So id you have D3/D2 + Dainese... you're already over that. D3/D2 and TLD/661/rockgardn and you are just about even.
2nd gen Leatt Brace Proto
- Thread starter Trekrules
- Start date
Lots of people saying "well it's better than a broken neck". The pricing on those things is just about criminal.
Werd a helmet is better than a brain injury but they don't cost that much.
Give TLD another couple years...
I'm gonna do what's never before been done on an internet forum, and speculate wildly:
Neck injuries are EXTREMELY complex because they can be caused by many mechanisms, such as bending forwards, bending backwards, bending sideways, rotation side to side, direct compression, impact directly to the neck, etc etc. Leatt were the ones who pioneered the research into these things, and research on prevention of neck injuries is expensive, especially compared to say helmets where:
a) They've been around for literally hundreds of years in various guises, and
b) The injury mechanisms are relatively simple - direct impact/acceleration, or rotational acceleration which can't be helped by a helmet anyway.
It's easy to test a helmet's impact absorption capabilities, which is pretty much all it has to actually do anyway, by putting a weight in it and dropping it from a certain height, or by hitting it with things and measuring the accelerations that result. Try simulating neck injuries that simply! I remember someone from Leatt saying they wanted to do cadaver testing (since test dummies are useless for measuring neck injuries) with actual dead human bodies being swung into a wall with and without the brace in order to see what the injuries were. Can you imagine the cost involved in a test like that? Compare that to the likes of TLD, who clearly spend their whole budget on flashy, complicated paintjobs rather than on the glue guns that are used to attach the polystyrene to the shells...
A bit off topic, but POC's most expensive DH helmet is claimed to reduce rotational acceleration, because the shell and the polystyrene are not attached rigidly, but with some kind of viscous goo, if I remember right.
It's called being sponsored. try it sometime. I can get the leatt for a break too. & it's still more...
Are you sure they did testing themselves? I was under the impression that they just had a look at the cadavers of people who had died from neck injuries and took their info from that. I remember thinking at the time that there can't be all that many people actually dying from MTB/Moto related injuries, so if they are looking at car crash victims etc. then how relevant is that data? Interesting to hear if they did their own testing though.
I haven't heard this one from anywhere else; there was a big debate about neck braces a while ago on some moto forum and I'm pretty sure both Alpinestars and Leatt said they hadn't yet done any cadaver testing. Examination of bodies who have suffered severe/fatal neck injuries is not the same as swinging a dead body with a previously intact neck into a wall wearing one of your neck braces.
However, I stand open to being corrected, and if they have actually done this testing, does anyone have any more details or evidence of it?
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http://www.cyclenews.com/articles/industry-news/2009/11/04/neck-protection-let-s-talk-about-it/1
http://www.cyclenews.com/articles/industry-news/2009/11/04/neck-protection-let-s-talk-about-it-2/1
"According to years of their own research not only utilizing crash test dummies, but human cadavers as well, Alpinestars identified compression as the only form of impact that will likely result in catastrophic neck injury, meaning paralysis or death."
Page 3 of the first article.
I'll see if I still have the user manual for mine laying around with the pic of the cadaver.
Im with you on that.
Have they done anything about the collarbone/shoulder area to make it less likely that the brace would cause injury?
ill deal with another broken clavicle then a broken neck
True that. Breaking my Collar Bone was sh!tty but I can imagine a serious neck injury would be exponentially worse. I only have to direct you to the Mandown thread for examples of how much worse. At least when I broke my collar bone I could still breath on my own
so if alpinestars can design a brace that doesn't break other parts of you, why would you choose something that does? it makes no sense....and who's to say that just because it broke your CB that you would've broken your neck? but I guess you need to justify the purchase in some way...
has no one broken their clavicles with the BNS? i would think that some freak occurrences can happen with either neck brace. some people have broken their shoulders with the leatt, some havent.
i think if either protected my neck, id be okay with another broken shoulder (as bad as that sounds)
Of course if there is one that is less prone to break collar bones than another but they were both equally effective at saving my neck I would want the one that is less likely to break my collarbone. But in instances where someone is wearing a leatt/other brace and they break a collar bone I'm always curious if it was truly the brace that led to the break or if it was a crash that regardless of what you were wearing there would have been a break. Seems like one of those things that has too many variables to realistically measure or predict. That's enough thinking for me today
MIPS technology used exclusively by POC allowed a shear pin to release under rotational violence of a certain magnitude. When this shear pin releases it allows an inner liner to rotate in any direction necessary to counteract the rotational acceleration. it will move up to 20mm.
All POC DH helmets are SEPP which is a multi impact foam vastly superior to EPS (one hit wonder helmets) used by all other helmet manufacturers.
Therefore you can simply replace the shear pin with a new one and keep on using your helmet, one of the top DH racers in Canada already used 3 pins this season alone (including one at Wyndham, which he beleives is what allowed him to sustain little injury and race World champs the following weekend).
Here is a picture of load tests done using cadavers.
Finite Finite Element model (LSDYNA) of the human head showing the maximum principal strain in the sagittal plane (Kleiven et al. 2003). Software: LSDYNA by courtesy of ERAB, Sweden.
http://www.mipshelmet.se/how-it-works/test_results
http://www.mipshelmet.se/how-it-works/Video-page
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their helmets are nice, but their largest helmet size is SUPER small and doesnt come close to fitting me
Thanks for looking that out. Couple of thoughts I had. Firstly, it sounds like they actually removed the spines from the cadavers and tested them, which I'm not saying is useless info but IMO not quite the same as a full body wearing a helmet and neck brace been swung into something, which to me is a lot closer to real life.
Secondly, I am really not convinced that the compression injury is the standout fracture that causes major spinal cord injury or death. Maybe we can get a doctor in on this one, but it would appear to me that vertebrae fractures are certainly possible by hyperextension and flexion:
http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/824380-overview
If this is the case, I don't see how Alpinestars can claim that it is better to let the head roll around and the body protect itself, and all you will get is "some ligament strain and some definite ancillary injury". It seems like flawed logic to me. Call me cynical, but bear in mind that Leatt sued and shut down production of a similar product (can't remember the name atm) because it basically protected the neck by the same mechanism. When I first heard of the AS brace, the idea behind it to me just smacked of trying to get in on the action without infringing the Leatt patent. I'm all for more safety kit on the market but personally if my Leatt broke I'd get another one, I wouldn't even consider the AS.
how much do those vents actually do?? they video interviews mention they are for better airflow, but how much air actually flows through if you are riding a bike?