On that Harley crash that took out your foot top... do you think that wearing boots such as the ones shown in this thread would have helped? I mean, you burned through leather harley riding boots which ought to be somewhat comparable to other riding boots.

On the road I wear my georgia boot tall slip on romeos. No laces to tangle and steel shank soles. The least of my problems are my feet. The vitals are more deserving of attention. Does anybody use anything except a full faced helmet? I can't even imagine wearing steel toe boots on a bike and trying to slip your toe under the shifter.

I wear MX boots for offroad and they are like ski boots. Very non-flexible. For the last race I competed in the riders had to run about 50 feet to their parked bikes, jump on, start it and race 50 miles into the desert. It was comical watching people, including me, try to run with MX boots and gear.

 

I took a spill on the bike on friday. My front tire went into a small washout (about 1 foot deep) which shot me strait into a 5 foot deep wash out. Sandwiched my leg between the bank and bike and launched threw me off.. Lucky I was wearing my jacket and helmet....but I WASN'T wearing my alpine stars boots, I wish I had been wearing them my shin, ankle and calf are black, blue and cut to ****. Just to hummor myself, when I got home I put one boot on to see if the would have stopped anything and ALL my injuries would have been 100% protected (would have stopped the abrasion, and the plastic on the top side thick leather would have stopped the blunt trauma).... last time I don’t wear them when riding.

 

Actually, on this fall, outside of Junction,TX, I was wearing my Klim pants, Garnae 10 boots(motocross), with the Moose Racing knee guards, First Gear air mesh jacket, full face helmet and leather gloves. The body armor in the air mesh jacket worked great.

 

I think if I had proper riding boots it would have saved my foot injury. The Harley boots I had were simply high top hiking boots stamped with a Harley insignia so they can charge you $40 extra bucks them. Pretty much just Redwing work boots from what I been told.

So while the toe part and sides were leather, the tongue of the boot and laced area was just soft mesh. So the tire burned through that part and only a small part of the leather section near where the mesh and leather met. So that spinning tire opened up the boot at the weak spot, the non leather area. Wish I was wearing my leather cowboy boots that day as I think even those would have prevented much of the damage!

Live and learn. I tend to learn the hard way, but hopefully my experience saves someone else the trauma someday. If you want to see the damage I did, go to this page and look at the Critical Situation Pictures. I posted a couple pictures in that album but I won't post them here. It'll certainly get you to wear proper boots!!!
Joseph Alai (The Joseph) on Myspace

 

Good god..... you sir, are a bigger man than I. You honestly saved my feet. Period. That would end my bike riding. Scary...

 

Not so much specifically boot related, but to those who ride in jeans, t-shirts or sneakers, here's something to think about: I had a high-side streetbike wreck at about 40 mph a few years ago. I was wearing my usual head-to-toe "Michelin Man" armored riding gear and full face helmet. I landed face first on the pavement and was instantly knocked unconscious. I awoke to the sound of sirens, by standers hovering over me, keeping me from trying to sit up. EMT's arrived and carted me off to a waiting helicopter, which brought me to a hospital where they did a whole series of x-rays. I lay there chillin' of some kind of morphine for a couple hours, at which point they finally came by and said I was free to go. No broken bones, no cuts or abrasions, just a few gnarly bruises, some very sore ribs, and a bit of a limp from my banged up hip for a few days. I know, had I been wearing any thing other than the full kit, I would have suffered some serious injuries, and most of all, if I had been wearing an open face helmet, I wouldn't be here typing this. I used to go out on rides occasionally wearing jeans with the rest of my riding gear, but ever since the wreck, I can't help but imagine what would have happened to my knees that day, and I'll take the extra two minutes to put on some armored pants (I have mesh pants for the summer). If you're wearing low top shoes on your rides, try to imagine your bare ankle sliding down some nice gritty asphalt at 55 miles per hour.

 

Good photos, not too graphic. Amazing how well it healed, or at least how well it looks like it healed.

A guy that wrecks with all of the gear and has no injuries isn't an example of why I should wear gear. A guy without the gear and has injuries tells me why I should wear gear. One of those cause and effect things since there is no way to know whether the gear saved you or if you would have been fine.

I rode to work wearing jeans today.

 

Hmm? Okay. To each his own

 

It's like saying, "I had an aluminum foil hat on today and didn't get abducted by aliens so you ought to wear a foil hat too".

 

A tin foil hat and aliens is equivalent to motorcycle safety?

Some people are destined to learn the hard way.