How much do you spend on bikes & farkles?

[Muttly]

Just worked something out. So far I am less than a pound a mile cost to me and the more I use it particularly for work the more I get more miles to less pounds.

[SometimesSansEngine]

I also had a pair of steal toecap docs from 20 years ago that I wear including as work shoes when I arrive.

 

Please please please swap these - in an accident you're very liable to lose your toes

[Muttly]

Is that a thing? Someone said it once but I couldn’t imagine the mechanics of it.

[SometimesSansEngine]

Simple: in an accident metal plate goes into foot.

Toes detach.

[Tiggie]

Mythbust

Please please please swap these - in an accident you're very liable to lose your toes

 

Mythbusters says no

https://mythresults.com/episode42

[SometimesSansEngine]

That relates to a weight dropping on the shoe. I imagine the forces in a motorcycle accident are quite different.

Sure I've never seen it, but it was mentioned on the Biker Down course that they'd attended a few such incidents.

[Muttly]

I appreciate the concern and the advice. I will look into something more suitable. What I meant by the mechanics of it are I could imagine if the toe of the boot was bent backwards the end of the steel cap could guillotine the toes of bent back enough. I just could not imagine that happening in an accident.

[Tiggie]

Never seen it myself thankfully either

Reading up on it the main worry seems to be the edge of the toecap cutting into your foot if the sole gets bent too far back in a crash

[Piggy]

Isn't this the motorcycle shoe equivalent of 'Don't go near those Swans, they'll break your arm!"?

Does anybody know or know of somebody who's actually lost a toe through a freak bendy toecap incident?

Personally, I find that they make changing gear feel weird

[Hoggs]

Isn't this the motorcycle shoe equivalent of 'Don't go near those Swans, they'll break your arm!"?

Does anybody know or know of somebody who's actually lost a toe through a freak bendy toecap incident?

Personally, I find that they make changing gear feel weird

 

No but I do know someone who fought a swan and the swan won

[Piggy]

Cool! Did it break his arm?

[Mr Fro]

I appreciate the concern and the advice. I will look into something more suitable. What I meant by the mechanics of it are I could imagine if the toe of the boot was bent backwards the end of the steel cap could guillotine the toes of bent back enough. I just could not imagine that happening in an accident.

 

I think if the boot was bent that far back then the foot would have snapped in half anyway.

[Slowlycatchymonkey]

The forces necessary to crush a steel toe cap boot would leave your feet an irreparable mush without the cap anyway (I’ve seen that one- foot under wheel) which is blurgh. I ve also seen twice now forklift over foot and their feet were ok (broken but but fixable) so I’m not convinced by the steel toe cap being bad argument.

Maybe they have seen some guillotined toes in RTA crush scenarios but was this weighed up against the damage they would have sustained without them or how many times steel toe caps have saved peoples feet? Happy to be wrong but I just doubt it.

[SometimesSansEngine]

That is all true. I've dropped a line to a friend who is quite high up in the ambulance service and is part of response planning and working on best practice for trauma incident management. It would be anecdata for sure but I'll see what his experience is.

[SometimesSansEngine]

Maybe they have seen some guillotined toes in RTA crush scenarios but was this weighed up against the damage they would have sustained without them or how many times steel toe caps have saved peoples feet? Happy to be wrong but I just doubt it.

 

I do know that medical staff can be bad at only ever treating what is in front of them (eg tales of someone on a bicycle getting crushed by a HGV, yet them saying "and he wasn't even wearing a helmet") so there is that possibility

I'm happy to be wrong too

[oldgrump]

Maybe they have seen some guillotined toes in RTA crush scenarios but was this weighed up against the damage they would have sustained without them or how many times steel toe caps have saved peoples feet? Happy to be wrong but I just doubt it.

 

In 1974 i was involed in a very serious RTA, it was in the early hours of the morning, parked up sat on my bike of the time a Kawasaki H1B 500, parked outside the local beefburger stand. I was parked along side couple mates bikes, with the left hand side of bike slightly out from line of parked cars. A porsche came down the road towards me and as he got about 3 cars away he started clipping the parked cars.

I grabbed a handlefull of front brake just a he slammed into my left leg, my foot took the full force of the car, two things saved my foot according to ambulance crew, 1 is the fact the H1B engine sticks out wide on l/h side and took a hell of a hit, bent the tapered part of crankshaft!!!!! and the fact just finished work and had my Steel toecap Boots on.

The Guy in car behind didn't see car coming and lost part of his right leg as he went to get in his car, Porsche driver then snapped toe link on his l/h wheel, 2 cars chased after him for 3 miles, by this time tyre and rim had worn away and he was down on the brake disc, he never stopped.

Police found the car next morning in repair shop having the work done. Driver was still pissed!! Rant over But yes, without Steel toecaps i would have probably lost my Toes or even foot

[Slowlycatchymonkey]

[mention]SometimesSansEngine[/mention] Repeated experience in a particular environment definitely skews your view and is often not representative of the facts for example when you work in an eye hospital it would be reasonable to assume the vast majority of the population are diabetic because over half the people you see are. Or that old people die in hospital because older folk ARE more likely to die in hospital than young folk- in reality over 90% of people die at home.

I’ve always been someone who wants to know “how do you know that?” which some people find offensive, like they are personally invested in a particular thing being true. I’m not suggesting for a single moment that’s you (quite the opposite) it’s just an illustration of how hard it is to get to the bottom of these things.

It’s surprising how often one dodgy looking study funded by someone with a vested interest is taken up as fact. The pharmaceutical industry is utterly reprehensible on this one.

ps a bit of anecdotal evidence that means nothing- one of the forklift incidences I saw with someone wearing steel toe cap boots resulted in the forklift climbing up the sturdy boot and breaking his leg instead!

