Ok, so I hear about 661’s all the time and most people on here are big fans of 4X4’s I am just wondering if it is really worth it to get FULL knee and shin guards or if I could just get a set of Hammer or other BMX shin gaurds that were designed with pedal bite in mind?
I’ve had quite a few falls that would have been painful if I didn’t have some knee protection. I’ve got 4x4s. They are very nice.
My knees used to get bashed up real badly:( My solution:
stop doing high drops until I get 4x4s
i need to cover my forehead(damn face bites)
protect your elbows! Trust me!
I like the 4x4’s a lot because when I take my occasional forward fall, I’ll use my knees to absorb much of the impact. At the same time they protect both my shin and my calfs without really restricting my riding.
i nija roll so my hands never get hurt
ill make a vid sometime
That would depend on your riding style and the type of riding you do.
For muni the knee protection with the 661s is necessary. In muni it is common to have a forward UPD at a speed where you end up landing and sliding on your knees. You need the impact protection over the knee and you kneed the protection to keep from cutting up your knees. I wouldn’t ride muni without knee protection.
For trials you aren’t going at the forward speeds where you will end up sliding on your knees. You may occasionally have an impact on your knee where knee protection would be nice. But many trials riders do fine with no knee protection.
For street you’ve got more forward speed involved than trials. You’re doing rolling hops and grinds and such that have forward speed. You can end up needing knee protection. But again, many street riders do without knee protection. Depends on how you ride. Shin and calf protection would be more important to protect from missed pedals when doing uni spins and crank flips.
You can get knee wraps that will offer no impact protection but will offer some abrasion protection. Riding with long pants that cover the knee would offer the same protection. Abrasion protection is handy because scrapes on the kneecap can take a long time to heal.
get Lizard skins (no knee protection) because my expeirence is that the first thing you hit is your shins (pedals), hands, then knees. i have hit my knees maybe 2 times in the 10 months i have been riding. and one of them was a “wow i am an idiot” fall
so my opinion is that shingaurds are worth tit but not knee guards.
A quote (to a TV news reporter) from Brett Bymaster in the early days of MUni:
“I have more scar tissue on my knees than skin.”
Then he started wearing kneepads.