Alpinestars Bionic Neck Support

mooch said:
I didn't say anything about me being "saved" by wearing a brace.

If my numbers up to take a header, I'd personally prefer to be wearing one.

Nothing more I need to say other than to repeat that I feel it's a personal decision and I'd never try to talk anyone into or out of wearing one.
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thats not what im doing. im trying to talk people into educating themselves about their decision to wear one or not. dont just go get one, because so and so said it will save you from being hurt in a dirtbike crash. look into it a little, talk to someone from each company and if you then decide for yourself that you should be wearing one, then by all means do so.
im not saying neck braces arent a good idea. they are a very good idea. some designs better than others. its not just "how it feels while riding" that people should be concerned about. why are there a few totally different designs, and what makes one brace better than the other?
 
barrington314 said:
thats not what im doing. im trying to talk people into educating themselves about their decision to wear one or not. dont just go get one, because so and so said it will save you from being hurt in a dirtbike crash. look into it a little, talk to someone from each company and if you then decide for yourself that you should be wearing one, then by all means do so.
im not saying neck braces arent a good idea. they are a very good idea. some designs better than others. its not just "how it feels while riding" that people should be concerned about. why are there a few totally different designs, and what makes one brace better than the other?
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I think you're reading too much into what I said, or maybe I did a pizz poor job of saying it.

I was simply stating that I would never tell anyone what to do in regards to wearing a brace. I wasn't implying that you were trying to tell folks to wear one or not because I don't think you are. Now, as for Georgie...that's a different story. :)
 
barrington314 said:
i dont understand why since these braces came out, so many people say they for sure saved them.
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I feel like my Leatt has never saved me from any injury, and may have caused a few I otherwise wouldn't have gotten. But now I've been wearing it for several years I'm scared to take it off in almost a superstitious way.
 
PitRacer said:
I feel like my Leatt has never saved me from any injury, and may have caused a few I otherwise wouldn't have gotten. But now I've been wearing it for several years I'm scared to take it off in almost a superstitious way.
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i think thats the biggest problem for most everyone... the reason being, lack of information, both good or bad.
 
You're right. I hurried and went and bought one because David Bailey told me to in a video. That was the extent of my research. Now I feel like I don't want to wear it but I'm afraid not to.
 
mooch said:
I was simply stating that I would never tell anyone what to do in regards to wearing a brace. I wasn't implying that you were trying to tell folks to wear one or not because I don't think you are. Now, as for Georgie...that's a different story.
:)
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Please quote me where I have told people what to do and not do regarding braces.
I repeatedly mentioned being educated, that its not proven if the brace works or not, and that make it your personal decision to wear one. My personal decision is to NOT wear one...and I don't expect people to act on my personal decisions.
 
Exactly the only reason I bought one was because I saw that video and all the hype about it. So i instantly bought one the day I could get my hands on one. Remember when they first came out they were impossible to find at first sold out everywhere.

Now Barrington this might be pushing it a little to far so sorry if I cross the line. Not for me or anyone else only for yourself, If you were getting on a dirtbike tomorrow, would you have a brace on or not. If so which one would you be choosing. If you would rather not answer that by all means thats your personal business and preference.
 
mxj281 said:
Exactly the only reason I bought one was because I saw that video and all the hype about it. So i instantly bought one the day I could get my hands on one. Remember when they first came out they were impossible to find at first sold out everywhere.

Now Barrington this might be pushing it a little to far so sorry if I cross the line. Not for me or anyone else only for yourself, If you were getting on a dirtbike tomorrow, would you have a brace on or not. If so which one would you be choosing. If you would rather not answer that by all means thats your personal business and preference.
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its tough to say. i might not have a problem with a brace breaking my back now. its ubber strong with TI rods down half of it!:p
 
GeorgiePorgie said:
Please quote me where I have told people what to do and not do regarding braces.
I repeatedly mentioned being educated, that its not proven if the brace works or not, and that make it your personal decision to wear one. My personal decision is to NOT wear one...and I don't expect people to act on my personal decisions.
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This quote?