[mention]oldgrump[/mention] sounds like you had a lucky(ish) escape. I did look at my bike and think ‘hmm that boxer engine might be quite handy if I ever get t-boned!

[SometimesSansEngine]

@SometimesSansEngine Repeated experience in a particular environment definitely skews your view and is often not representative of the facts for example when you work in an eye hospital it would be reasonable to assume the vast majority of the population are diabetic because over half the people you see are. Or that old people die in hospital because older folk ARE more likely to die in hospital than young folk- in reality over 90% of people die at home.

I’ve always been someone who wants to know “how do you know that?” which some people find offensive, like they are personally invested in a particular thing being true. I’m not suggesting for a single moment that’s you (quite the opposite) it’s just an illustration of how hard it is to get to the bottom of these things.

It’s surprising how often one dodgy looking study funded by someone with a vested interest is taken up as fact. The pharmaceutical industry is utterly reprehensible on this one.

ps a bit of anecdotal evidence that means nothing- one of the forklift incidences I saw with someone wearing steel toe cap boots resulted in the forklift climbing up the sturdy boot and breaking his leg instead!

 

Absolutely and I do try to check myself for beliefs and assumptions that when I look into them further don't actually hold up

(Being a cyclist trust me, more than enough claims are made about us that isn't backed up by data.....)

Nobody is perfect of course and I think we all have views that occasionally can be legitimately challenged.

One other random side effect of medical people I know is how they'll say "oh gosh, no way would I cycle on the road, I've seen the people they bring into A&E", yet manage to discount the many more car wreck occupants that are brought in on a daily basis. I guess there is a potential here that they remember the one unlucky bugger who has their toes sliced off vs everyone else that ended up losing a foot in 'normal' boots..

[Muttly]

Same reason for my checking it out. My professional training and provoked in me the ‘yes but is that true’ response a lot.

I attended a multi-agency gang meeting thing not long ago and had to remind myself that just because I was hearing a lot about gangs did not mean that the whole of Brum is unsafe for my kids. Kept saying to myself you did not hear about it in Essex because you did not go to these meetings!

[SometimesSansEngine]

OK... so happy to stand corrected.

My friend (who like I say unfortunately has a lot of experience in 'this sort of thing') has said it's not something he's ever been aware of - toes aren't something that aren't a massive factor in RTCs, ankle and foot fractures yes but not toes. He will endeavour to pay more attention to toes in future incidents he attends though just in case

[Guest]

I appreciate the concern and the advice. I will look into something more suitable. What I meant by the mechanics of it are I could imagine if the toe of the boot was bent backwards the end of the steel cap could guillotine the toes of bent back enough. I just could not imagine that happening in an accident.

 

Despite the received wisdom that you shouldn't wear steel toecapped boots on motorbikes, I have only ever heard of one accident of this type......it happened on a turntable ladder. The outcome was exactly as described above.

Having said that, although I can imagine that it would not be impossible to trap your feet in an accident in a way that would do this, I have never heard of it happening. I have worn steel toecapped boots to ride in in the past, and in accordance with what one of the other posters said, I do not like it simply because it buggers the gear change up. But in the long run, better boots with toecap than no boots at all. I also deplore the modern fashion for shorty boots, as they offer little or no protection to the very vulnerable shin area. I currently wear MX style boots with heavy shin protectors. I described a shin accident to someone not wearing boots elsewhere, and no-one should put themselves in that position.

[Guest Richzx6r]

I appreciate the concern and the advice. I will look into something more suitable. What I meant by the mechanics of it are I could imagine if the toe of the boot was bent backwards the end of the steel cap could guillotine the toes of bent back enough. I just could not imagine that happening in an accident.

 

Despite the received wisdom that you shouldn't wear steel toecapped boots on motorbikes, I have only ever heard of one accident of this type......it happened on a turntable ladder. The outcome was exactly as described above.

Having said that, although I can imagine that it would not be impossible to trap your feet in an accident in a way that would do this, I have never heard of it happening. I have worn steel toecapped boots to ride in in the past, and in accordance with what one of the other posters said, I do not like it simply because it buggers the gear change up. But in the long run, better boots with toecap than no boots at all. I also deplore the modern fashion for shorty boots, as they offer little or no protection to the very vulnerable shin area. I currently wear MX style boots with heavy shin protectors. I described a shin accident to someone not wearing boots elsewhere, and no-one should put themselves in that position.

 

Yea the horror stories are pretty gory the ones iv heard anyway

[Bender]

I had my foot stuck under an hgv wheel as an apprentice many moons ago, don't trust your mates, steel toe cap in that instance certainly saved my toes, they went off for their tea break and left me, oh how we laughed about it later.

The cap is or should be a complete surround that your toes go into its not just a cover for the top, in a good pair of safety boots the Base is strengthened and the toe section is integral, you would have to rip the sole to bend the cap back far enough to cut your toes off, in such an accident I would hazard a guess your toes may be the least of your concerns.

Would certainly not be overly concerned wearing them on the bike and they offer a dam sight more protection that half the trendy footwear the hipster brigade have spawned.

[Muttly]

Awful English in one of my posts. Apologies, been on duty with the kids a few nights on the trot. Delirious from

Tiredness I think

Had a night’s sleep now.

[Westbeef]

I just spend shitloads fixing bits, not that anything has ever really broken. I tend to fix stuff when it starts to show signs of heading out, in the last 12 months it's had a service, Valves checked, CCT replaced, new R/R, new battery, new headers (not fitted yet), new rear tyre so not really had any money for farkles