MotoGP held its first official 2025 preseason test at Sepang International Circuit this week, where Jorge Martin crashed his shiny new Aprilia on the first day of testing. The wreck was a perfect highside, sending Martin flying over the bike and face-down into the pavement, but he emerged with just two extremity fractures. This, friends, is why you wear gear.
Highsides aren’t the most common outside of knee-down riding, but they do happen — any time you lose the rear tire, it has a chance to grip back up and send you over the bike. The classic situation may be track riding, but standing water or black ice can have the same effect. Dress for the slide, not the ride.
That starts with the helmet. Open-face lids may be stylish for bopping from cafe to cafe, but they’re less stylish when you’re landing chin-first on the ground. Martin’s helmet, an Alpinestars Supertech R10, actually visibly ejects a part just form the force of hitting the ground. I won’t pretend to know the exact magnitude of the mathematical forces at play here, but I think it’s safe to say that your chin would not look the same after such an impact in a brain bucket.
Martin’s suit also appears to have helped, thanks to its airbag and knee pads.You7 can see his knees come down hard, and the airbag must have done some good work mitigating the blow to his body. I may love my summer-ready mesh adventure gear, but it surely wouldn’t have the same impact mitigation as this kit.
The thing about Martin’s crash is that it’s a situation familiar to many of us: An experienced rider on a new bike with fresh tires. He may be one of the greatest living riders — a MotoGP champion, at that — but he was getting used to a new chassis after making the leap from Ducati to Aprilia. Gear yourselves up, and take it easy when you’re learning a new bike. You’re not chasing down Bagnaia — it’s better to arrive a little slower and looking a little dorkier.