A lot of our friends here in LA wear proper racing boots under jeans in their day-to-day riding. The motivation is obvious, they’re serious riders who want the benefits serious boots have to offer — safety, control, feel — but they do so with one serious problem. Racing boots are fucking ugly. Enter Vitesse, a French company that aims to package all those benefits into boots that actually look good. :continue:
Airbags have, for years, been a just-over-the-horizon technology promising to massively elevate impact protection. Top-level road racers are just now taking advantage of the Dainese D-Air and Alpinestars TechAir systems, but as yet, only rudimentary systems requiring a lanyard connection to the motorcycle have been available to road riders. With the releases of Dainese D-Air Street, motorcyclists will benefit from a 75 percent reduction in impact forces to the back over a CE2 back protector and an 89 percent reduction over a CE chest protector. D-Air Street also helps prevent hyperextension, hyperflexion and compression of the neck, all while inflating in as little as 45 milliseconds to guard against frontal impacts. This is the next level of safety. :continue:
This is what it looks like to put Dainese’s new airbag-equipped D-Air race suit through its paces. Pictured here is Leon Haslam crashing his World SBK S1000RR at Misano practice last year. Despite landing heavily on his shoulders and back, Haslam walked away without injury. D-Air hides its airbag underneath the suit’s leather, wrapping it around the shoulders and collar bones. Three accelerometers and three gyroscopes determine the difference between an easy lowside and a violent highside, such as this, inflating the airbag in just .05 seconds if it’s needed. :continue:
AGV has upped their game with the new AGV PistaGP. They used a freakin’ lazer to scan Valentino Rossi’s head and designed the helmet from the inside out around the resulting 3d model, unlike the traditional method of creating the outer shell first then going inside. The new visor mechanism is minuscule at 71% smaller than before. And then there’s the shape: small, lean and reptilian, it looks more like something out of Tron than a motorcycle helmet. I once said that the XR1R was the nicest helmet ever, but it looks like the PistaGP may be poised to steal the crown.
Update: Now with 77-photo mega gallery
Icon’s notorious for tackling the problem of squids not using safety gear with loud, obnoxious products that look more at home in comic books than they do outside the world where chin strap beards and denim shorts are acceptable clothes for an adult to wear in public. And they’ve done that, providing an affordable, quality, safe range of products that now adorn wannabe Ruffryderz everywhere. Now, they’re targeting another emerging demographic of riders equally disdainful of safety — young people living in cities. And they’re doing so not with skulls and klowns and tribal graphics, but with some of the most credible, technically innovative, stylish riding gear ever seen. It’s called the One Thousand collection and it’s about to utterly reverse what you think of the brand.
Photos: Grant Ray :continue:
We’ve found good-looking, practical, safe motorcycle jackets. There’s plenty of gloves that can provide real protection in a stealthy package. There’s even boots capable of keeping your feet safe, yet won’t make you look like you’re embarking for the moon. The last area of stylish, practical, protection left, one that’s bizarrely undeserved, is the humble pair of trousers. We’re not talking about jeans like those made by Deth Killers or Iron Heart (both tougher than normal, but still a long way from ideal), but rather something capable of fending off a serious impact, high speed abrasion and offering good weather protection to boot. Can you package all those attributes into something you’d actually be able to wear around town? Enter the Kushitani EX413 Country Jeans. :continue:
About a month ago, I had a terrible motorcycle accident here in LA. Six broken bones, a week in the hospital and three surgeries. About as bad as it gets, right? Well, not quite. That’s thanks to the gear I was wearing — head-to-toe protection. But, I wasn’t in leathers or ungainly Cordura or anything like that, I was in jeans and a jacket; the kind of thing I wear to go to a meeting or a bar. Combining this level of protection with stealthy looks isn’t easy, but it sure was effective. Here’s a break down. :continue:
Both Dainese and arch-rival Alpinestars have spent the past decade developing real-life, airbag-equipped superhero suits and now they’re ready for public consumption (even though no dates have been given on purchase availability). Alpinestars spilled the beans on TechAir back in August and, this week, Dainese did the same with this new D-Air suit, finally ready for public consumption. The safety arms race is on. :continue:
The first pair of riding gloves I ever bought were a pair of old Alpinestars SP-Ss. I thought they were pretty cool and the price was right. After crashing in them (and getting lucky), I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something inherently un-safe about short gloves. What’s unsafe about short gloves? The simple fact that they almost always leave the pointy part of the Ulna exposed. If that part gets ground away or crushed, riding motorcycles would be just about impossible. Enter the Dainese 4-stroke. Dainese understands that people need this bone to ride, so they designed a plastic slider and padding to cover it. Awesome. :continue:
Packing for our west coast Goldwing tour, we each opted to bring along an extra pair of shoes (which took up valuable space in the saddle bags). Would our new riding boots be comfortable enough to walk around in? How about hiking? Days when we weren’t really on the bike much? As it turns out, we could have saved the trouble and the space. Sean’s Icon Reign boots and my Alpinestars Stella Armada boots were the only shoes we wore for 10 days straight (and pretty much ever since). :continue:
