Protection...anyone?

[ese002]

Originally Posted by esef

Were you wearing wrist guards at the time of your big accident?

I was wearing Salomon Palm Sliders. They didn't help much in my high speed backwards fall. I've considered whether my wrist might have survived if I had been wearing the the beefier 187 Killer Derby pads. I'm sceptical though. It was such a violent fall with an unusual orientation. About a month later, a friend of mine fractured their wrist in a fall on the Friday Night Skate while wearing full split wrist guards. So, clearly, there are conditions where no pad will help. On the other hand, I have been wearing palm sliders for 20 years and this is the first time I've ever damaged my wrists.

[Mobjack]

After a few good sliders after falling at 25 mph on asphalt over the years, I've trained my brain and legs to remain upright no matter what. It hurts too much to fall without a bunch of pads all over the body.
Just a helmet does the trick, now. No protection other than the thin spandex or whatever. I really believe that a skater becomes better at judging the surface and imperfections in front of him/her if not wearing all sorts of gear intended to reduce skin abrasions/broken bones only if one falls. Otherwise, all that gear is useless. Yes, I can hear your objections all the way from here, already. Why not skate then without a helmet? Silly. My brain is my most valuable part. Everything else is secondary. And when my brain and eyes and proprioception are working well, I have zero worries. Just keep low, double-push and go faster. The more upright you skate, the more apt you are of falling, further. Remember the adage: the taller they stand, the harder they fall.
When you are skating in the proper speed-skating position (low to the ground!), your feet have far more of a range to move back and forth, side to side, to counteract the instant imbalance that you may find yourself in after hitting a stone, twig or pavement imperfection. Just the other day I was advancing rapidly on a tight curve on the paved path at +22mph. Just as I was crossing over, my inside skate hit a small stone or something that I somehow hadn't detected. Luckily I was in a very low sitting position in preparation and I had both hands behind my back. My inside skate started to slide outward, but because I was in a very low sitting position (picture an olympic ice short track skater in a turn) it was a simple matter to correct that skate's slide with the other now-crossed-over skate and carry through with nary a bobble. If I had been more upright, things would likely have been far different and my practice session would not have been as fruitful.
I haven't even come close to falling in quite a few years now. But rest assured, now that I've said this, the polythane/urethane gods may want to correct their oversights. I'll just have to get the antibiotic cream and saran wrap out again and deal with a little pain for a couple short days. Far better than dealing with all the ridiculous padding and protection gear. Also, while training with an indoor team years ago (somehow getting skates mixed up and sliding on me butt forever on the hardwood surface) learned me well on avoiding bony parts from impacting hard surfaces during a crash. If you're the kind that is apt to fall (we all are in the beginning of our careers), you had better learn how to automagically fall on your softer, sturdier parts, not on your hands, knees, elbows, or noggins.

Indoor tracks (especially varnished wood tracks) are awesome for team speed skate training, but even better for fall (crash) training.
Somehow a friend would go home with bloodied elbows and/or knees every once in a while, while I (having nearly the same amount of sliding faux pas) didn't have any physical evidence of crashing-out. He wondered why. I told him that I always made it a point to land on my side or directly on my butt and back, preferably my back because the impact would be absorbed by a very large area as compared to say an elbow or knee. Also, once I was on the surface, sliding, I'd make it an immediate point to keep all my appendages up in the air where they couldn't catch and rub and snag on the wood flooring. My faux pas were more like a controlled, sliding landing rather than an instantaneous, tumbling crash. Land on your arse or your back. NEVER try to brake a fall with your appendages (knees, hands, elbows, shoulders, head, etc). It will ALWAYS end badly.

Repair Tip: If you do find yourself with a nasty-assh bloody skin abrasion from your ankle to past your hip (many times!), clean it well (no alcohol!), apply a triple antibiotic cream, and wrap it in saran wrap. NO GAUZE or other traditional medical dressings... they will scar you and make dressing-changes VERY difficult. Saran Wrap (if you can still find the good stuff) will flex with your skin, and allow the wound to heal from the inside out without making scabs. Scabs suck! Glad Wrap or other stretchy food wrap will do in a pinch.
The interesting thing about a clear, stretchy, food-wrap dressing (one layer only) is that you can see the skin repairing itself from the inside, rather than having an inflexible scab layer forming. The view through the clear wrap looks gnarly, but it heals so much faster without as much scaring. Hospitals have been using thin silicone sheets for just this purpose, but those are very expensive. Saran Wrap is only a couple bucks and works just as well.

[BMW325TI]

As possible I wear under layer; Lycra pant and stretchy jogging pant.

For training my reflex skills, I do a lot of fast turns and riding at imperfection surface.... So I have to focus more and not just brainless skating.

Never wear a helmet, but i should

[romekjagoda]

Originally Posted by Mobjack

After a few good sliders after falling at 25 mph on asphalt over the years, I've trained my brain and legs to remain upright no matter what. It hurts too much to fall without a bunch of pads all over the body.

While I respect your right to your opinion and the tips you shared, it seems to me you can never be sure to control your fall or accident in conditions that don't fully depend on you. Sure, you can train your eyes to spot dangers, potential dangers and negotiate them with great precision. However, they are not controllable and there are always possible surprises that may take you unawares: a dog on an expandable leash, a kid on a bike who just decided to make a u-turn, or a pair of friend who on passing them decide to give each other an elbow in the ribs or a pinch and thus flinch or side-jump directly onto the path you're travelling on. Most people are also not aware that you have no way of stopping immediately like on a bike, etc. or some are plainly stupid (yesterday I had two cases during 1 hour training: a guy on a skateboard travelling in the middle of the road and gaping into his phone with headphones on, oncoming onto me and another guy, elderly, travelling on the bike on the wrong (left) side of the road, coming onto me of whom I had no clue if he would decide to get back to the right side or just continue on - he decided to stay on the left side of the road... etc.). When you do speed skates and are gliding 30 kph+ things can get really dangerous, especially that we have no brakes on the skates and changing direction at higher speed is limited. So my point is, to recap: you cannot fully control the behaviour of other people (or animals!) on the road, the way you fall, where you fall and what you hit when falling (especially outside) and thus increasing passive safety is for me the way to go. But I am aware it's a personal choice/stance/philisophy.

I may well be a type who is more easily intimidated, but just yesterday night I was thinking to me to post a question about just this topic of security. It does not freak me out to a point of quitting, or anything near, but I am acutely aware of the risks - much more so coming from behaviour or actions by others than from my own mistakes. The latter can happen too, especially if you are working on your technique and are trying to go over the edge of your comfort zone. I've learnt far too many times on skates and in other sports that injuries are not just pain, but their main conseqeunce (if serious) are setbacks they create for you: you can't practise sport during a given period of time (sometimes weeks or months) and any come back from such a hole is hard, both physically and mentally (for me the latter is hard as I always analyse how I could have avoided it and if I could have, I just feel extremely stupid), even more so if you are in competitive sports of any level.

All in all I always have a helmet and wrist guards on, most of the times also hard elbow protectors and always hip protectors (shorts with hip pads like for skiing), as I have always tended to bruise and scrape my hips badly when falling and rolling. The hip pads I have got are not great, they look maybe slightly funny from under my tight shorts, but I give less of a damn about what it looks as long as my safety is taken care of.

Lastly, if you have kids and want to pass on good patterns and models of behaviour, you can't really tell them to wear safety gear, while not doing so yourself. That alone makes me willing to pay the price.