Motorcycles

[ShoeWho]

Well that's a much better response, so I apologise! Your post gave me the impression that you know next to nothing about armour and were not that interested!

I suppose I'm a bit of a gear nazi, but I used to race, and all racers are gear nazis. It's just accepted that you wear Daytona Security Evos. Everybody wants to keep their feet. The awful thing is that road crashes do much more damage to the body than track crashes, but most road riders just won't wear the gear. This guy sticks in my mind. Even after his crash he still thinks his cotton pants are "safety equipment". He's genuinely surprised that his jacket was unscathed and the rest of his gear was shredded: http://www.vansonleathers.com/customers/p19.html.

I tried to research armour. The manufacturers don't part with much info but I did find a 2011 lab test in Motorrad magazine, which I reckon is the only trustworthy consumer magazine in motorcycling. The Germans take this stuff seriously. http://www.motorradonline.de/motorr...toren-fuer-motorrad-bekleidung-im-test/358979 SAS-TEC is not in the test, which is puzzling. Maybe it's because they make stuff for other brands.

Soft armour has evolved into 2 types - the latest is viscoelastic. The idea is that when you hit it, it goes hard, which makes it better at spreading the impact over the whole area of the pad - which is what hard shell armour was good at. So in theory we can now have comfortable soft armour which works as well as the best hard armour. For my money the T-Pro hard armour always did a fantastic job when it was fitted correctly in a custom, close-fitting leather suit. It's really amazing - you can hit me with a hammer all day long and there's no pain or bruising, I just get shoved across the room.

I've been trying to adapt a Dainese Safety Jacket for road use. The jacket is a mesh vest with off-road armour glued to it.

Off-road armour is only meant to protect you from flying stones, not cars and lamp posts. So I'm replacing the Dainese armour with Safe-Max viscoelastic, and removing as much mesh as possible for cooling purposes. The idea is that I can wear the vest under any jacket and the armour will always be tightly positioned over my joints if I come off. And I can choose whatever jacket is dictated by the weather, and not have to upgrade all the shonky old armour in all my jackets, and not fiddle around trying to get the armour positioned just right in the pockets.

This vest idea also makes chest armour easy. Hardly anyone uses chest armour on the road, but since helmets have been mandatory in the UK the leading cause of death in motorcycle crashes has been chest injury. Ribs get broken and puncture the heart, lungs, aorta etc.

 

[brokencycle]

I HATE HATE HATE the seat though. They made a great looking bike, fantastic details, and then the seat is like this dumb looking, uh, ledge just hanging off the spine. Had they planted a solo seat or something onto the fender to hide the rear spring, I would have loved this bike. Maybe an after-market solution, but that seat was pure fail.

View attachment 800507

I can see your point. I guess I don't know enough to know better.

 

[lawyerdad]

Well that's a much better response, so I apologise! Your post gave me the impression that you know next to nothing about armour and were not that interested!

I suppose I'm a bit of a gear nazi, but I used to race, and all racers are gear nazis. It's just accepted that you wear Daytona Security Evos. Everybody wants to keep their feet. The awful thing is that road crashes do much more damage to the body than track crashes, but most road riders just won't wear the gear. This guy sticks in my mind. Even after his crash he still thinks his cotton pants are "safety equipment". He's genuinely surprised that his jacket was unscathed and the rest of his gear was shredded: http://www.vansonleathers.com/customers/p19.html.

I tried to research armour. The manufacturers don't part with much info but I did find a 2011 lab test in Motorrad magazine, which I reckon is the only trustworthy consumer magazine in motorcycling. The Germans take this stuff seriously. http://www.motorradonline.de/motorr...toren-fuer-motorrad-bekleidung-im-test/358979 SAS-TEC is not in the test, which is puzzling. Maybe it's because they make stuff for other brands.

Soft armour has evolved into 2 types - the latest is viscoelastic. The idea is that when you hit it, it goes hard, which makes it better at spreading the impact over the whole area of the pad - which is what hard shell armour was good at. So in theory we can now have comfortable soft armour which works as well as the best hard armour. For my money the T-Pro hard armour always did a fantastic job when it was fitted correctly in a custom, close-fitting leather suit. It's really amazing - you can hit me with a hammer all day long and there's no pain or bruising, I just get shoved across the room.

