We are often ridiculed by colleagues for wearing 'fancy gear for showing off', but does that matter? It is a human tendency to believe whatever one is doing himself is right and anyone else doing anything different than that is an utter fool.

As for the activa part, ask them if whenever they've had an accident, was it always their own fault? when they reply no, ask them what if while riding an activa at 20kmphr, a jackass in a honda city jumps a light and rams his big ass car into the puny little activa? will the slow moving nature of my 2 wheeler save my skin then? no, but riding gear sure would and that's why I prefer being uncomfortable than risk being safe.

No disrespect brother, but when you say "Actually I don't have any gear, and can't afford one yet" think about the fact that when you can't even afford to buy a jacket-4k, good helmet-3k, gloves-1k, knee guards-1k, total=9k then how will you be able to afford the expenses of hospital bills if you get involved in an accident (god forbid)?

I made a big mistake when I brought my bike. I had a budget of 1 lakh and I bought a bike of 1lakh, what I should've done was either to increase my budget by 10k or so, or buy a cheaper bike.

Anyways, try to get gear as soon as possible. and more importantly, wear it always, ehther you're going to the mall or on a sunday ride shouldn't become a factor in deciding if you're geared up or not.

It was my duty to post this info here bro

Glad you liked reading it and hope you will also implement ATGATT in your riding.


I don't know what tests these helmets have to go through in order to be ISI marked, but with these helmet, you're risking your face even more. These helmets have very cheap quality visors which break into sharp plastic shards on impact. And that is NOT what I'd want around my eyes when I go down riding.

Compare the visor of those cheap ISI mark helmets to something like this :

or this :

and you will definitely know why these helmets cost 3k while that ISI mark helmet is all your for a mere 250-300bucks.

Invest in gear, it's the cheapest insurance policy ever.

Beautiful thoughts & well said. But you know what? I don't want to debate with them. Let them change if they want to by asking positive questions or worst case experience to realize. They'll beat us down to their knowledge

Anyway, I feel this thread is under rated without a *5

To the guys who follow ATGATT rule: How do you manage your knee guards when say going for office/movie/etc kind of stuff. I usually have my helmet,gloves,jacket whenever I ride. But knee guards are difficult to transport and hence get taken out only during rides!

Ignoring them is another way to deal with them, sometimes I too resort to 'talk to the hand' strategy

How do we 'rate' a thread?

Although I've just started following the ATGATT rule. I have a few pointers, I carry a backpack with me to office and keep my guards in it. When to a mall, I could use the same backpack. But a problem comes when we're going to the movies as backpacks aren't allowed in there( or are they? I've never tried going to a theater with a backpack, perhaps someone more informed than myslef could clarify).

Big malls' parkings have provision for helmet parking @ 3rs per helmet. I'd have to check but I'm pretty sure that a simple 10rs note will motivate the helmet parking attendant to keep the guards too alongwith the helmet.

Or

We could go in a car/use public transport/maybe going to the movies can serve as an exception to the ATGATT rule if we really don't have a choice in the matter. The last option though is to be used as a last resort.

I have another question for ya, is taking an armoured riding jacket allowed inside a movie theater? I've never gone to the movies with a jacket so just taking some pointers.

This is why I bought a riding pant with the knee guards in it. Office? I simply put on my desk, Movies? I don't go to theatres. Otherwise, I don't intent to remove them I keep them wearing & don't care about those weirdy looks. What I hate the most is, people asking the price of it

PS - Practically speaking, knee guards seems to be the best option & I should've choosen it over the riding pants.

Top right corner of this screen "Rate Thread"

I, on the other hand want to ditch my knee guards and go for riding pants.

You can carry jacket,helmet as well as your GF inside a theater ---no issues

I don't wear knee guards to office though a colleague does --the fox ones --small enough to be worn inside formal pants too

Is a backpack allowed inside a theater? Wearing kneeguards would attaract a LOT of unwanted attention as compared to carrying them inside a backpack.

Why don't you wear your kneeguards to the office? any specific reason

My backpack already has my laptop and other stuff. And no way to carry knee guards in it.

Riding pant is a good option, but I can't wear anything but short under it right?

And this is reason my knee guards only come out on out of city rides as they prove to be too cumbersome to carry around.

I don't because I have leather riding pants & both sets of knee guards are lended to some people

on the other hand I am definitely planning --atleast small ones

As long as you're wearing leathers I can't utter a word, they would provide protection in case of a crash.

And get those plans realised asap.


From the link I've posted on the first post :Anyone who has been through a couple of crashes would perhaps know that in a crash the first thing that hit the tarmac is the knees. I lowsided while leaning hard on a wet day and it was a good 8 and a half months back, I still have scars on my right knee which I'll probably have for the rest of my life, I show them off like 'war medals' when I wear shorts . But that's just coz there isn't anything I can do about it now.