"Just pad your rim of the bottom part of the helmet and lose the brace...nobody is getting hurt less with these leatts. "
 
To wear or not to wear a neck brace is a matter of personal choice in the end, either for yourself or for your child. I wear a Leatt brace whenever I'm riding motocross, but I do not wear it when I'm trail riding moreso because of lack of ways to route my camelbak than anything else. I also have a 7 year old riding that has a small Leatt and he wears it when he rides all the time. I took a look at the Leatt Video's and research that went into designing the brace when I was making my decision to buy / wear one for the first time. I didn't go out and get one ASAP when they came out, but waiting a season and talked to others that had been wearing them etc etc. For me personally, (and I had been riding for 35+ years at that point) it came down to the idea of........ is it worth it to wear this item if it saves me from death / wheelchair just 1 time in a crash and I figured yes. Now I also know that wearing it may cause another damage in that same crash much like my CTI knee braces may transfer a knee injury to a broken leg, which many doctors and medical professionals say about knee braces. But I've had 4 knee surgeries already and know that my knees never worked as well after surgery #1 as before my first knee injury. I also know many people that have broken their legs (both femur and Tib / Fib) that have no re occurring problems after they are healed, but every person I know that has had knee surgery says that "it's never the same again". I wish I had been wearing knee braces when I got my first injury to my knees and could have prevented that even if it had meant a broken leg. My knees suck know and I do all I can to keep them working as best they can.

So I chose to wear a neck brace, not because I have ever needed it before in 35+ years of motorcycle riding / racing, but because if it saves me just one time from that MAJOR injury, it's priceless for the $395 that I paid for it. And the way I look at it, if I hit the ground hard enough to break my back / sternum or any other part of my spine with the brace on........ than I probably would have done worse without it on at that point.

That's my reasoning and the reason that I make my kid wear one too.
 
Talking about the young riders wearing the neck brace/ chest pro combo, I look at these kids and they can barely ride because thier helmets are completly sitting on top of the neck brace and thier head cannot shivel while thier riding. They all look like they have broom sticks stuck up thier butts. They walk around the pits all day with the stuff on because it takes 40 minutes to take it off and out it on again. When anybody is riding that constricted I think your response time and your manuverability on the bike is extremly reduced causing more accidents.
 
RocketRobin said:
And the way I look at it, if I hit the ground hard enough to break my back / sternum or any other part of my spine with the brace on........ than I probably would have done worse without it on at that point.
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this seems to be what most would believe. i respect your decision to wear the neck braces, but that statement isnt exactly true.
in a crash without a neck brace, your body rolls through the crash. your head gets out of the way, and you continue through the motion and no injury. same crash, but with a neck brace on (some more rigid than others, and some stop the head before others) now your head gets stopped too soon, and cant roll out of the way of the body. stopping the body from rolling where it naturally should. so it bends at the next point, which is where the brace ends, either front or back. the body isnt designed to bend here, now you have a T5 or T6 injury when you would have just been soar and popped back up. and this happens at any speed. not just big crashes. im not sure about this but it actually seems like these injuries are happening at slower speeds.
 
barrington314 said:
this seems to be what most would believe. i respect your decision to wear the neck braces, but that statement isnt exactly true.
in a crash without a neck brace, your body rolls through the crash. your head gets out of the way, and you continue through the motion and no injury. same crash, but with a neck brace on (some more rigid than others, and some stop the head before others) now your head gets stopped too soon, and cant roll out of the way of the body. stopping the body from rolling where it naturally should. so it bends at the next point, which is where the brace ends, either front or back. the body isnt designed to bend here, now you have a T5 or T6 injury when you would have just been soar and popped back up. and this happens at any speed. not just big crashes. im not sure about this but it actually seems like these injuries are happening at slower speeds.
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Does it help if you place the brace over the back of your chest protector? I noticed Jon16 doing this at Monster Mountain. If the back plate from the neck brace is on top of the large back plate of the chest protector, isn't the load distributed over a wider area?
 
barrington314 said:
this seems to be what most would believe. i respect your decision to wear the neck braces, but that statement isnt exactly true.
in a crash without a neck brace, your body rolls through the crash. your head gets out of the way, and you continue through the motion and no injury. same crash, but with a neck brace on (some more rigid than others, and some stop the head before others) now your head gets stopped too soon, and cant roll out of the way of the body. stopping the body from rolling where it naturally should. so it bends at the next point, which is where the brace ends, either front or back. the body isnt designed to bend here, now you have a T5 or T6 injury when you would have just been soar and popped back up. and this happens at any speed. not just big crashes. im not sure about this but it actually seems like these injuries are happening at slower speeds.
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Well moving the impact and spreading it out over a larger area is the idea behind the Leatt and others. I looked at the research done by Leatt when I was purchasing and it made sense to me even though I've never needed the brace in many years of riding before. I also understand the concept that you are proposing with your argument not to wear one as it transfers an impact to another place and creates damage there. (Much like I mentioned with Knee braces transferring impacts to legs and breaking them). I've been around the sport a very long time and witnessed firsthand crashes that have resulted in Paralysis of the rider from neck down and from chest down. While neither crash looked very harsh (and this was pre neck braces in the old days) the result was devastating to the rider. So while you are displaying your opinion on how neck braces are hurting people that wear them (yourself included), it's based on your feelings and doesn't have scietific testing / evidence behind your conclusions. Leatt went through the process of developing the brace using measurable scientific tests to come up with this piece of equipment and has the results to prove their claims. I'm using that scientific test information and theory behind the brace to make my decision an informed one. I would love to see some tests that prove your theory in order to have real measurable data to go on..... but I don't believe it's out there.