I've been trying to adapt a Dainese Safety Jacket for road use. The jacket is a mesh vest with off-road armour glued to it. View attachment 800686

Off-road armour is only meant to protect you from flying stones, not cars and lamp posts. So I'm replacing the Dainese armour with Safe-Max viscoelastic, and removing as much mesh as possible for cooling purposes. The idea is that I can wear the vest under any jacket and the armour will always be tightly positioned over my joints if I come off. And I can choose whatever jacket is dictated by the weather, and not have to upgrade all the shonky old armour in all my jackets, and not fiddle around trying to get the armour positioned just right in the pockets.

This vest idea also makes chest armour easy. Hardly anyone uses chest armour on the road, but since helmets have been mandatory in the UK the leading cause of death in motorcycle crashes has been chest injury. Ribs get broken and puncture the heart, lungs, aorta etc.

That's good info - thanks for posting. There are plenty of folks here who are always interested in informative posts.

 

[brokencycle]

That's good info - thanks for posting. There are plenty of folks here who are always interested in informative posts.

Yeah but they'll keep their posting to themselves it they know what's good for them.

 

[lawyerdad]

Yeah but they'll keep their posting to themselves it they know what's good for them.

But they'll look superfly while doing it, so it's all good.

 

[brokencycle]

But they'll look superfly while doing it, so it's all good.

If you don't look cool ridding a motorcycle you're doing something wrong. It is literally the only cool thing about me.

 

[ShoeWho]

I also looked into airbags, which are becoming affordable(-ish).

In a worst case scenario, for example if you t-bone a car, fly off the bike and your chest is mashed into the edge of the car roof and you die, the Dainese system responds so fast that the bag will be fully inflated by the time you impact the car. And maybe you walk away! Or maybe you hit the car a few inches lower and the roof takes your head off but the coroner is impressed by your intact rib cage. The system uses accelerometers and gyros which detect the initial impact between bike and car and also the flight of your body. (For more info - and there is much, much, more, go to dainese.com!)

Until recently the road system was built into road jackets (£800+) or a vest (£300) paired to a sensor kit (£260) fitted to any bike by a Dainese technician for £200-ish. The track system is self-contained and has the sensor kit built into the hump of a one-piece suit (£1700+). (Dainese say you're not supposed to use the track system on the road. I haven't discovered how well it works if you do and you crash.)

Now there's a new option: a self-contained road system in a leather road jacket with the sensors built into the back protector. This is already selling out in the UK. It's basically a £400 summer jacket but the airbag adds £800 to the price https://www.bikestop.co.uk/dainese-d-air-misano-1000-leather-jacket-white-black-fluoro-red

If you really buy into this system you're going to want a suit for track use, a road jacket for summer and a Gore-Tex one and a sensor kit for winter...say £5,000 all in. I'm sure there are lots of people doing exactly that, but I don't move in those circles any more! Still, if it saves your life or keeps you out of a wheelchair, or stops you spending months in hospital having titanium fitted to your bones....£5,000 is a no-brainer.

An alternative to Dainese is an airbag vest triggered by a lanyard. You can fit the lanyard to the seat/tank area yourself, and when you have been thrown a short distance from the seat (a couple of feet or something), the vest inflates. In the t-bone scenario the vest will only have time to inflate partially by the time your body hits the car. It will inflate fully very soon afterwards, in time for when you hit the next obstacle or the ground. Three or four companies are making these things now and they're fairly similar. Some police forces are beginning to adopt them as standard equipment. If I were to buy one right now I'd probably go for a Helite from France, 390 euros from this seller http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Gilet-air-bag-HELITE-Airnest-gonflable-moto-airbag-veste-NEUF-jacket-inflatable/271966438490?ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT&var=570795252463&_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649

I quizzed Helite a lot and they are serious specialists, committed to a continual programme to reduce the inflation time of their product. They advised me to get the Dainese if I wanted full protection in the t-bone scenario, and maybe I should.

The Helite is yet another layer, yet more heat, but unlike some others at least there is an opening in the front. More info at helite.com. Lots of videos on youtube.

P.S. If you happen to be a cyclist you can get an airbag helmet for £219 hovding.com. It does an incredible job but it's hot to wear. And it's for one time use - not repackable after it inflates. And it will probably inflate in all of those minor spills when the only risk is a grazed knee. So it could end up costing you as much as a Dainese race suit...

 

[Rumpelstiltskin]

Well that's a much better response, so I apologise! Your post gave me the impression that you know next to nothing about armour and were not that interested!

