It seems too early to tell how well the In&Motion system works, but the company must be confident enough for several of this year's IoM TT riders to be using it. We'll probably see the In&Motion airbag in action on the island in early June.
Android raises a good point. I lost a fair bit of weight last summer so both my textiles and leathers had capacity for the Airbag Vest. But when purchasing you have to take this into account including winter layers. You do get a excellent back protector built into the Vest so I’ve removed the original supplied protectors from leathers and textiles. Also as previous comment the leathers have to be airbag compliant. When I purchased my Vest I took leathers and Textiles(with winter inner layer) to the store to test the fitting.
Also to mention there are 2 schools of thought regarding the support, or not of the neck. Vis a vis, Astar/Dainese v Helite etc. Hyper extension of the neck can be extremely serious but some medics say if the head can move during an accident, that inertia is lessoned slightly. Kept rigid the brain can move if the head is kept still! An trying to find empirical evidence on this; as I’m looking seriously at an air bag jobbie. Spoke to Brian at BKS and they use the Astar air bag in their gear.
Biot, I've the same question about neck support. Each airbag manufacturer seems to have a different approach. The Tech-Air gives no airbag protection for the neck, the D-Air gives some airbag protection to the neck, and Helite and In&Motion both look like their airbags give substantial neck protection. It's confusing! To add more confusion, I read somewhere that a heavy impact to the shoulder results in twisting the spine, and this causes many of the more serious spinal injuries. If true, then the Tech-Air gives the only airbag protection against this scenario.
Yep, if the blurb is to be believed Astar/Dainese have looked at all the accumulated data from racing and designed their stuff accordingly. I don’t know what crash data Helite & others have used, if any, to come to the conclusion that their inflated sections around the neck are better at reducing injury. Just because the torso has more inflated areas, it may not mean your better protected. I understand impact speed, direction, mass of person etc etc are all wide variables in this. But some base lines must be there somewhere I’d have thought? Maybe one of the bike mags could do a feature?
I still think public access is still limited by a few generations, to what the pro's get. This is probably about type approval and other public liability stuff as much as owt else. If you look at some of the post fall close ups on the race coverage, many of the suits give the impression of inflation over the hips/pelvic region. None of that is there for us yet.
My d air jacket. , Which was far from cheap is less than a year old, and used absolutely as per textbook. The led on the wrist which is supposed to inform you that it is charged/charging, and, equally importantly that the airbag is armed, has broken already. I've had erratic response from dainese UK, who have now simply said they've forwarded my emails to dainese head office to see what they think. Not overly encourage d
That’s very poor customer service. You need to know if the suit is ‘armed’ or not. Otherwise why wear it?
Flatty, I'd be asking the shop for an immediate replacement. I think your consumer rights relate to where you bought it, i.e. the shop needs to give you a refund or replacement. (It's the shop's problem to get their refund in turn from Dainese, but that's not your worry.) Good luck, whatever you decide to do! Yes, Alpinestars has talked openly about using MotoGP to develop airbag protection for the hips/pelvic region. Let's hope they get there so we can all benefit!
For anyone still interested, I see Helite has joined the electronically-triggered party, with its new E-Turtle vest: here's an E-Turtle airbag review from MotoVibes. The E-Turtle looks road-focused, but there's also an e-GP Air electronic airbag for the track. Though I've not seen it reviewed yet.
Was going to speak to RST rep about the Air-bag one piece. He was due to train some shop staff and I was being allowed to come along too. Smackdown lockdown intervened sadly. Double Meh.
I was aware that this was coming at the end of last year. Just hope my supplier hasn’t become a victim of the lockdown economic down turn. Andy
I should add to my above post about the dainese d-air jacket I had on which the led indicator stopped working. I emailed dainese as I'd bought the jacket from them. They replied within 24 hours asking me to send the jacket back, and emailed prepaid DHL postage details. Then coronavirus struck, and I didn't want to bother them, so I left it lie. About a month after, they sent a follow up query assuring me the postage labels were still valid, and they were still open. I posted the jacket which was returned repaired and as new (beautifully cleaned etc) within ten days. Fantastic service.
I have personally crashed a Dainese D-Air Mugello race suit at the top of Craners at Donington. From memory GPS said 90mph. I damaged nearly every panel. I clearly remember, even though it must have been fractions of a second, the feeling between tumbling with flailing arms and the the airbag going off and kind of “sucking” everything together. When I finally came to rest at the bottom of Craners, I was still together enough to shout across to the marshal to please not spray my bike with the fire extinguishers. The attendant marshals & doctor could not quite believe how I just got up and walked away, to the extent that they took additional readings of my vital signs just to be sure. I have also crashed without an airbag so can compare and contrast the experience. I have absolutely NO DOUBT that that suit saved me from serious injury. Recommended, even though it did cost me £2300. What price being uninjured? The suit went off to Dainese Italy via one of their UK shops. Unfortunately as it was June, Italy was on holiday so the suit took 6 weeks to come back. And it cost £700 to replace the panels that couldn’t be saved, recharge the air bag and CE test and certify it again. Worth every penny even if some of the panels are still scarred and the external shoulder armour scuffed. I’m now selling it btw, if/when I can get round to it, as I’m calling it a day after 15 years riding on track. Not looking for silly money either so PM if interested.
Scary-sounding crash! What's the airbag coverage like with this suit? Is this it? I've noticed that coverage varies a lot between different airbags.
I’ve got the Alpinestars equivalent. Definitely worth every penny. If they improve your odds in a big off they make total sense. I understand they’re bloody expensive but if you can afford, get air bagged up!!
I bought mine when they first came out. So at a guess Dec 15 I think it was. At that point the airbag protected upper chest, neck, collar bone area. I hear the mk2 version which I think came out 2018/19 covers torso as well in, I imagine, a similar way to the picture. Btw I had no problems with anything at all on it. It charged up no problem, located satellites easily for the gps (that’s how I know how fast I was going), no false alarms, faults or mis-triggers and was comfortable. It just worked and when it needed to go off, it did.
I just have the jacket, which I use daily for commuting, it's beautifully made, feels comfortable and reassuringly heavy. Wear it in winter with warm gear under and a goretex shell over, and in summer with a t shirt. I'm delighted with it. Haven't used my very expensive rukka jacket since, which was only a few hundred quid cheaper, and feels cheap and nasty compared to the dainese.
