I personally don't like seeing someone on any type of road bike wearing minimal or no actual gear, but to each his own.  If they were a loved one I'd be more of a jackass about it and harass them about it, but the guy who loves to fly up my street on his custom chopper wearing sunglasses, a loose cutoff sleeve t-shirt, shorts, and low boots trying to set off car alarms and wake up the geriatrics can do what he wants.  I simply hope he doesn't become a statistic.  I can't make him change his mind.

I'm not going to call anyone an idiot, because we have free will for a reason.  I prefer to wear a full helmet, textile or leather jacket with armor in the shoulders, elbows, back and chest, thick jeans with some kevlar stitched into a few spots, full leather gloves and the boots the military issued me.  I'm also looking to pick up some knee and shin protectors to wear under the jeans.  I don't care if it was over 100 degrees plus humidity (like it was two days ago over here), I'm wearing it all and carrying plenty of water.  I like my skin and can tolerate the current arrangement of my face.  I want to try and keep things the way they are...I don't need asphalt or someone's hood to rearrange things for me.  I look at the gear like insurance: you have it, and just hope you'll never need to put it to use.

For me, riding isn't something I can just jump up, grab the keys and go gearless.  Sure, rides come up spur of the moment, but I'll just go do a quick clothing change and I'm ready to go.  It's not as inconvenient as people try to make it seem.

Rash is one thing, but people seem to forget that bones can break too when you go down, especially if you start to tumble rather than slide.  Those knee and shin protectors saved the knee of a guy I know in a fall.  He hit some sand, fell, and landed on his knee among other things.  His kneecap may have still split in half, but I imagine it would have been somewhere along the lines of powder if he hadn't been wearing those, and at least now he can recover and still walk.

This is one of those things that's like people and smoking.  People are pretty much going to do what they want, and that's really all there is to it.  My personal confidence in my riding skill, nor the amount of gear I wear, will cause me to be any sort of reckless when I ride.  I'm about as defensive as they come when I'm on two wheels, gear included.

You guys with all your clothes on would be like fish out of water here in Wisconsin.

It was one of those rare +85 days up here today. Sometimes you just gotta live. Rode with just tee shirt jeans boots and gloves and helmet. Whoo Hoo!!!! don't do it often and it is a treat.