[gixxerjasen]

No helmet cam, but this is something my buddy shot and put together from this past weekend. I'm the one on the orange KTM with the full orange suit.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5172688615496867540

 

[BikePilot]

That's awsome! I love your last crash:lol

 

[gixxerjasen]

Which one? :banghead

 

[BikePilot]

The last one in the vid, looks like your comming up a hill, hanging off the back of the bike (vid is shot from the top of the hill I think), spinning quite a bit and eventually fall over on the down-hill side in a sorta comical fassion Not that I'd know what that's like:rolleyes

 

[gixxerjasen]

Oh yea, you can see me actually make it up that hill earlier in the vid. Wheelied, went off the line, damn near went back down the hill as I blast through managing to miss every tree on the way all the way carving my own line. Dang bike...gets all crazy but I know better, keep it pinned or it stalls and I have to start over again. It was an ugly ride, but I made it. I didn't make it up the hill that you see me fall side to side on in the outtakes.

 

[n2wheelies]

looks like good times.

:thumbup

 

[oldtlsdoug]

Nice Jasen, you are going to force me to get a friggin' dirt bike aren't you? I dont't even have any proper dirt bike gear man! What are you doing to me! :banghead :banghead

The force is strong, must resist :rant

 

[gixxerjasen]

Cmon Doug....gear is cheap for dirt biking. You know you want to!

I've got a $70 helmet, $120 boots. That was my most expensive pieces of gear...figure I should spend in the important areas.

$80 for the jersey, pants and gloves, all not entirely necessary except the gloves, but help and make you look like you know what your doing.

$15 for elbow pads, $20 for knee/shin guards
$20 for goggles
Chest Protector, kind of expensive, but one of the KTMTalk guys had just gotten a pressure suit so being the great guy he is, he gave me that one.

Compared to streetbiking, that's cheap. You can't even get a decent jacket for that combined price. :coocoo

 

[oldtlsdoug]

Damn You! Stop!!!!!! :lol

 

[BikePilot]

Doug there's nothing as fun as dirt riding! Plus the bikes and gear are cheeper than street stuff. You can get a good used MX bike for $2k and full gear for under $1k for top of the line stuff (I don't mind an old bike, but can't stand low end gear).

I think I spent about the following
Helmets $500 (ok, so you don't really need two)
Pants $50 (on sale)
Jersy $20 (really not necessary)
Gloves $20
Goggles $30
Boots $265
Kidney belt $25
chest protector $50 (good sale)
Knee braces $350 (EVS Web, new private party - not really standard dirt gear, but worth thinking about, espeically if you have bad knees and ride hard - probably true for SM too)

 

[gixxerjasen]

I bought cheap gear and will upgrade as necessary. I did the same thing with street stuff. A cheap helmet is better than no helmet if your on a budget. Now I've got Arai helmet, Dianese suit, etc.

I bought a cheap helmet cuz I knew that learning I was gonna bash it and buy a new one after the first season.

 

[Guest]

I bought a cheap helmet cuz I knew that learning I was gonna bash it and buy a new one after the first season.

:laugh did you think that your head is inside that helmet and you cannot buy new head after the first season...:laugh

i was gonna bash it:laugh

 

[BikePilot]

:lol Yeah there's a big range of prices in dirt gear just like street. Except for helmet and boots the price variance is as much due to styling and sponsorship deals than anything else. Mid-low end pants, gloves, googles and jerseys are usualy virtually identicle to the stuff costing twice as much other than small style changes and how many top pros are wearing them.

Boots you get what you pay for no doubt. Helmets are the same as street really in terms of price/quality....

knee braces are about a minumum of $500 msrp for real ones.

have fun

 

[gixxerjasen]

:laugh did you think that your head is inside that helmet and you cannot buy new head after the first season...:laugh

i was gonna bash it:laugh

I still stand by the fact that expensive helmets don't protect any better than inexpensive helmets. You pay extra for things like comfort, convenience, features and style. I do have an Arai for the street because I used to commute with it. It's damn hot in Texas and I liked the venting that it had and the quick change system for the sheild. That quick change system rocks. I used to carry both clear and tinted shields in my tankbag and use the appropriate one for the time of day.

My boots, I tried on several pairs without looking at the price tag. I picked a set out that fit me really well, and I liked the straps/clips. I like the fact that when you clip them they snap in and don't pop loose. Turns out I'd picked out a nice set of Fox boots that were on sale and were the least expensive of the ones I had tried on. That made me

 

[BikePilot]

My friend with the titanium cheek and eye socket might disagree - flat ground, noob, had the same opinion about cheep (polycarb) helmets, lost it on a YZ125 in 3rd gear I think (~35mph I suppose). Bounced along the trail, broke his eyesocket and cheek bone on the inside of the helmet. Far from a scientific test, but the crash sure wasn't anything spectacular or high speed.

For fun I took a HJC polycarb helmet that came with a bike I bought and a retired fox pilot (the origional italian one, not the current korean ones). Droped them both from the same height and watched for a bounce. The HJC bounced like a rubber ball while the fox made a thud and more or less stuck to the ground. Next I tried throwing them at the ground hard, the HJC bounced up way over my head, the pilot bounced up about knee height.

Of course the only real conclusion is that the polycarb helmet bounces a lot higher than the composite (carbon/fibreglass/armidea). I'm know physics master, but I think that its bad for a helment to bounce.

Historically all the cheep lids were polycarb and expensive ones composite. Now days you can get some pretty decent near arai rip-off composit helmets for cheep. Like a M2R Team X for example - can be had for under a hundred bucks on sale and uses a dot/snell carbon fiber/fiberglass shell and doesn't weight much more than an arai of the same size (my wife has one, I have arai and vemar dirt helmets, the M2R is probably about the same as the Vemar in construction fit and finish).


My wife picked boots the same way as you, only the ones she liked best happend to be Sidi Force Flex SRS (about the most expensive moto boot you could get at the time - 355msrp):banghead I did the same and ended up with Tech-8's in 2000. Before that I had some fox forma's that I really liked. Didn't like the new forma nearly as much and went with the t-8 which was actually very simialr to the old forma....

Anyway, just my 2c be safe and have fun:thumbup

 

[gixxerjasen]

True, but remember the tests published in motorcyclist this past year using more real world tests than the DOT and Snell? Some of the less expensive helmets trasferred fewer G's to the head than did some of the more expensive ones. Your friends accident might have had similar, worse or possibly better results with a more expensive helmet. The problem is...you can never get anyone like your friend to repeat these tests with multiple helmets for some odd reason. :O