I wonder what would've happened, if I'd been wearing kneeguards that day...

To be frank, I too fall in the same category of riders who gets out his gears only during long rides. But short in-city rides will be no more an exception now.
After going through this thread yesterday, it really struck to me how safe we are on city roads as compared to highways..
The answer was 'Not at all safe'.

Through whatever little experience I have had while touring on my bike, I realise there were hardly any times or even negligible times when I'v had close calls with other vehicles on highways while touring. Comparatively, in city riding especially on freeways, I'v had close calls much more frequently. I'm not saying that the mistake is of other drivers/riders in the city, many a times its my mistake too but in the end if those mistakes turn out into accidents, I'm the one who would suffer the maximum.
Hence, to sum it up, ATGATT is on now full time.

PS: I'v realised so far from this thread that not much attention is being placed to the pillion rider as far as ATGATT rule is concerned while the poor girl who was victim of such a freak accident was herself a pillion.. We are talking about all the gears for the riders(Us) but I'm sure atleast 50% of the time most of us do travel with a piliion whatever the reason may be to roam around with a pillion.. What about them?
Its not at all feasible to carry 2 set of gears all the time bro & neither it is an option to leave the pillion's life in danger due to our mistake's while we ride adequately protected in complete set of gears. Most of us do include an extra helmet for the pillion I guess but as we all know it is not enough.
Personally speaking, I ride with pillions (including girls) most of the times in cities & pillions are the ones who'll require marginally more protection in case of an accident IMO, especially Girls since they are more unprotected due to a variety of their so called latest fashion trends followed by them including stupid high heel sandals with virtually no protection to entire feet in case of a fall, Sleeveless tops exposing the entire arm & skin etc..

What should be done about this Parth/other seniors??

i don't see an answer for this,
one can't buy two set of gears & even if they do, you can't expect to carry all 2 sets of gears everywher you go & moroever even ask the pillion to suit up who most probably is wondering why are even we suiting up with gears?

As far as I'm concerned, I'm going to minimise taking pillions with me from now on unless & untill extreme cases & even then I would definitely consider lending my set of gears to the pillion instead of myself because in the event of any unfortunate mishap, why the hell should the pillion pay for my mistake or for the mistake of some other reckless driver as the girl in story suffered for no mistake of hers as far as riding was concerned?

Please do share your insights for pillion safety..
Or I'm really gonna go with 'NO Pillion' rule henceforth..

Most of us fall in this category... I too travel in the city with only my gloves and helmet (gloves being a recent addition)... I am planning to buy a jacket soon (almost saved up enough) and want to buy knee guards which I can wear inside my denims... But the thing is my rides are tooooo short... A 5 km one way ride to drop my wife to office in the morning... And a 900 mts ride from my office to my home... 2 times a week a 3 km ride to catch up with friends at 11 in the night... And I always ride very alert aware of things happening almost 200 metres ahead of me... If I even see a dog standing at the edge of the road 200 metres away I will be very cautious and ready to stop...

I guess we should all start realising... Better late than never I say...

This is a very complicated situation... We all take pillions in our daily routine where it is not possible to gear up the pillion... Many times my office workers ride with me as pillions for short rides within the city... It isn't possible to gear them up...

What we could do is ride patiently and ride being very alert and aware of things around us in the city... And for highway runs either keep a second set with us or to refuse pillions...

ATGATT is the way to go, but sometimes it becomes too cumbersome.

I ride to office wearing my helmet, riding jacket, & gloves.
Helmet & gloves are not a problem, but the riding jacket (DSG Nero) really gets to me at times. It has air vents, but they are useless when stationery.

This morning when I reached office, my light grey shirt had turned dark grey (due to perspiration) when I removed my jacket. I had to wait for some 20 mins for it to dry, & only then could move around. Till then, I had to stick to my desk.
But it doesn't make me rethink about wearing a riding jacket. Afterall, blood is more precious than sweat.

Let me tell you though being alert and cautious is not enough or 100% fool proof, i had my share of the most worse accident just 15 days after buying my R15 where i was riding late night to my home, and all of a sudden a laundry idiot threw burning hot ash on a dog which would be around 6 or 7 mths old, the dog panicked and ran into my rear wheel, i could not do anything except applying panic braking and the result was i crashed straight on my face and my elbow, knees chest took a bad beating, my left wrist was fractured and it took more than 1 month to start riding on. Thanks to the cross helmet model number 910 which took the entire beating and saved my life or i dont think i would be sitting here and writing this post. I still have the scratch marks on my right knee and my right knuckles. This incident taught me a lesson let it be summer, monsoon, winter i always have to wear my DSG phoenix jacket and gloves and i wear it always as i dont mind moving with a sweat dipped cloth rather than a scratched body part. Yes i cant wear knee guards as the one i have are big ones so i am hunting for small bionic ones to save my knees.