I suppose I'm a bit of a gear nazi, but I used to race, and all racers are gear nazis. It's just accepted that you wear Daytona Security Evos. Everybody wants to keep their feet. The awful thing is that road crashes do much more damage to the body than track crashes, but most road riders just won't wear the gear. This guy sticks in my mind. Even after his crash he still thinks his cotton pants are "safety equipment". He's genuinely surprised that his jacket was unscathed and the rest of his gear was shredded: http://www.vansonleathers.com/customers/p19.html.

I tried to research armour. The manufacturers don't part with much info but I did find a 2011 lab test in Motorrad magazine, which I reckon is the only trustworthy consumer magazine in motorcycling. The Germans take this stuff seriously. http://www.motorradonline.de/motorr...toren-fuer-motorrad-bekleidung-im-test/358979 SAS-TEC is not in the test, which is puzzling. Maybe it's because they make stuff for other brands.

Soft armour has evolved into 2 types - the latest is viscoelastic. The idea is that when you hit it, it goes hard, which makes it better at spreading the impact over the whole area of the pad - which is what hard shell armour was good at. So in theory we can now have comfortable soft armour which works as well as the best hard armour. For my money the T-Pro hard armour always did a fantastic job when it was fitted correctly in a custom, close-fitting leather suit. It's really amazing - you can hit me with a hammer all day long and there's no pain or bruising, I just get shoved across the room.

I've been trying to adapt a Dainese Safety Jacket for road use. The jacket is a mesh vest with off-road armour glued to it. View attachment 800686

Off-road armour is only meant to protect you from flying stones, not cars and lamp posts. So I'm replacing the Dainese armour with Safe-Max viscoelastic, and removing as much mesh as possible for cooling purposes. The idea is that I can wear the vest under any jacket and the armour will always be tightly positioned over my joints if I come off. And I can choose whatever jacket is dictated by the weather, and not have to upgrade all the shonky old armour in all my jackets, and not fiddle around trying to get the armour positioned just right in the pockets.

This vest idea also makes chest armour easy. Hardly anyone uses chest armour on the road, but since helmets have been mandatory in the UK the leading cause of death in motorcycle crashes has been chest injury. Ribs get broken and puncture the heart, lungs, aorta etc.

No harm, no foul.

I considered the vest thing years ago but frankly it is too burdensome to be useful on an everyday basis. Them there is the issue of jackets with non or partially removable armour. AFAIK the elbow/forearm armour in both of my jackets is non removable rendering this particular "vest" unusable but I've had jackets where everything can be taken out.

Why reinvent the wheel? Take a peek at Spidi's vests.

Or Forcefield

 

[Rumpelstiltskin]

So a buddy of mine texted me last night and informed me that he had traded in his hypermotard and did not get the 1299 Panigale that he had planned on. Instead he is now a proud owner of a 2017 Aprilia Tuono Factory.


Somebody kill me

 

[otc]

The bike is going up for sale so I can buy something new. Got it out for the first time this season, cleaned it up, and got a couple of shots for the listing:

View attachment 799891 View attachment 799892 View attachment 799893 View attachment 799894 View attachment 799895

She's gone...feeling bittersweet.

Did sell it for 50 bucks more than I paid for it though...barely makes up for the $46 I spent renewing the city sticker that I made use of for a whole 10 days (or, you know, the hundreds of dollars of stuff that went into the bike while I owned it).

 

[brokencycle]

Wow. No action in 6 months?

Interesting article on Yamaha's attempt to build a motorcycle riding robot.
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20180126-meet-the-motorbike-racing-robot

 

[epb]

I'm watching the live stream of the Mecum motorcycle auction right now (there's a Vincent Black Shadow that didn't meet reserve at $82k!). Mostly Harley content, but I saw a few models that interested me (Honda GB500TT, Ducati 750GT, an MV Agusta Ipotesi 350GT).

I've got to work on the carbs and replace the points on my '75 Moto Guzzi, but should be riding again soon (riding season starts early here).

 

[Rumpelstiltskin]

*bump*


Haven't gotten the bike I want yet but I picked up 93 Kawi ZX7 for next to nothing. It's not a total basket case but it definitely needs work. Once I get it running it will be clothed in Chinese plastics

 

[gnatty8]

Nobody ride motorcycles on this forum anymore??

 

[brokencycle]

Nobody ride motorcycles on this forum anymore??

I've put about 100 miles on since moving to North Carolina.