From the R&D files.

They say it's always the quick trips that get you.  They're right.  Tonight I crashed the bike.  It'll happen.  Actually, it happens sort of a lot to me.  Over the years I've realized that I have an over-indulgent comfort zone so every once in awhile I'll try something that is either not particularly well thought out or just dangerous in general and let the chips fall where they may.  That's what lead up to me crashing my bike but it brought about a chance to do a nice product comparison.  As I mentioned before, I'm a pretty frequent crasher and tonight I took a little spill but I also noticed a theme.  Every time I fall off my bike, I rip my pants in the same place.  It's always the front thigh, sort of the pocket region, or as I like to call it, "the billiard hall." 

Rimshot!

Anyway, when I got home and started to assess the damage I noticed that there was this small scuff on the left leg of my Surly Pants.  It was barely noticable and at first I didn't put it together that this was from my incident ealier in the evening.  Eventually it dawned on me that the damage was from the crash.  It just so happens that I fall off of my bike enough that I have at least three pairs of pants with the same damage, so I thought I'd do a little side by side comparison.

First up, my favorite pair of shorts.  In this crash I destroyed my phone but managed to save the bottle of gin I was carrying in my right hand.  

A nice pair of Race Face riding shorts; this was the first time I had worn them.  I was riding down a mountain in Utah with T$ and crashed but good.

The scuff on the Surly Pants?  You can hardly see it.  

If only I had been covered head to toe with Surly Pants....