I probably shouldn't mention that I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt, and sneakers.

Back in the day I used to wear leather huarache sandals I'd buy in Tijuana, that had soles made of old tires. Rarely wore a helmet on the road back then, but when I was off road I always had helmet, gloves, jeans, jacket and boots on. Never a competitive rider so I didn't have leathers or anything like that.

The way I looked at it, you just don't want to go down on the road, but spills off-road are a fact of life. When I had a road bike, I always wore more protective gear if I was going to be a riding on the freeways, but often I'd just ride with shorts and a t-shirt around town.

On the other hand, many guys I see riding around town are wearing full leathers etc, but they're taking many risks in the way they ride.

I’d like to hope, many of us are laid back riders… not so sure I wanna rush a ride on my old bike… I’m not in hurry to end it…
Sneezles61

Sneezles, I'm not in a hurry to end it either. You may have noticed in my video there was very little traffic. I live in a very quiet end of a Southern California beach town. I could have gone a quarter mile further down to Pacific Coast Highway, but I typically avoid that. That's where all the insane riders and modified car drivers are, trying to show off.

One of the joys of riding a bike like this on a summer day is not riding in leathers, however I always wear a helmet, because it's the law now in California. I'm also confident that this bike is safe to ride. I've done everything to make it safe, new brakes, new tires and tubes, the rims and spokes are in good shape and tensioned well, and it's not going to fall apart on me as I'm riding down the road. I also have many defensive riding techniques that I learned when I was very young. I stay out of blind spots, I ride assuming that everyone around me is drunk or asleep, or both, and even going through intersections, I try to time it so I'm going through when other vehicles are alongside me.

I also know that whether I'm wearing leathers, or shorts and a t-shirt, if someone suddenly changes lanes, or plows in to my rear end, I'm probably going to be dead. I just try to be very aware and keep attentive of what's around me when I'm riding. I think that's the best way, at least just riding around town off the freeways. If I had a road bike now, and rode the freeways, it would be a whole different deal.

And I'm not suggesting anyone else do what I do, but frankly I've seen some other folks posting videos here riding out in the fields with no protection, or even a helmet...

I ride with a helmet as well,….
When we had a big road bike… we’d rode with a group a few times… they’d ride really fast… and the ride was done quicker…. We never understood the need for speed…
I’m very content in the slow lane…. Watching out for the peeps with a cell phone stuck to their ear, driving around…
Sneezles61

I think I mentioned here before, I had a XS650 years ago, but I quit riding back in the late 90s. Just too many drivers not paying attention, and where I live I have to hop on a freeway to get to any good windy mountain roads to enjoy. It was fun riding up and down Pacific Coast Highway in my area, but I've done it a million times and every year the traffic is heavier and heavier. I also don't like to lane split, and do not enjoy riding on freeways. The guys I see riding on freeways way faster than the flow of traffic, and splitting lanes, they're playing Russian roulette.

So most of the time with this little CT1, I'm just cruising around this quiet part of my town at about 45 to 50 max, and I avoid the busy roads.

Start a motorcycle club where everyone wears the “slow vehicle” sign on their backs!
Sneezles61

I enjoyed the ride around the block on your CT-1! It's also probably the only time I will ever ride around the block in a California neighborhood. 

The last test ride I took on my DT I was wearing shorts, t-shirt, sneakers and eye protection. However, I can count the number of vehicles that pass by my rural home in a day on both hands. When I am out for a ride (not doing a test ride) I am an ATGATT (all the gear, all the time) kind of rider. 

These days, all of my short rides around this quiet part of town are test rides :0)

In fact in that entire video, you could count on one hand the amount of cars that were on the road with me.

Always have a helmet on, eye protection, and often wear jeans as well. In fact when I ride a little further on occasion to a local vintage bike meet, I put on jeans and a jacket. But even that is just a short ride away.

In fact I rarely ride it farther than I could push it home if it did break down.

If I ever do ride trails again, then I will have boots, gloves and the full complement on. But at my age, I probably won't be doing that.

Lucky me, there are a whole bunch of Rail road tracks that were discontinued and left as gravel for the ATV’s to use… well, not many curves… but sooner or later you come out by tar road… There are miles of this around here..
Sneezles61

Tom P love those XS650’s back in the day when I worked at Butler Yamaha one of my jobs was to uncrate the new bikes and service them and ride them Hellava job for a 16 year old kid. I remember a guy we called Snake had one and we put TT pipes with Megaphones on it loved that sound I would buy one today if I could find one in good shape