Got protection?

[Ocean11 0]

Who uses a helmet or other protective gear?

 

One of my best purchases was my helmet. I have a Lavance full face racing helmet that I got for 8,000 yen, reduced from 12. It has a peak and an adjustable chin guard. I've wiped out violently, sometimes landing on my head after jumps, and haven't had any injuries. Last season, I used to come home from boarding with a cracking headache from smacking my head on the gelende, but this season, with the helmet (and better control), I haven't suffered at all. It's allowed me to ride much more as I want to, without fear of the consequences. While it looks a bit over the top, the chin guard is quite useful, preventing too much movement of the neck in a backwards roll (it presses against the chest stopping the neck hyperextending). Also after wiping out in powder, it gets packed with fresh snow which you can munch on - very refreshing.

 

I also have snowboard insurance. For 6,000 yen per year, it covers theft or destruction of the board anywhere on the trip, as well as injury and death. Actually, it seems like an invitation to fraud (something I'd never contemplate, much, for long, very often, not really) but it's nice to have.

[barok 0]

mmmmm. . . snowboard insurance

 

i ride with a giro flint helmet and red impact gloves. . .

the helmet doesn't have a chin guard, but it has a

sun shield, so that if i faceplant hard,

i at least have a piece of plastic that will

explode on impact, which is better than having my face explode on impact.

 

6 years ago, as a learning rider, i hooked up with this

cat who hat some serious nuts, and was

going big off everything, so i did the same.

at the end of the day, he hit the bottom

jump, which was bigger than everything else,

and i followed, as big as i could.

i planed out off a method air, and landed

on my face. i broke my nose. knocked out

cold. woke up in a pool of blood.

it sucked.

 

i figure i can break a leg or an arm, even

a collar bone no sweat, but i don't want to

break my pretty face again, so i wear some

protection.

 

as for the gloves, last year i went to winter

park, colorado. my friend broke her back off

a park jump. . . while in the emergency room,

i saw a kid (looked about 14 years old) with

his hand hanging off his arm all lopwise.

it sucked. he had obviously snapped his

wrist clean in two. probably have to go through

surgery an' all that. so the impact gloves

protect my wrists, although if i landed hard

enough, i would break my forearms, but at least

no surgery in that case.

 

gross.

[ivo 0]

i bought last year dainese protection pants,

the consequence was, oneday, when i made a jump over a table top, i felt badly and lost my memory for about 30 minutes.

the good thing was that i didn't felt any pain, (besides my head) cause of the protection pants.

so i bought this year a helmet.

[Blazer 0]

I started using a Pro Tec helmet this year and the extra confidence it has given, especially when hitting jumps, is huge.

I also use a really strong wrist guard to protect an old injury. I think that it is really designed for in line skating or something, but it does the job.

Safe ridin'!!

[Ocean11 0]

What are protection pants ivo?

 

I wished I'd been wearing a box last weekend at Nozzle. I skidded on my front turn in shallow powder and my crotch hit a mini-mogul. Hurt like a bastard.

[Guest]

Ocean11....

 

What is "Nozzle"?

 

Cheers

[Ocean11 0]

It's a well-known resort in Naggers. The locals call it Nozawa, but I'm British.

[ivo 0]

this are protection pants!!!

http://theboarder.ifyouski.com/graphics/ifyouski/dainese/012_01.jpg

[mogski 0]

Anyone know where I can get cheap body protection in XL sizes? When I say body protection I am talking about something that has elbow pads, articulated spine pad, shoulder pad etc....

[Ocean11 0]

ivo, I see.

 

Those would've been good for my mate who caught his right buttock in a slide and ripped himself a new a-hole. Other than bad luck rareties like that though, aren't these kind of pants really for beginners who keep sitting down hard?

[barok 0]

ahh yes the dreaded frontside 270 to

buttcheek plant. i've had at least one

friend fall victim to this painful of

painful injuries. seems the injury might

be more common than you think, Ocean11.

 

I'm not convinced that the pants would prevent it though, unless the asspad

stretches all the way across the back.

[ivo 0]

i think most of the big name borders who use to make serious jumps and half pipe riding wearing protection gear!

 

the pant has pats on the hip, on the side of the leg, on the butt and a hard plastic covered pad where the coccyx is.

[barok 0]

i disagree. if you look at the

pictures, most of these fools don't

even wear helmets, or anything that

would add the slightest amount of

weight or hinder mobility in any way.

 

i don't think its a good idea, but

it's really up to each individual to

protect themselves, and to take

responsibility when they wreck

themselves. most injuries are easily

preventable.

[Ocean11 0]

To protect your rear orifice, I suppose you could try taping your bum-cheeks together with duct tape. But you'd have to remember to peel it off before getting into the onsen...

 

Most pix I've seen of jumpers show them in flight with no protection on whatsoever. Young and foolish, the lot of them.

