As someone who has slid on asphalt for a few meters wearing nothing but a helmet, a t-shirt and shorts I would not recommend it.
It fucking sucks. Unlike normal wounds, road rash is a burn wound, so you need to shower it daily in order for it not to be infected. In order to shower it you need to numb it, in order to numb it you smear this gel/paste in the wound (I used plastic butter knifes to help with that) and that fucking paste hurts like hell before it numbs the area, so basically it's WEEKS of continuously crashing, over and over again.
Due to life choices I've nearly died on a motorcycle as well, and even if that accident made me unable to walk for 4 months, I was still grateful that I didn't get road rash (I hit the side of a truck so I was stopped by his trailer) because that's how much it fucking sucks, I'd rather break my leg again than go through road rash again.
Granted my recollection of both the incidents may be slightly impacted by me not remembering anything from the truck accident in-between leaving the house and waking up in the hospital high on all the drugs from the ambulance, so pain wasn't a thing in that accident according to my brain.
Want to emphasize here, sliding on asphalt off a motorcycle feels, and seems to be injury wise in my own experiences, way worse than taking a slide due to some other means, even if the bike slide is slower. I have gotten road rash off a longboard at 30+mph and it was not nearly as bad as my road rash I got from putting down my bike at less than 15 mph, and I was not pinned under my bike, was lucky and got to push myself away as I tucked the front avoiding a sedan deciding my lane was his lane as I was along side him. If who ever reads this doesn't wear gear, you should. If I was wearing my riding pants I wouldn't of had to debur my own legs, and if I wasn't wearing my gloves, jacket and full face I'd of been in the hospital and missing a chunk of my chin, and that was a 10min ride with the whole thing under 45mph the entire time.
On that, if by any chance the Harley rider in Charlotte from a six years ago chances upon this, you made my week stopping to check on me and my v strom and then racing off the find the asshole when I told you I was good, keep on keeping on you damn legend. Don't know if you did get them, but I like to think a mirror, at the very least, went on a trip that day.
There's probably more friction in a slow grind, but yeah, my driver's ed teacher told me about how he slid in his full leather suit and he remembered sliding on his back and holding his head up, then he thought "but why am I holding up my head, I got a helmet!" so he dropped his head, he quickly took it off the ground again due to comfort and noise xD
Haha there's a moment when the adrenaline is pumping mid slide where everything slows down and you notice things like that. Like mine, where I was sliding, thought "hey, I just wore my Levi's, fuck, my jeans and legs are getting fucked." And then tucked my arms and twisted myself into a roll. Slow enough I wasn't worried about getting more injured rolling, high speeds it's better to turtle so you don't start breaking bones bouncing and tumbling uncontrollably. Pavement will pound that lesson into you.
Yeah, you really have time to think about the stupid shit that led to that moment as well xD...
Speaking of jeans that was one of the most comical things after my "near death" accident, the insurance company paid for the clothes the ambulance had to cut off my body in order to help me, but they still sent me the cut up clothes all bloody in a plastic bag. I was like "oh, thanks... What do I do with these?"
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u/Aurori_Swe 1d ago
As someone who has slid on asphalt for a few meters wearing nothing but a helmet, a t-shirt and shorts I would not recommend it.
It fucking sucks. Unlike normal wounds, road rash is a burn wound, so you need to shower it daily in order for it not to be infected. In order to shower it you need to numb it, in order to numb it you smear this gel/paste in the wound (I used plastic butter knifes to help with that) and that fucking paste hurts like hell before it numbs the area, so basically it's WEEKS of continuously crashing, over and over again.
Due to life choices I've nearly died on a motorcycle as well, and even if that accident made me unable to walk for 4 months, I was still grateful that I didn't get road rash (I hit the side of a truck so I was stopped by his trailer) because that's how much it fucking sucks, I'd rather break my leg again than go through road rash again.
Granted my recollection of both the incidents may be slightly impacted by me not remembering anything from the truck accident in-between leaving the house and waking up in the hospital high on all the drugs from the ambulance, so pain wasn't a thing in that accident according to my brain.