For ukrm fans of Italian motorcycle clothing brands

I have been approached to assist a company that wishes to manufacture
textile kart racing suits; however, they are required to obtain
homologation for their products from the International governing body
- CIK – before they may market them.

A quick look on the CIK website reveals that the technical
specification is a copy/paste from the European Standards for
motorcyclists protective clothing – EN 13595 Parts 1 – 4. Karting
suits are subjected to the same impact abrasion and impact cut tests,
and there are two performance levels which are also identical to the
motorcycle clothing requirements.

Looking at the list of homologated products, I espied the name
"Alpinestars", who offer karting suits in both performance level 1 and
performance level 2 configurations. A quick check on the Alpinestars
web site brought up images of fabric karting suits with CIK
homologation. Nothing in the motorcycling section about their bike
gear being subjected to the same testing and approval process,
however.

So, if you want to wear something bearing the Alpinestars brand that
has been tested and meets the European motorcyclists protective
clothing standards, the advice seems to be buy one of their fabric
karting suits!

Struck me as somewhat surreal!

 

Paul Varnsverry wrote:
[snip]

Having slid down a couple of roads and been hit by a car whilst in my
Alpinestars, I would say that I rate the protective qualities of their
leathers too.

 

I have recently contributed to another thread on Buffalo gloves where
the matter of quality control amongst motorcycle clothing suppliers is
aired: seldom, haphazard or non-existent?

Your suit may have ben a shining example of the brand, or in the
chaotic circumstances that are a road traffic accident, the forces to
which your suit was subjected did not exceed its design capabilities.
I doubt you are too preoccupied with such technicalities, however.

In the one piece suit product test which appeared in the August issue
of RiDE, the Alpinestars Race Replica suit was the most expensive
product featured at GBP 1499.95. Despite this lofty price tag, it
scored "average" in abrasion performance, "below average" in the seam
burst tests and a poor result in the tear test. Only the Dainese
T-Bora suit scored lower overall; this despite a 10/10 impact abrasion
score (but IMHO the test data would have been skewed by the
performance of the limited surface area titanium components fitted to
the the shoulder caps).

RiDE contracts SATRA to perform its laboratory testing, so the methods
used are those described in the motorcycle clothing standard EN 13595.
RiDE's presentation of data doesn't compare products with the
requirements of the standard, but it would be instructive to see the
raw data and to determine where in the hierarchy stipulated within the
standard - Level 2 (highest), Level 1 (lowest) or fail - the products
lie.