Yeah, back in the days I rode standard knee pads whilst skating half pipe, but for the streets they feel much to bulky for me, so these kind of knee pads are such a good invention and they are so comfortable to wear that I never realize when im wearing them.
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I have this which is mesh and breathable, but frankly I still find it too hot for the hottest summer months.
I never ride without helmet and gloves, and typically I also wear padded shorts because taking a hard hit to the hip is brutal. When riding hard, I wear my full face and padding on my leading arm only (shoulder and elbow pad). Some might think it’s foolish, but in all my falls I have never landed on my trailing side. This is how I balance the hottest days of summer with safety. My newest addition is single shoulder bracing and padding that I wear on my leading shoulder:
This can be found on Amazon for $40. I haven’t fallen on it yet, but it is heaps cooler than wearing an armored shirt/jacket.
Small things like wearing a long sleeve t-shirt can provide protection. It is not much warmer than short sleeves, provides sun protection, and will give you light road rash protection.
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IMO I like bindings for street riding. There have been countless times I’ve saved myself from falling because I was strapped in. No heel straps though.
Maybe because I mainly snowboard I am used to being strapped in.
Some benefits come with bindings like if I want to change directions in place I can just hop and turn that way. Also I can jump on/off curbs and sidewalks no problem.
Riding esk8 in general is more summer snowboarding than skating to me.
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Ah cool, yeah that makes sense. I’m a noob to boards of all flavours so I don’t have the muscle memory for it. I am really interested in foot hooks or half bindings or whatever they’re called though so I can try the jumping, turning and maaaybe saving myself from stuff, would be interested if anyone can compare them to bindings for safety/getting out of them in a hurry
Its not strait up better or worse. The advantage is you cant fall of. The downside is you cant fall off 
You can break and accelerate way harder without first having to shift your weight and generally have a lot more control over the board.
It takes a lot more to get you to fall but when you fall its usually worse especially with heel straps or when you cant get off the board.
With bindings you are able to run a lot harder bushings. I almost cant turn my board without them. That makes the board incredibly stable. You don’t even need to think about balancing even when cruising at city traffic speed (50km/h)
All in all I would say they are safer for high power boards because you can control it better. For low power slower riding no bindings are better.
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Ouch, I don’t miss injuries like that (i’m too old and broken now to do the speeds required lol)
There’s actually a bunch of active cooling vests available now dozens of styles / technologies - pick one that suits needs/budget and give it a whirl. I’ve got a phasecore cooling vest for wearing under my nomex.
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Damn, that’s a nasty fall. Glad to see you’re just scraped up and not broken bones or worse. Also nice to see people asking about safety. I ALWAYS, ALWAYS recommend a helmet. I took a spill the other night when one of my rear tires locked up for just a second and next thing I remember was waking up in the middle of the road and @cfelzien standing over me. Luckily I was just scraped up a bit with massive body aches. Chris told me I was knocked out for a few and I later looked at the motorcycle helmet I was using and I had a crack about three or four inches up the back and all the way through the inside. I am completely convinced that the helmet saved my life. I didn’t know where I was I didn’t know who anybody was and I was walking like I was shit faced drunk. Being the awesome dude that is, Chris came and picked me up in his truck. I went to the hospital and found out I had a pretty good concussion and that was it besides the body aches. So I ALWAYS recommend a helmet.
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I’m assuming you had full slide pads and everything on to only come out with bruises?
@EreTroN glad you made it out alive, helmets are cool!
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hi
I hope you doing ok
And will be better soon
But just want let you know
We have what you need for be safe
Please wear gears don’t need to be our
But make sure you wear gear
Take care
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No, I usually do but for some reason I didn’t wear them and somehow only got small road burns on elbow, knee and back.
Ooh that’s lucky
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I still don’t remember the fall but I’m a firm believer in helmets and highly recommend full pads.
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Yeah I always have a helmet, and after my first fall, I always wear gloves.
I’ve been wearing Fox Mountainbike ones but I just recently got a pair of the XBoard ones, going to start wearing those.
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I have an EVS vest that I really like it’s not hot at all and protects my back and chest well and along with pads gloves and impact shorts I’m mostly protected. The cons however is my arms and shoulders other than my elbows are exposed however I feel like it a good enough.
get a padded “mesh motorcycle jacket” I recently got one and I had my doubts that it would be good on a hot/sunny day, I was surprised at how cooling it was when you start riding.
I got lucky it was winter time and I was wearing my LZY hoodie when I got hit by a car, not a single upper body scratch. Not sure I would’ve worn it if it was the summer, but now I have an Icon mesh jacket because of that accident
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I treat it the same way as the motorcycle. Mesh motorcycle jacket (which means I dont need elbow, shoulder or spine pads auxiliary), and helmet no matter what I’m planning on doing (lazy cruising/speed runs) or where I’m going. I’ve gone down on my motorcycle a few times and my mountain board scares me more than my ducati. So, AGATT.
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Just seeing motorcycles on the roads scares me now, used to be okay, but seeing how many people are distracted on their phones when I drive those motorcyclist are at serious risk
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Just got back from lunch taking the new (to me) goldwing for a spin to the barber and hardware store. 100% feel this. I dont live in a highly populated area but stupid is as stupid does. Had some ass hat in a large truck swerve into my lane because they were looking at their phone (likely GPS) and not their mirrors.
As a rider you take the risk and assume everyone is an idiot; sometimes its enough and other times its not even close. If there is one thing most of my hobbies have in common its risk-mitigation. Esk8 is no different, maybe even more so than riding.
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2 motorcycle wrecks for me one really bad one & and a totalled Vespa (don’t judge I totally dig them). I’d still take a fall from a skateboard over that again!
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