i am going to be racing DH this season and was wondering if body armour is necesary for DH, I have a full face and knee/shin pads, i just dont really want to drop teh extra coin for the vest. is the protection increase worth the money?
is body armour necessary
- Thread starter tmoney727t
- Start date
Definitely get some armor. You might not need it for every race, but it's a lot better than a broken bone.
Definately. If you don't want to spend $300+ on dainese, just get a rockgarden flak jacket. You can find them for under $200.
Nah. Drop the money on a $500 troy lee helmet instead.
Just go pin it a few times on your race courses.
If you need armor, the answer will present itself fairly bluntly and shouldn't be hard to misinterpret.
Just go pin it a few times on your race courses.
If you need armor, the answer will present itself fairly bluntly and shouldn't be hard to misinterpret.
kidwoo said:
hmmm, interesting perspective.
I have had only two major crashes and if body armour was present a cracked sternum and a jacked up back would have been avoidable. Go to greenfish adventure sports they have cheap body armour.and invest in a moto helmet not some plastic piece of crap there way stronger.:hot:
This reminds me of Whistler last year. It was a long trip so when we got there we decided just to do a run or two then get some food and call it a night. Since it was gonna be quick we said screw the armor and just took our helmets...
So as you might guess, I am cruising down the trail and bam...all of a sudden my front wheel washes out in some sandy/soft dirt and I do about 4 cartwheels head over heels. The damage wasn't too bad except for a huge gash on my leg, a big chunk of meat out of my back, and both elbows looked like raw hamburger meat.
All of this of course while my $400 worth of body armor sit in the hotel room.
Moral of the story: **** happens. I was on a joy ride that night and crashed pretty good (I most likely wouldnt have had a scratch on me had I been wearing my pads)...the difference here is you are talking RACING. Racing = pushing it to the edge = chances of crashing go up exponentially.
Since money is an issue just get a 661 or something...
So as you might guess, I am cruising down the trail and bam...all of a sudden my front wheel washes out in some sandy/soft dirt and I do about 4 cartwheels head over heels. The damage wasn't too bad except for a huge gash on my leg, a big chunk of meat out of my back, and both elbows looked like raw hamburger meat.
All of this of course while my $400 worth of body armor sit in the hotel room.
Moral of the story: **** happens. I was on a joy ride that night and crashed pretty good (I most likely wouldnt have had a scratch on me had I been wearing my pads)...the difference here is you are talking RACING. Racing = pushing it to the edge = chances of crashing go up exponentially.
Since money is an issue just get a 661 or something...
I was a non believer in body armor also. After hamburgern' my elbows/forearms several times(I'm seriously hard headed) and hearing of a guy who sliced his forearm all the way to the bone at the races last year, I decided to buy some upper armor. I still haven't ordered it but I will eventually(Ok, Monday!).
I still wear just knee pads and occasionally put knee/shins and no upper armor on for the local trails but for racing, upper body armor will be on this year.
I still wear just knee pads and occasionally put knee/shins and no upper armor on for the local trails but for racing, upper body armor will be on this year.
all I can say is body armor has kept me from some serious injuries in the last 2 years....D
Get it, wear it, ride with confidence, and hope you never need it.
yah, i'm all for building character too. Scarless people are boring as s**t....kidwoo said:
Before I achieved long term gainful employment, I had to answer that stupid question at the end of every freaking job interview once the mandatories were covered.zedro said:
.........."so.....just out of curiosity........what's with all the scars?"
Rather than explain the concept of skateboarding I'd just get a kick out of saying something like "I've had a rough youth, I'd rather not discuss it at this time etc.".
Norm folks is pussies.
neaky:
or in my case, burning oneself for money...kidwoo said:
Yeah, then whats the point of a MotoX helmet in the first place. Basically you said it sucks.Radarr said:
some wear it- some don't.
in my case, I will not ride DH without my armor..
in my case, I will not ride DH without my armor..
klunky said:
some good quotes, and very true...this isnt MTB rag...
183 bux! best investment I have ever made. saved me from a huge medical bill.mtnbrider said:
No I didn't. I was merely commenting at the fact that people believe that MTB helmets protect better than moto helmets. Or was that quote intended for bballe?ThePriceSeliger said:
And so that we don’t lose track of the bigger picture, I’ll be the first on to say it: any helmet is better than no helmet.
That being said, my rant begins:
A moto helmet is much better for you to be wearing in a crash, period. Snell is kind of dumb - everyone knows that. If you want a good helmet, get one with the EPS liner. Moto helmets typically have this, not MTB ones (they have styrofoam-esq liners), and don't be afraid to spend $200-300 to get it. It is going to be saving your life - don't skimp.
