Riding gears and safety tips for driving

The helmet is such a protective armor which has helped me to survive till this day to write this blog post about safety and riding gears.

I am a kind of person not riding above 80km/hr, who obeys all traffic rules and regulations no matter how long/hard it takes but in some conditions where the adrenaline rush makes you loose your temper you got to be very careful. So better take precaution than cure/even more disastrous! since life itself cannot be given warranty these days.

I have had bad experiences in riding brothers bike, pulsar 150cc, Well, Its not about the bike that i am talking, but it is all about the Bangalore traffic population increasing day-by-day and "Yamdhoot"-like Leyland lorries(no offense if i used any Trade Mark name here) on the ring road and reckless driving in inter-town roads and lack of streetlights within the so called well planned layouts!
This happened to me somewhere 8 months back soon after I joined Freescale CPG (Can now be called a bad omen coz of its closure :P). Fortunalety, the mishap took place right in front of north-side hospital close to my house. There were 2 guys on the bike plus a kid of around 10 years of age who had probably come to hospital and the rider was searching for a place in parking lot stopping in the middle of the road! looking left and right he suddenly barges into an empty slot with a right turn and there i was following right behind him without knowing what he was upto as he had not put any indicators. Bang goes the collision, not with a loud explosion but i skid off to my right after overtaking him with quite a large distance about 10-15ft to rip off my right shoulder's skin and knee and ankle, but not a scratch on my face/head - without the helmet I wouldn't have survived! I suddenly got up barged to the driver scolding him without even looking at my profusely bleeding injuries. I removed my helmet to see the dent on it and thanked god for establishing the hospital right next to the scene. As i went inside the nurse got panic and called for help! and asked me if i had filed FIR since they refused to treat me as this is an accident case! WTH!(Doc's suck more blood than what i was bleeding out). I said its ok i haven't informed any police.. just do the first aid and give me a shot of Diclofenac, anti swelling painkiller. The tantra T-shirt(you can imagine how thin it will be) which had a huge patch of about 10 cms through which the red-flesh of my right shoulders were visible and the shirt soiled and stuck to my bloody(not to be read in adjectival form :P) arms.

The point of using so many adjectives and adverbs in my last statement is not to exagerrate the accident but to make you all aware of how important is safety while drving. Well, Coming back to the point now ( after a long-long story of mine ;) ), Use of good protective riding gears saves your life, after all you don't love anyone more than yourself, do you!?

Today, I went to cramster sales-outlet and having heard of the DSG, textile and other "brands" famous for the motorcycle riding gears and bought myself the protective gears necessary for my bike trips / driving on and off roads. Even though it exceeded my budget (crossing +1000 bucks) I went for it as it is now affordable as a software engineer but not when i was a student. After all its a matter of safety and thus I compromised it for money.

Of-course foremost thing a biker must have is a helmet. I own a Studds helmet, flame blue in colour which I had bought while having the bike. It costed me Rs.1200/-(All prices in INR as on June 2009. Best place to buy JC road bangalore) A full helmet with ventilator at the base, available in many sizes. The name says it all for the safety.
Then comes the other parts of the body prone for injuries during mishap - elbows, knees and shoulders. Pain is unbearable when bone has an impact during injury leave alone fractures. Trust me if you have never had one! So next thing you need to go is for a proper riding jacket with armor for elbows/shoulders/back. I bought a cramster pulse(blue),same as the one below. Costed me Rs.5200/- But its worth the deal. Loaded with all that you can ask for. Has optional zipper to attach riding pants, with removable themolite lining for warmth and fully rainproof suitable for all Indian weather.
Next comes the palms/fingers/knuckles on which you directly land if you fall off the bike. Having a pair of riding gloves really helps to take away all the scrubbing of the rough fall. I bought the below TRG1 riding gloves though it crossed my budget. It cost me a whooping Rs.2100/-!!
Riding pants are optional, if you can afford them.

Oh! How could I ever forget the pair of all-terrain Woodland shoes with above all!

If you are loooking out for safety gears, I recommend the below link. Its @ cunningham road, Bangalore. more details @ http://www.cramster.in/ridinggear.php

There are a couple of other leather jacket stores in commercial street, you can visit them too.

Now that I am fully loaded, let me burn all NH's of India with my bikes tread-marks :D

Adios then :)