Ryan LaBar of Bikemag.com headed over to the POC booth yesterday to see what's new with the Swedish apparel company. As it turns out they've got a few interesting products coming soon, read on for more!
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By: Ryan LaBar
There arent many more appropriate places to launch new body armor and helmets than at Crankworx. It looks like the Swedish company, POC, has been hard at work.
The Trabec Race Mips sees the ground-breaking Mips technology in a cross-country lid.
The Mips system allows for part of the helmet to rotate a small amount on impact to take away some of the rotational violence associated with head impacts taken at speed.
Instead of the sheer-pin system found in the Cortex DH Mips, the Trabec Race Mips uses a thin elastimer-dampened inner structure (yellow) that allows the whole helmet a small amount of rotational movement. This movement helps lessen the rotational speed the head takes on impact.
The word Trabec was taken from the word trabecular, which describes the inner support structure of bones. POC uses a Aramid (Kevlar) structure inside the foam padding of the helmet.
POCs new VPD 2.0 Long Knee pad shown next to a VPD 2.0 insert.
POC has figured out a way to 3D mold its viscoelastic soft pads. This makes for lighter padding, a better fit and more protection. This version of VPD is also said to be softer in cold weather and more tear resistant.
POCs Spine VPD 2.0 Jacket is the worlds only fully soft body armor system. This protector is CE 1621 certified, which means it is rated for motorcycle use. The chest plate is not shown here, because Popular Science magazine is borrowing it for testing (for real).
Shoulder detail. All pads in the jacket are removable for washing the jacket. The pads also have cut lines for a personalized fit.
The spine protector is well ventilated.
MSRP for the Spine VPD 2.0 Jacket will be about $380. The knee pads should be similar in price to their predecessors.