I hit my head two summers ago hard enough to get my brain to rotate forward and down - it sheared most of my olfactory nerves in my nose (can't smell out of my left nostril) and pinched my optic nerve in my left eye (can't see anything out of my left eye anymore). I also had a displacement fracture through my sphenoid sinus which left me leaking CSF for 2 weeks, making my brain rest directly on my skull until the patched the crack with fat they took from my stomach. It sucks. Seeing as how I still wanted to ride my bike, in order to avoid any sort of injury like this again (I like my sense of vision and smell, be it though, they are impaired), I asked my docs (by the way, I'd like to point out here that they are doctors of medicine, not doctors of philosophy, like the quoted rocket scientist Dr. Newman) what type of protection I should use when riding my bike from not on. They all said (Couple ENT guys (one who rides MX), an ophthalmologist, an orthopedic surgeon, an oral surgeon, and a neurologist - she was the most adamant about this point as she has seen the most head traumas in her time) that I should get eye protection and DOT approved, full-face helmet. Notice that for the most part (Ortho excluded here) they are all, in one form or another, doctors who primarily work on the head and have probably seen a lot more injuries that I care to imagine. When I crashed at a race last summer and knocked myself out, the doctors told me two things: get a new hemlet, and make sure that new hemlet is a moto helmet.
MX helmets provide more protection for your head, end of story. You have to make sure that you buy a good one. I'd also rather have a shell on it that would be able to take a good impact and disperse it over a larger area of that EPS foam. A MTB helmet will probably protect you just fine if all you do is ride on soft, wet dirt with no roots or rocks around, or if you’re not planning on riding hardcore DH and freeride stuff all the time. Personally, I’d rather have more protection.
armor is only necessery if you plan on crashing...
uhhh sure thing.SCABRIDER said:
Only Australians are allowed to not wear armor. I think it is in the UCI rule book somewhere. The new cool thing is no gloves because shredding your palm is more fun than a barrel of monkeys.
sayndesyn said:
No gloves used to take place only in the mud (in order to feel through slippery mud on grips etc), not it seems the new kids are too cool for armour, gloves, full face helmets etc.
A DH-specific helmet will be more protective in one low-speed crash because the foam will compress more than in a MX helmet, but when you factor in multiple hard crashes, a MX helmet handles multiple impacts much better. That being said, I still run a DH helmet.
Not to nit-pick too much, but it really just depends on the individual helmet, don't you think? And to pick furtherBicyclist said:
D), if it is a low speed impact, probably just having something between your head and the rock/tree/car/dinosaur/trail/whatever is going to be enough to protect you from any serious injury.Radarr said:Not to nit-pick too much, but it really just depends on the individual helmet, don't you think? And to pick further
Not really. The DOT or Snell standard outlines requirements the helmet must make. The requirements for DH are a little different than those for riding a motorcycle on the road (which is what these standards are for).
I agree that anything will help protect you from serious injury at low speeds.
I was referring more to the difference between individual helmet brands, not so much the difference between Moto-approved v. non-approved. For example, a Prime full face helmet compared to an O'Neal MX helmet. The Prime will compress the foam if you look at it wrong, whereas the O'Neal won't.Bicyclist said:
Is there a requirement/standard DH helmet rating system?
Companies have to meet a standard to call it a bike helmet but it's a pretty easy test to pass.Radarr said:
I saw Giro testing their helmets and even the base-model helmets passed the test after multiple impacts when they're only required to sustain 1 and then do decent after the 2nd (if I remember correctly).
I'm pretty sure I took a header in a rock garden at full speed to the chin of my SE that would of broken a D2 carbon and smashed my face. Scared me enough to not want to touch a mountain bike helmet for downhill ever again...
At a local slalom track that I've ridden countless times I randomly stacked pretty hard and landed on my head. Luckily for me I had decided to put on my 661 MX helmet which probably helped me a lot, my head would have been hurting a lot more if I only had my skate lid on. I also had declined to use my knee/shin pads and ended up with a purple and bloody knee.
Basically, **** happens. If it's your brain, $300 for a MX helmet is a bargain compared to head injuries. Same thing for pads especially if you're dealing with rocks.
Basically, **** happens. If it's your brain, $300 for a MX helmet is a bargain compared to head injuries. Same thing for pads especially if you're dealing with rocks.
...my first time racing at the U.S. Open, I thought I had it down, until I underestimated how much speed I was carrying into the chute/rock garden section, nosed the second outcropping, and got thrown off my rig and onto my back across a few rocks.
If it weren't for my Dainese suit w/ the spine protector, I definitely would've gotten fu@ked up...
If it weren't for my Dainese suit w/ the spine protector, I definitely would've gotten fu@ked up...
Yes, body armour is an essential, now the whole mx vs. mtb helmets, w/e man just wear a lid its better than hitting something without anything on, also the 661 pressure suits are nice, the rock gardn are better, and i have a dainese suit and a rockgardn and i dont feel any significant difference, dainese might look a little better but if you look around mostly rich littel kids and people sponsored by dainese are the only people wearing them..but go with what feels better for you man.