Body armour

[BevH]

I am thinking about getting new body armour with decent chest protection and wondered if anyone had any recommendations. Currently wear a 'soft' padding at chest and back, but not sure whether I should go for a harder shell.
Tks
Bev

[Stewie]

For lanning I would just use an armoured jacket, best of both worlds.
There's no hard and fast rule, just what evers comfy, if your too armoured up it can impaired you riding, that chain mail gets heavy after a while...

[Dave]

NB: Roost armour is pointless for trails.

Strongbow had a hard she'll armour and it didn't look comfy and quite restrictive (hopefully he reads that and can comment since he recently bought new gear). I've been riding with soft impact gel stuff, the elbows of which have plastic caps, for a while now and it's really nice for what we do. Knee, elbow and back are most important I think because tumbles on the trails can be onto rocks, logs and all sorts and those are your impact zones. I'm using Race Face guards at the moment for elbows and knees because all the motorcycling gear for off road seems to be really do-do chinese quality, not that all things that come out of China are do-do quality, the fireworks seem pretty good.

[big yellow tractor]

I have worn SixSixOne stuff for many years. Top half is taken care of by a pressure suit; soft armour with a good back protector, and I wear soft-shell knee pads.

As gtcodave says, roost armour is pretty pointless for what we do. The push-bike stuff seems to give a good compromise between flexibility / comfort and protection.

One of my mates got very good service from http://www.ekselsior.com They keep a very good selection of their products in stock so should be able to sort you out. Worth giving them a ring first to check they'll be there (they are a small company and attend quite a few shows and exhibitions)

These days, I only wear the body armour if i'm hooning about i.e. racing or practice day or riding somewhere like Wales, Devon, Spain. For a local trail-ride I wear an old Hein Gericke textile jacket but I replaced the crappy plastic pads with their Hiprotec stuff.

I always wear the knee pads though.

[kris]

sam as big yellow tractor for me ...

i have forcefield stuff for hard enduro (needashave sean/shawn has the same)

but HG hiprotec jacket for lanes

[Billy]

When you do the training day speak to Emilly, she has the same sort of shape as you,ie bumps in different places, see what she finds comfortable................

[zedtours]

I would thoroughly recommend a hard chest guard if poss. A few years back I had an off on "toe break" slid into the end of a log. Without the chest protector I am sure I would have suffered broken ribs at very least, as it was it took 10 minutes to get breath back again!

[steve sharp]

I use Dainese, its a cross between the old school MX and road riding body armour. Its very comfortable and hard plastic. Its not the spiderman type. I got it from P&H in Crawley.

If you haven't got it, I also recommend decent knee and elbow protectors. I prefer to wear as much as possible, all sorts of things can happen when you fall off.

I also recommend that you try it on as some stuff isn't comfortable.

[Dave]

Yeah that time you and plummy fell off on Water Lane I was worried