ever do less than everything we can to avoid death or worse, maimed survival? Because it's in us to live dangerously. We want to push that limit, we want to enjoy life to the fullest. So while I want everyone to dress for the crash and not for the ride I understand, some of the greatest things in life aren't exactly safe. So do all you can to protect yourself the majority of the time. It will make the times you decide to be a bit more reckless all the sweeter.

That's just my two sprockets
 - Josh