I’m assuming you don’t know good boots then.
A set of lace-up Danners are not only athletic, but has a great heal cup that protects against exactly that kind of injury.
Anyway, I’v had rolled ankles before, wasn’t wearing good boots at the time either!
Oh, how I love assumptions…
Well fitting knee pads and slide gloves (slide pucks) is the best way to bail at speed.
If you can, wear leathers, then it doesn’t matter so much, but running is not really a good option ever.
I’ve bailed at speed (60kph+) quite a bit in my life, it’s part of downhill skateboarding, and i’ve never left with more than a couple scrapes where I didn’t have pads covering my skin and a bit of soreness if it was unexpected and the fall caused me to tumble. Basically, minimum pads for me is kneepads, gloves and helmet. For me, anything else I feel is restrictive personally, and its saved me many more than a few times.
Whenever I see anyone riding without slide gloves (basically everybody?!) I wonder the same thing you asked… How the fuck are they going to survive a fall? Well, seeing many falls on group rides, they get fucked up. That’s how they survive I guess… 
If it’s not clear how to fall with slide gloves and knee pads, fall on your hands and knees if possible, wrecking your shoes to slow down if necessary.
This cheap AliExpress armor saved me quite a bit from falling at 37kph last Sunday. So did the helmet.
What actually hurts the most is my upper left thigh on which I fell on initially. I had an ir temp gun in my pocket there.
Now day two after the fact I actually feel some neck pain too.
Pads are definitely a skin saver and I think they help a little too with bone breaks. Instead of a sudden stop when falling you tend to slide it out a lot more and the pads help with dampening the impact.
Agreed, man. The value in these these hard shell armours is more in helping you slide off the momentum than it is in protecting against abrasion (which they also do admirably). I just can’t bring myself to go full RoboCop though.
Maybe I might if I’d had a short injury as bad as yours though. 
My dearest wish is that someone would come up with the remote that allows me to wear slide gloves. It would be a game changer.
I have started wearing armour for some of the more extreme stuff and yes I feel like a teenage mutant ninja turtle but I actually dont care.
Glad to see it saved you
Thanks. I basically never ride without it unless I’m just going for a quick grocery run in the neighborhood.
Someone from the ride was instantly convinced to purchase at least a lazy rolling hoodie and wear that from now on.
What is stopping you from wearing slide gloves now?
Do we need to go through this again?
I’m using the Maytech R2, which is more of a handful, but that jazz just doesn’t work for me anyway. I want the puck in my hand, not on my wrist.
Edit: Fwiw, I use Flexmeter wrist guards which have a small plate-thing in that area. That’s useful for skidding off a bail (on-topic) but not the whole reason why I want slide gloves.
No we don’t.
I apologise for forgetting it was you I previously had this discussion with.
Those bruises… it seriously looks like an alien doing a kick flip over a pile of junk.
I wear my pucks with remote fine, nano-X. I do need a new remote soon though, but it fits well with my remote hand puck slid down a bit towards my lower palm.
I keep my remote on a retractable lanyard attached to my waist so that if I drop it during a fall I don’t have to worry about holding it or smashing it, and since (you’re right…) remote grip is not 100% ideal with pucks, it’s nice to be able to drop/let go of it whenever. But, the benefits of setting up pucks to at least work reasonably well with your remote imo far outweigh the small lack of convenience + lack of pucks.
There are pucks out there designed for use with remotes. I’ll link it when I find it.
Edit: here it is! https://flatland3d.com/shop/all-products/all-e-skate-accessories/slide-puck/
If you are too cheap for $9 + slide gloves from a mall skate shop, especially if you already have a jigsaw, cutting board, gloves and a blow torch, you can cut your own pucks (this is what I do) shaped to fit your remote/hand perfectly. Just trace the pucks you want on the cutting board, jigsaw the pucks out, melt the top layer a bit goopy with a blow torch, put your gloves on, and press gloves into melted pucks (make sure placement is exactly where you want it, and press pretty hard- it should form around the contours of your palms a bit making it comfortable!), take off gloves [HOT] and let it cool. When melting the pucks, since they like to warp depending on the thickness of your cutting board, I like to start heating from the edges first to the middle at the end- this seems to help minimize warping when melting the top of the pucks. In total, like $15 minutes of work and free if you already have the supplies.
I have spent quite a few years in fighting sports and playing football both with and without pads. Here are two things that become obvious quickly:
If you were to give me sizing of your gloves and slide pucks… Thumb or trigger control?
What kind of behavior do you want from the remote when you pat the ground? Dead zone / brake / just manual throttle?
Edit : I think I might have something.
This is what my ankles look like, permanently. After who knows how many sprains. None recent. Those are all old.
I trust these:
They feel solid.
do people here mostly use soft knee pads? (foam, g-forms, etc) or hard knee pads (that can slide out)?
I use hard kneepads for when I used to downhill longboard (non-electric)
And soft for esk8 because my board goes 40km/h tops. And because its more convenient for a>b travel
Soft (POC VPD2). Wish I’d had the sense to go hard (POC VPD2 DH), but wonder if I’d wear them so religiously if I had (see earlier RoboCop reference).
@Vanarian: I’m trigger-throttle with thumb-brake. Ground pat should be dead-zone.
Is what you have in mind something along these lines? Cos that’s what I’ve got in mind 
Hard knee pads. So far they’ve worked wonderfully and are still in good shape. I imagine soft would get torn up after the first few tumbles.
If I could afford the POC VPD2s I’d get them, but I cheaped out and got the G-forms instead. Love POC, at least that’s what I use to protect my head, a Crane MIPS lid.
For me pads are insurance, and to avoid the Robocop / Power Rangers look, I’ll always go with something I can wear under my day clothes.
