Motorcycle armor

Motorcycle armor comes in a variety of forms, from traditional yellow foam to high-tech compounds capable of absorbing large amounts of energy. In its basic form an armored jacket will include shoulder and elbow armor. Pants will include hip and knee protection.

Types of armor

Foam armor

This armor is the typical yellow foam simar to the foam you might find in a mattress. For its thickness if offers a relatively low level of protection.

Memory foam

Memory foam armor achieves the highest levels of absorption to thickness. It is a very dense foam. Brand names include Astrene and Astrozorb.

Hard armor

Hard armor usually consists of a hard plastic backing with foam laminated to the inside. This type of armor is somewhat controversial because it is thought to not disperse force as well as the soft armor. It is also more likely to cause the leather immediately above it to wear through in the case of an accident.

CE certified armor

In Europe there is a system of grading armor based on the force that it will transmit if impacted by a certain amount of energy. Armor can be placed into one of three categories with level 1 armor being the least protective and level 3 being the most protective. Level 1 armor is rated at 50 joules, level 2 at 75 joules, and level 3 at 100 joules. In order to achieve a rating armor must be able to absorb that amount of energy in an impact and transmit less than 35 kN of force. Level 1 armor is acceptable if you are only planning on riding a scooter around on surface roads at low speeds. Level 2 armor is recommended for people riding larger displacement motorcycles and level 3 armor should protect people who race.

KNOX, a British company, was the first manufacturer to produce CE approved protectors for motorcyclists.

Back protectors

Back protectors are often not included in the standard complement of armor although many jackets allow a back protector to be installed. Because of the more delicate nature of the spinal column, back protectors require that lower levels of force be transmitted. However, in the Cambridge Standard for Motorcyclists Clothing, Roderick Woods asserts that the majority of spinal injuries are caused by blows to the hip and shoulders. In the rare circumstance that a motorcyclist received a direct blow to the back the damage would be unmitigatable by armor. The concept of a "back protector" is therefore not endorsed.

Although Cambridge may not endorse back protectors, it is quite obvious that some protection is better than none at all, and there is a CE standard for back protectors: - European Standard EN 1621-2:2003. To summarise the basics: -

Motorcyclists’ back protectors are impact tested with a bar-shaped impactor designed to represent the hazards of impacts with edges such as curbstones. The back protector is mounted on a steel anvil which has a load cell underneath it to record the amount of force against time.

The impactor is dropped from a height that gives it an impact energy of 50 joules.

Level 1 protectors: The average peak force recorded below the anvil in the tests shall be below 18 kN, and no single value shall exceed 24 kN.

Level 2 protectors: The average peak force recorded below the anvil in the tests shall be below 9 kN, and no single value shall exceed 12 kN.

There is however, no mention of hyperextension/hyperflexion restraint (aka whiplash, but can include the whole spine), or of torsional restraint (torsional injuries can result from the afore-mentioned blows to hips or shoulders).

This is the area where designs featuring hard armour could potentially be better than the softer types.

One potential cause of injury that should be born in mind is the contents of any bag or rucksack worn by the rider.

British manufacturer Knox produced the first CE-approved back protector for motorcyclists.