How to Knee Slide into Ramps

Here's a video on knee slides and this channel has great lessons on pumping, carving, and I'm sure dropping in [VIDEO]

I'd just go helmet, knees and elbows and learn how to / practice how to knee slide [VIDEO]. My friend wears only an under-pant hip/tailbone protector thingy too but I don't think it's necessary unless you're trying some really dangerous tricks (grinding pool coping in a deep pool). You kinda touched on it in your post, but imho, there's a careful balance of padding to motion / flexibility that you need to keep in you

I wear triple eight sweatsaver helmet, and the rest are 187 pads. The 187 pro knee pads are the business when sliding down big transitions. Make sure you practice knee slides for safety if you're considering riding any kind of ramp: Part 1: [VIDEO] Part 2: [VIDEO]

This is mostly for transition but wear knee pads and start sliding out of tricks instead of trying to run them out [VIDEO]

This is a good video series on transition safety, worth the watch: [VIDEO] [VIDEO]