Choose the right mountain bike pads for your needs. Get enough protection to prevent mountain biking injuries, while avoiding unnecessary weight or bulk.

How much mountain bike protective gear do you need?

To choose the right mountain bike knee pads and elbow pads, consider how much mountain bike protective gear your riding demands:

• High speed downhill mountain biking will demand a lot of mountain bike protective gear to avoid mountain biking injuries, and added weight may be a secondary consideration.
• Recreational single track mountain biking may not require a big setup and, in this case, weight may be the deciding factor in what to order.

So your first task is to decide where on the spectrum your riding falls (no pun intended), and then use this context to help guide your decision.

For your knees and elbows: choose between hard shell protective mountain bike pads versus soft pads.

The more aggressive mountain bike knee pads include hard plastic shields to prevent mountain biking injuries. These hard plastic shields offer the best impact protection from rocks, trees, pegs or other objects.

Different models of knee and elbow pads come with hard plastic protection, such as:

• SixSixOne Kyle Strait Mountain Bike Knee Pads
• SixSixOne Tomcat Mountain Bike Knee Pads
• ProTec Nasty Mountain Bike Knee Pads / Shin Pads

If your mountain biking includes high speed, downhill or dirt jumping, hard shell pads are a good choice to avoid mountain biking injuries. Or, if you’re an older rider (like me) who is looking for more protection because…well…you’re older, these are good choices, as well.

On the other hand, if your mountain bike riding is more recreational, or you simply don’t want to carry the heavier hard shell protection, soft padded knee and elbow pads are good choices. The most popular choices, the SixSixOne Veggie Knee Pads and SixSixOne Chicken Wing Elbow Pads, offer soft foam padding that’s very light and comfortable. You get moderate impact protection for very little weight.

Consider the best weight and bulk for your needs in your protective mountain bike pads.

When choosing mountain bike protective gear, especially mountain bike pads, you have to balance the amount of protection that you need with the amount of weight it will add to your ride. The good news is that there are mountain bike knee pads that offer maximum protection – and still weigh only about 2 pounds, like the SixSixOne ProDJ Knee Pads. The lightest models – the soft foam versions like the SixSixOne Veggies mountain bike pads – weigh in at around a pound. They’re a great trade off of protection at a very low weight.

Read more about how to choose pads to avoid mountain biking injuries.

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