[ivo 0]

yes the guys on the picture don't wear helmets.

but if you look at contests is it a little different.

i think you will see each year more boarders with helmets.

[hutch 0]

helmet for sure

 

the ever non-elusive Japanese birch trees take their toll.

found my balls have dropped far lower with a helmet....with deep pow heading thru the trees I no longer worry about getting snagged up.

Come to Hakkoda I'd call it a must....paid for it (a REM HARD shell) times and times over.

[JB 0]

I use johnnys.

[badmigraine 0]

Not really on topic, but the media and video scene, with its ludicrous overemphasis on the pipe/park/big air scene, has at least in Japan spawned a generation of hucking twits who attempt to imitate what they saw in a vid or mag by launching off kickers and q-pipes in the various resorts and fun parks you will find nowadays.

 

Some of them are getting pretty good at it, too. More power to them--it keeps them off the real slopes and away from the places where I'd like to do some real Riding...

 

I've not seen a one of those jumping, jibbing fools do anything but flop and scrape like a beginner down anything resembling a decent hill, and as for powder (which to my mind is one of the easiest things to do on a board), well...they avoid it like your average gaijin avoids natto.

 

Park and freeriding are two completely different disciplines.

 

That being said, I got a Blax helmet, wrist-bracing impact gloves, and a cool O'Neal (moto-x company, not the homonym water/snow O'Neill company) Azonics body armor (think Mad Max/Borg) with articulated spine protector, and am working on a kneepad solution after learning what it feels like to slam my patella into concrete-hard ice at Kandatsu yesterday...

 

The confidence and cushy good feelings this type of protective gear give a 38-year-old like myself is amazing.

[Ocean11 0]

badmigraine, now all you need is leg braces and you'd be invincible. With all that armour on, you'll be wanting to try jousting soon.

 

Regarding riding the pow, that's 2nd season's curriculum. 1st Years do have their learning to do that only a year on the corduroy can provide. Pow is bloody hell for a beginner, as I can attest.

[Ocean11 0]

What's with spine pads, and what do they look like?

 

I've seen a few odd looking pieces of lingerie in the board shops - something that looks like a boxer's trophy belt with a plastic woodlouse or armadillo fixed to it, but I couldn't figure out how you'd wear it. Is that the spine protector?

 

Probably good for ladies who like to get a bit lying on the side of the gelende...

[badmigraine 0]

Ocean, my O'Neal Azonics body armor is a mesh zip-up shirt with hard clamshell/soft pad shoulder and elbow protection, a padded kidney/pelvis velcro wraparound, and best of all, a full articulated plastic/padded spine protector that looks like nothing so much as the back of a common pillbug or woodlouse (armadillidium vulgare - you can see a picture of him at

www.ze-card.com/images/insects/insects1.htm

 

and tell him I said hello).

 

I used to do a lot of motorcycling when I lived in Michigan and California, so this supersafe-seeming product appealed to me and my soft pink flesh in a way that the flimsy foamy padding you usually see on sale did not.

 

In a twist that only foreign denizens of Japan can properly appreciate, this miraculous O'Neal Azonics solution only cost me 11,000 yen, shipped from the US...buying the flimsy local foam and velcro protectors to approximate its function would have set me back a lot more than that.

 

BTW thanks for your good "recommend" on leg braces...after reading that, I plopped myself down on Google and eventually landed up looking dreamily at Burton's "knee gasket".

 

This product appears to combine the protective virtues of rollerblade kneepads with the steel-braced hinged knee support perenially popular among the reconstructed ACL set.

 

I'm thinking about it!!

 

(Not a reconstructed ACL, mine are fine thanks; but I am thinking about getting a Burton Knee Gasket!)

 

I sort of lost track of it in my earlier post in this thread, but where I was going was this: As much as I sneer at the "look at Me!" pipe n park crowd, I want to do it too...but when I do all I get is hurt.

 

So I am going the full-body-protection route this year. Look for me flopping, crashing and spinning out in your local snowboard park.

 

I don't need any pads for freeriding, but that hard ice in the park n pipe scares me.

 

At age 38 I have nothing to prove except proof of medical insurance, and that, for now, is taken care of.

[Ocean11 0]

Great woodlouse picture! My 4-year old was tickled to see his dad looking at woodlice on the 'puter. Armadiddlydum vulgare's name might be something of a put-down, but he sure is a handsome fella. Bet he can luff some big airs and not end up in the hospital.

 

That pack ice is some scary sh!t though ain't it? I haven't even_looked_at a pipe yet in case I get tempted and end up with some painful regrets. Think I'll give it a couple more years of playing woodland faun before I get in amongst the glaciers.

 

BTW, doesn't riding rails mess up your base and edges? I get upset just riding over stray twigs, but then my board is fairly new...