I choose to wear mine when I ride MX, because I think it might help me in the result of a specific type of crash. I hope I never need it and it was a waste of $395, but maybe it will save me that one time that makes it priceless in the type of crash that Dr Leatt tested and designed the brace for.
 
Scotty810 said:
Does it help if you place the brace over the back of your chest protector? I noticed Jon16 doing this at Monster Mountain. If the back plate from the neck brace is on top of the large back plate of the chest protector, isn't the load distributed over a wider area?
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You'd have to check, but I think leatt says not to do that. It makes a little more sense to me tho. I guess it would still depend on how rigid the chest pro is.
 
Robin he's repeatedly saying that he doesn't know if te hurting or helping. He doesnt have to describe how its supposed to work, we all know that much. He's describing how it MAY not be working as its intended to work.

I feel like most people (nobody in particular including you robin, I'm not trying to fight personal battles)who wear them based their impulsive decision on being scarred and ending up like David Bailey.
 
Georgie, Steven:

I understand that most people may have gone and got them right away based on fear of ending up being paralyzed and doing this to alleviate that fear. I didn't do that and waited a year and looked at all the info available before deciding to purchase one. I looked at the tests that Dr Leatt did, the force measurements that they recorded between "with" and "without" neck braces on test dummies, etc. The Leatt Brace was designed and specifically tested for certain types of neck movements and stopping the movement before it becomes catastrophic damage to your neck. It made sense to me and I hope I never need my brace in that type of crash.......

Now, there is always the case where the neck brace can move more force to another part of the body and damage that part of the body in the crash with terrible results for the person (ie Barrington), just like not having your selt belt on and getting thrown from a car saves a few peoples lives every year. It's a give and take on reward vs risk that each person must decide on. What if your crash / movement of your neck would have paralyzed from Neck Down or killed you with the brace on but instead you end up in Barrington's condition? Is that better or worse? I don't know.

It's still a personal choice and I'm only pointing out that there are scientific tests, measurements, and results from Dr Leatt that can be duplicated to show how the brace "works" in testing. Use that information how you will and make your own decision based on what you feel. That's all I'm saying.

You could make scientific experiments to show how each specific brace transfers force to another region and measure those to see if it's worth transferring force from your neck to your spine 6" lower and prove that wearing the brace only transfers the injury......... but I would assume that Dr Leatt who was trying to help wasn't trying to move the injury, but rather he was trying to "prevent" them from happening.

I'll have my kid in knee braces as soon as he's big enough to wear them, because I know firsthand what bad knees are like and would rather transfer his knee injury to his leg bones anyday.............
 
RocketRobin said:
Well moving the impact and spreading it out over a larger area is the idea behind the Leatt and others. I looked at the research done by Leatt when I was purchasing and it made sense to me even though I've never needed the brace in many years of riding before. I also understand the concept that you are proposing with your argument not to wear one as it transfers an impact to another place and creates damage there. (Much like I mentioned with Knee braces transferring impacts to legs and breaking them). I've been around the sport a very long time and witnessed firsthand crashes that have resulted in Paralysis of the rider from neck down and from chest down. While neither crash looked very harsh (and this was pre neck braces in the old days) the result was devastating to the rider. So while you are displaying your opinion on how neck braces are hurting people that wear them (yourself included), it's based on your feelings and doesn't have scietific testing / evidence behind your conclusions. Leatt went through the process of developing the brace using measurable scientific tests to come up with this piece of equipment and has the results to prove their claims. I'm using that scientific test information and theory behind the brace to make my decision an informed one. I would love to see some tests that prove your theory in order to have real measurable data to go on..... but I don't believe it's out there.

I choose to wear mine when I ride MX, because I think it might help me in the result of a specific type of crash. I hope I never need it and it was a waste of $395, but maybe it will save me that one time that makes it priceless in the type of crash that Dr Leatt tested and designed the brace for.
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robin, i totally understand. im coming out there with all this info, with no testing numbers, or anything to back up my statements.
but, there are people out there that care about helping people and not so much about the money. and i feel confident that the testing that we need will be done soon. more than just testing to see if the neck is supported.
 
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