Hip protection

[garyz]

Hi, I shattered my hip while riding 18 months ago, and I am finally getting back on the bike and riding. I have been getting off the pavement and starting to push the distance, but I am very stressed about re-breaking the hip as I have all kinds of hardware in there (that they have advised to not remove at this point). It would give me both peace-of-mind as well as some real protection to be able to ride with some sort of padding to protect the hip on a fall.

I have researched a number of the liners that are available, but I am not sure if there is anything that is designed for long duration on the mountain bike in a cross-country/trail setting (similar to the Smoke & Fire for example). I really prefer to ride in my Gore bibs, but not sure if there is anyway to combine padding with bibs.

Anyways... If anyone has had experience with this, or has some clever ideas, I am all ears!

[garyz]

I didn?t see any replies, so I went ahead and got the GForm elite shorts which have hip protection which seems pretty good. The hip pads are the material that hardens on impact and is fairly flexible due to its arrangement, though it does push on my repair pretty hard. They are supposedly able to dissipate something like 90% of a 60 mph crash. And while that seems a bit much for these, they do get Europe?s class 1 motorcycle protection.

 I rode them for three hours this morning on a rocky trail and found the extra confidence nice. On the downside the chamois is pretty darn thin. Almost wish it didn?t have one. That said, I am glad I have them, and so far they seem to be a good insurance policy.