What is ATGATT? And why is Ryan F9 so wrong about body armour?!
ATGATT is an acronym that stands for: All The Gear, All The Time.
As you saw from my previous blog, and from this picture, it’s the gear that saved me in my crash.
Having had 2 crashes in 32 years, both having knocked me out cold, I am thankful that it’s my habit to buy good gear and to wear it, particularly to wear a good helmet. My preferred brand is Shoei - handmade in Japan, these helmets are a good fit for Asian heads, and in both crashes, the helmets sacrificed themselves to save my aging brain.
A proper pair of motorcycle gloves, with armored knuckles and padded palms, kept the skin on my fingers despite sliding into a ditch at 80km/h. Same goes for my jacket and pants, keeping the skin where it should be - on my dad bod and not on the pavement.
I’m a former ER doctor, and practicing sports medicine physician. I have seen the fallout from motorcycle crashes up close.
There is no doubt that helmets save lives. There are some naysayers that go on about how helmets have not been proven to stop concussions. Right. But they do stop penetrating head trauma, skull fractures and having your jaw ripped off when face-planting into gravel. Just saying.
Concussions are the consequence of rapid deceleration of the brain inside the skull. Your brain floats around in a bath of cerebrospinal fluid, so when you suddenly decelerate your skull, your brain lags behind and then crashes into the inside wall of your cranium. A helmet can’t stop that deceleration. Concussions happen regardless. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t wear a helmet.
And this is where Ryan F9 goes so wrong.
He says that body armour doesn’t stop fractures, so you shouldn’t wear it. He quotes Dr. Liz de Rome’s study from 2011, which you can read for your self here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21819816/. In it, she does indicate that the use of body armour does not reduce fractures.
But Dr. deRome’s study concludes: “Motorcyclists were significantly less likely to be admitted to hospital if they crashed wearing motorcycle jackets (RR=0.79, 95% CI: 0.69-0.91), pants (RR=0.49, 95% CI: 0.25-0.94), or gloves (RR=0.41, 95% CI: 0.26-0.66). When garments included fitted body armour there was a significantly reduced risk of injury to the upper body (RR=0.77, 95% CI: 0.66-0.89), hands and wrists (RR=0.55, 95% CI: 0.38-0.81), legs (RR=0.60, 95% CI: 0.40-0.90), feet and ankles (RR=0.54, 95% CI: 0.35-0.83).”
Ok, that’s a lot of stats for those who are not math geeks:
RR = relative risk - the difference in risk by doing something vs not doing something (eg, wearing gear vs not wearing gear)
95% CI = 95% confidence interval - the relative risk outlined might change depending on various factors, but it will fall within this range 95% of the time
So this means that you’ll get admitted to hospital:
21% less often if you wear a motorcycle jacket
51% less often if you wear motorcycle pants
59% less often if you wear motorcycycle gloves
If you wear clothing fitted with body armour, you’ll have:
23% fewer upper body injuries
45% fewer hand and wrist injuries
40% fewer leg injuries
46% fewer ankle and foot injuries
So here’s the problem with Ryan’s analysis. He is only picking one outcome - fractures. But are fractures the only injury we’re trying to prevent? Is it not clear that wearing proper clothing, and in fact wearing body armour, reduces injuries, as per the study that he quotes?
Those of us who ascribe to this philosophy will never be seen riding a motorcycle in shorts, a t-shirt and flip flops. I always wear an armored jacket, armored or Kevlar pants, proper motorcycle boots, and, of course, a helmet. Not a plastic pudding bowl that resembles a helmet, but a proper helmet.
Of course, you’re free to do whatever you want, within the parameters of the law. But don’t be fooled by someone who’s tweaking the stats and selectively omitting data. I am an F9 subscriber, and I love Ryan’s content, most of the time. Just not this time.
