All You Need to Know About Motorcycle Body Armor

Confused about the effectiveness of today’s hi-tech body armor? They sure are a bit expensive, but are they worth the cost?

In a motorcycle accident, you’re likely to get injured by the initial impact with the ground or some solid object. You all prefer messy hair rather than a broken skull and therefore give importance to a helmet rather than any other protective gear. But, what about the other body parts? Motorcycle body armor - Yeah! That’s it! It functions like a helmet for your body parts. A little extra foam padding or armor on your elbows, shoulder, back, or any part of your body would work great if you hit a hard surface.

Role of armor in a motorcycle accident

If you think of body armor as a heavy, overheating exoskeleton that doesn’t do any good, you are wrong. They are the most important protective measures a rider must adopt to defend themselves from any kind of unfortunate event.

Motorcycle body armors are often associated with reduced risk and severity of crash-related injury and hospitalization. They are designed to absorb shock, reduce abrasion, and dissipate impact in the most vulnerable parts of your body.

When you hit anything, your body armor lessens the amount of force that is transferred to you. It absorbs some of the impact energy from an accident and dissipates it from the impact point over a larger area, thereby preventing your elbows, shoulder, back, hips, knees, and sometimes ankles and wrists from breaking.

Different types of motorcycle body armors

Armored suits

The best-armored suits are designed to protect your legs, knees, shoulders, elbows, hips, and back. Most of them come with the option of purchasing either a one-piece or two-piece armored suit. They are made of a variety of materials and provide utmost protection against weather conditions. Armored suits also feature different closures and pockets.

Armored pants

Armored riding pants can protect your knees, legs, hips, and pelvis. You can also try wearing padded shorts with armor underneath the regular riding pants to protect your hip region.

Armored vests

If you’re looking for the best motorcycle armored vest, go for the one that covers your chest and protects your torso and back. You can see that armored vests usually have a tough outer shell and a padded interior.

Armored jackets

A motorcycle armor jacket can offer extra protection in areas such as your back, shoulders, and elbows. They are usually made with straps or snaps to customize the fit. Sometimes you can also remove and replace the body armor.

Back/spine protectors

A back/spine protector contributes to the reduction of soft tissue damage on the sides and back of the body of the rider. These protectors limit spine movement and prevent abrasion from occurring.

Materials used

Different types of materials are used to make the highly protective motorcycle body armor. These include:

Simple materials such as metal, foams, and hard plastic- They offer abrasion defenses that have limited impact protection. These materials can sometimes be bulky, inflexible, and uncomfortable for the wearer.

Blended rubber and lightweight plastics- These materials offer great impact protection.

Shock absorbing viscoelastic materials that have a higher level of impact reducing abilities whilst giving extreme comfort to the rider.

What are CE ratings?

Once you start shopping for motorcycle armor, you may see a tag highlighting a CE rating. Most international brands that sell protective armors in multiple global markets label their products based on the CE rating. The term CE marking has been used to conform to motorcycle safety standards in Europe. The US hasn’t officially adopted these standards, but some organizations and authorities use this marking as guidelines to understand the safety standard of the protective gear.

There are two CE armor standards that you need to be aware of:

• CE certified level 1 - It offers decent protection to the riders, transmits less than 18kN of force to the body, and is suitable for general road use.

• CE certified level 2 - It offers top-end protection and transmits less than 9kN of force.

So, if you come off the bike and hit something quite hard, you want armor, preferably CE certified in the important places where you are likely to hit it.