My booboo gear
 

Just thought I'd give my .02 on the gear I was wearing when I went down last wed.

Picked a new Frank Thomas XTI 2 jacket up in early Dec. and put it through it's paces in the rain and everything is spot on except for the damn collar. Their older models (which I had for almost exactly 1 year till I put some road rash on it) had a nice collar where it was adjustable with velcro and had a nice button strap.

The new jacket lacked this feature and as my coat size is a 44 and neck is only a 16, I felt like I had a wind tunnel going down my damn front, esp. with the supahawk and the way it drags the wind down along the tank.
I did not however have that problem on my older vfr as that created a slight vacuum in the "cockpit" space and I was comfy and warm.

The only other hiccup with the jacket was the sleeve zippers and getting caught in the mesh that's there to "breathe". I call BS here because the infernal contraptions just made everything more difficult as I couldn't fit my damn hand out of the right side sleeve!

Other than that it held up well till last wed. when I put my 'ceptor down about 45mph. Jacket held up really well and only had some slight burns on the front, but hey! ITS STILL WATERPROOF!

For the helmet, I was wearing an older Shark Helmet and this is where I'd watch out; about 1/2 way through my tumble, my visor popped open on one side and my sunglasses came off my face and bit my nose a little bit, but I got lucky there was no debris going up in my eyes. Just my warning on Sharks QUICKRELEASE visor stuff.

Gloves I had on were Frank Thomas Aquafoil and they held up really well, bumped my hand up a little bit but that was from impact force and nothing much that a glove could do about that.

So for the money, I think that F/T gear is a rather good buy, protection is decent, and the price is unbeatable but I'd wait another 2-3 generations for the jackets before you run out and grab one of the hot-off-the-press jackets because there's still a few kinks to work out!

Keep the rubber side down!

Thanks for the write-up. I've always wondered how my gear will hold up. Hopefully I'll never find out, but I'm sure one day I will. More guys should give us feedback after they go down like this. Tim

What pants were you wearing?

My khaki work pants =/ They don't look all that good. As I slid on my front for a little while they got a little (actually a lot) torn up.

I only ended up getting a half-dollar sized scrape on my knee, and a little bruise on my thigh from when the bike kicked me off but I know I should have been riding pants, but hey, work and school in bulky and uncomfortably hot pants is not for me.


I was really hoping to not need to find out how my gear held up, but hey, they don't call them "on-purposes"

If I had known this defect with the Shark helmets I would have stayed as far away from them as possible. Understandably a helmet can't save you from everything and inexplicable things will happen regardless of what you go through, but I've never had a visor pop off before and that was slightly worrisome.