CE approved armour

Is there any difference in effectiveness between CE approved armour that feels softish and spongey and CE approved armour that feels hard. Does the hard stuff offer more protection?

Hard armour is supposedly better at some types of crash than soft armour, and soft armour is better for other types (Dunno which is better for what...)

Best type in my opinion is hard armour with soft spongy stuff inside, but that's based purely on the fact that it feels like it'd be better.

If I remember rightly, Ride magazine did a test to see how effective the CE test was, and a cheese sandwich passed. Doesn't fill you with confidence eh?

Knox armour is supposedly the best, as they don't stop with the CE standard but actually test it to see how it'd react in a crash.

HTH

I have tested some of hein geicke soft armour at about 20mph (impact) and it worked well, if that helps.

[northwind]

Originally Posted by Bear

If I remember rightly, Ride magazine did a test to see how effective the CE test was, and a cheese sandwich passed. Doesn't fill you with confidence eh?

I don't think that was quite it, was it not that the cheese sandwich outperformed the ungraded, non-CE armour in the Frank Thomas suits? They made a huge song and dance about it, completely ignoring that FT never claimed that the armour was CE protected.

A lot of reports put the T-Pro stuff top... It does definately have one advantage in that it's not a foam type, so it doesn't compress over time and lose its effectiveness after crashes. I think they have a CE-2 back protector out there, which fairly few companies have managed. THe protectors are huuuuuge too, which is nice, the bigger the better in my book as long as they don't get in the way.

I think the main benefit of soft is that you can get your trousers down for a dump, hard knee pads stick in the top of your boots and you can't get them down without doing some kind of cow birthing dance.

You want the soft stuff on your back and hips and the harder stuff for the knees and elbows. A proper back protector is always a good idea, most standard jackets just have a foam pad.

As i understand it the softer stuff as used in the HG leathers i have is beter for energy absorsion compared to hard aumour, also it wont shater upon impact like hard amour will.

a bit like crashing in a modern car with crumple zones and an old car that is just rigid stel.

oh and it feels more comfertable , i wont be wearing hard armour again.

There are three levels of performance for CE approved armour. Hein Gericke Hiprotec is a medium performance armour, Davis Odell and Forcefield (Formerly T-Pro) both make a similar type of armour that is soft and rubbery which meets the high performance level and beyond. The downsides to the soft rubber armour is that it will double the weight of a suit as it is quite heavy.

My MJK 1-piece and my MJK 2-piece have the Davis Odell Astrosorb in those places where I need maximum flexibility - elbows, knees and hips - and the shoulders are protected by Betac hard rubber skinned, expanded rubber foam armour that is much lighter, but only medium performance. I use the thinner stuff in the knees because the thicker stuff pulls on my damaged kneecaps, but it still meets the higher level.

You'll be lucky if the armour found in most off the peg leathers and textile suits is capable of meeting the low performance levels required for the CE approval markings it shows. That level really is quite low compared the medium or high levels.

I could go on and quote the different papers regarding this as it used to be my job, but it's incredibly boring.

Originally Posted by Bear

Knox armour is supposedly the best, as they don't stop with the CE standard but actually test it to see how it'd react in a crash.

+1, but actually I know nothing about armour, I just bought stuff that was fitted with Knox based on the rep

Originally Posted by -Ralph-

+1, but actually I know nothing about armour, I just bought stuff that was fitted with Knox based on the rep

+2 and they say good marketing dosent work.