World Superbikes race 1 Argentina,…Scott Redding slides off on the first corner, not a massive get off as he was straight back on the bike, but look at the state of his leathers…. Absolutely torn the arse out of them with one slide am I expecting too much or should they have stayed in one piece ???
I suspect proper race leathers that those guys wear are lighter than the agricultural leathers we wear. Therefore thinner in certain areas. My Alpinestars with tech air vest weigh a friggin ton….
Must admit I was surprised at the state of them considering the size and speed of the crash. Surely a bit concerning?
In mitigation there’s some pictures on Spidi’s website of Scott enjoying a dodgy pre race vindaloo and a half of Old Peculiar.... Just saying!
Every crash is different! I’ve seen some horrendous looking leathers after crashes from very respected brands. As said, every crash is different
Racing leathers are made from the best quality hides available, and I believe a few mm thicker than what we get, they are going to offer much better protection than ours , tensile strength of seams will be much higher, rub test against road surface will be much better than our road products, the whole outfit is leather. His leathers have done the job, sliding on your arse puts the most weight on a small area and you have to think that track could be very abrasive.
Used to work for a Dainese dealer, we had a set of Max Biaggi's leathers on loan for a while as a display item. It was quite a few years ago... They were not only tiny but felt waffer thin but with lots of armour. Likely constructed from kangaroo hide but, considering the expected speeds, seemed unlikely to fare well in an off.
Yeah they would have been Roo Skin, as they can get them as thin as 1.1mm and maintain similar abrasion resistance to leather at 1.3/4mm so it's all about weight versus strength. I was surprised by the damage I have to say, but it looks like he has a piece oh hip/arse armour there which is also stitched in and has strength around it, so they probably wanted to keep the leather as thin as they could. Years ago, my mate was working with a company that were the distributor for one of the big boot brands and Toseland was just going into GP and was asked to provide a list of his kit weights and told he couldn't wear certain boots if they were too heavy. This is a few years before you got the stories coming out from Redding where Honda had said if he didn't loose x-kilo they would take the bike off him, and he was so mal-nourished he was getting ill.
Beats me why they use leather these days considering companies like Rokker are advertising slide times of 11sec on their “Denim” jeans.
Quite the opposite. Lighter and thinner but better quality material to allow it. Think and heavy are old school.
Doesn’t look like his pants are exposed tho, so could easily be very super light skin for sponsors stuff etc bonded to another stringer Kevlar based skin?
Exactly, old skool leathers are heavy and thick, nowadays they are much thinner, better materials i.e. Roo skin. However, given the low speed of this off it is a bit alarming, maybe the rumble strip/painted green areas have extra abrasion qualities?
Because Rokker and other jeans companies' advertising doesn't reflect real-world crashes. The test rig doesn't drop the material sample from much height, so it only tests abrasion, not "impact abrasion". When you drop clothing from a reasonable height (e.g., the height we sit on our bikes), almost all the latest textiles do poorly. Combined forces arising from "impact abrasion" can be highly damaging. Leather is the only material – so far – that offers reliable protection against significant "impact abrasion", not merely abrasion.
