High-Performance Award for bike clobber

[Horse]

[devilsadvocate mode=on]

The trouble is with all safety standards, they start off as a no brainer, sensible idea and quickly descend to this being required by some

With bike gear, what's actually happened is that manufacturers have consistently extracted the urine.

When CE standards were introduced, protective 'motorcycle' gear had to be to the standards. So many of them simply omitted any mention of protection, safety, etc, and advertised their gear as fashion items.

They claimed testing cost as too prohibitive - yet Aldi managed a CE jacket for £80!

Even now, some of the top brands can't manage AAA rating for premium price suits.

https://www.advrider.com/f/threads/rukk ... n.1541145/

Disappointingly, Rukka's new Nivala 2 suit is the world's highest-priced suit to possess the lowest CE safety rating :umph

Rukka updated the Nivala 1 to the (creatively named) Nivala 2. One of the major disappointments with the Nivala One was its safety and protection: Rukka showed it could be creative not in naming but evasiveness. The company found a creative way to dodge the CE testing (EN 17092) for protection.

What happened in Nivala Part Deux? The new Two has passed the CE test but at the lowest level. So, we have a £2k priced suit with a paltry A-rating for protection. While it will undoubtedly be comfortable, there are numerous alternative Gore-Tex Pro suits with an AA rating (not to mention the AAA-rated Badlands Pro A3, Hideout Hi-Pro and BKS 100SX).

[Horse]

To be fair, I heard a similar tale from Snell (when they had a test centre at Farnham).

Developing a test standard for horse riders' helmets.

Do some sums, estimate how much oompf (SI unit doncha know) a hoss could put into a hoof.

Laugh. Halve it. Think for a moment. Halve it again. That'll be as good as any manufacturer will get.

riders helmets were a bit more scientific than that, one of my companies also did a lot of testing on how a first impact degraded a helmet and affected its protective nature in a second impact (horse / bicycle / polo / motorbike / etc)

I'm only quoting what the guy from Snell said. If it makes any difference, this was about 40 years ago. Perhaps my use of "do sums" might have understated the work that was done.

[Horse]

FWIW, I wondered what happened to them (I knew that they were no longer Snell).

Brian Walker of Head Protection Evaluations of Farnham in Surrey (the principal UK test laboratory for helmets and head protection systems of all kinds) wrote the following about the level of protection offered by cycle helmets:

In a recent Court case, a respected materials specialist argued that a cyclist who was brain injured from what was essentially a fall from her cycle, without any real forward momentum, would not have had her injuries reduced or prevented by a cycle helmet. This event involved contact against a flat tarmac surface with an impact energy potential of no more than 75 joules (his estimate, with which I was in full agreement). The court found in favour of his argument. So a High Court has decided that cycle helmets do not prevent injury even when falling from a cycle onto a flat surface, with little forward momentum. Cycle helmets will almost always perform much better against a flat surface than any other. In every other legal case with which I have been involved, where a cyclist has been in collision with a motorised vehicle, the impact energy potentials generated were of a level which outstripped those we use to certify Grand Prix drivers helmets. In some accidents at even moderate motor vehicle speeds, energy potential levels in hundreds of joules were present.

Quoted from this:

2004:
https://www.cyclehelmets.org/1081.html

The father & son team there had a fairly good idea of what was what.

[Ohlins]

[devilsadvocate mode=on]

The trouble is with all safety standards, they start off as a no brainer, sensible idea and quickly descend to this being required by some

I thought the same but was wrong. It transpires quality of materials trumps weight, which is where test results are very revealing. E.g., Dainese leathers can be made from D-Skin 2.0 or Tutu leather. They feel identical to wear. However, MotoCAP tests show Tutu leather has poor abrasion resistance, whereas D-Skin 2.0 leather has excellent abrasion resistance.

I was once in Hideout and asked if kangaroo hide made much difference. Kate let me pick up one of Hideout’s kangaroo race suits – it’s one of the safest suits available yet felt as light as a feather.

While Hideout’s kangaroo isn’t cheap, MotoCAP shows affordable RST generally beats pricier Dainese for impact protection and abrasion resistance. MotoCAP tests give most Dainese textiles a 1-star safety rating (or even worse!), whereas some much-cheaper RST textiles get a 3-star rating for protection.