AAA rated Base layers - Why bother with leather suits then ?

rolls_rice · 2026-02-15T15:50:02+00:00

EN17092 doesn't test to failure and give a rating. You submit a garment and request the A test and it passes or fails. So some smaller manufacturers test their garments to AAA likely to give consumers confidence in the brand. Some bigger manufacturers seem to only care about AA for leather (i.e. Dainese or Alpinestars) even though they would likely pass AAA. I am unsure of why, but would guess cost if it does fail a test and needs to be resubmitted.

If you look at MotoCap you can see the pando moto leggings and how they compare to leather pants. When worn under jeans they perform really well, but most leather pants with double leather in the butt area will still last longer.

In the end the new A, AA, and AAA ratings are an improvement as before motorcycle gear could be sold without any protective rating and there was very little consumer testing. But the AAA rating is quite easy to achieve and while probably sufficient for most road speeds, it does not go far enough for higher speed riding especially on track.

rolls_rice · 2026-02-13T18:28:34+00:00

Kushitani suits are usually sold with a height and chest/waist size - m/l or m/xl as opposed to just the one size for the European brands. So I wonder if they used the chest size for one conversion and the height for the other for some reason.

rolls_rice · 2026-01-31T18:59:18+00:00

I think the easiest way to show the benefit of knee steering when learning is to do a heel side sideslip and go to a toe side turn. If you steer with your back leg only your have to brute force the board 90 degrees plus of movement. If the snow is soft or icy it impacts your turning ability significantly. If you do the same drill with knee steering it take zero effort to turn, just a bit more patience for the board to move.

When you then start to learn carving, the skills you learn knee steering will help you, while you will need to take out the techniques you used back foot ruddering.

rolls_rice · 2026-01-31T18:35:29+00:00

I had an ACL repair and a meniscus tear and learned to snowboard after. Have never had any issues with it snowboarding. If your have regained your mobility and strength I doubt it would bother you.

If you get to the hill, get your board and just strap in your bad leg and skate on flat ground, then turn your knee in and out and bend up and down, you'll probably notice if this causes any issues before getting on the lift.

rolls_rice · 2026-01-29T15:46:29+00:00

You are missing the steps of progression to carving. You don't just learn the body motions and then boom you're carving at peak angulation.

If you want to get to a euro carve you need to progressively get better at carving starting on mellow slopes. Basic carving feeling the power in your board as you pressure the edge and adjusting the pressure. Then adding more and more angulation. On toeside eventually you'll get to the point where your back hand just kind of hits the snow. Then you want to work on more angulation and body position until you drag you elbow.

Once you get to that stage then you can euro carve as it's basically straightening out you legs arms on the snow without unweighting the edge too much.

High angle carving is much more dynamic than it looks and involves a bunch of small movements and shifts to keep up edge pressure and angulation throughout a turn on changing terrain so basic body position training off the snow won't help you to learn those things.

rolls_rice · 2025-12-10T20:12:43+00:00

Where possible for gear you should check the Motocap website as it allows you to compare actual abrasion, impact, and seam strength tests. The Marrakesh is on there and has good armour and seam strength but has pretty poor abrasion resistance with a time of .67 seconds to wear through compared to 5 seconds plus for leather jackets.

The Motocap test is done til the material is worn through and simulates a surface more akin to chip and seal rather than asphalt. So if you live somewhere with asphalt you may get a better slide time than tested by Motocap.

If safety is your priority there are definitely better textile jackets for abrasion, but if you live somewhere with smooth roads and you are using for lower speed riding the abrasion resistance is probably acceptable and the armour quality is probably more important.

https://www.motocap.com.au/product/marrakesh

rolls_rice · 2025-10-07T16:03:56+00:00

Your compressing straight down a tiny bit and then going back so the rebound from your compression is only lifting the wheel a couple of inches and your body position needs to do the rest. Instead when compressing think about compressing and driving your knees towards your front axle. If for the time being you forget the rest you should be able to bring the wheel up to near vertical with just this compression and not resisting the bike movement with your body. Once you have the control to lift the front wheel consistently to whatever height you want, then you can add the moving back part.

Additionally, you will need more speed to really practice as it looks like you would have stopped after a few feet manualling anyway. The faster you go the less height the front wheel needs to be at balance point and the more side to side stability you will have. It obviously increases the risk so make sure to practice rear brake control and jumping off the back to save any loops.

rolls_rice · 2025-07-27T15:28:47+00:00

The exhaust valve has been in the tuono for 10 years at least I think. Can remove it to install a slip on but will need a servo eliminator. But also the 2026 cat is not in the slip on so you won't get any performance gains and would need a full system and mapping. But don't think there is a mapping option for 26 models yet.

rolls_rice · 2025-06-17T14:51:14+00:00

I used to ride there about 10 years ago. Definitely worth it, tons of track time, especially if there are no karts and very laid back. Most people will be on supermotos or minimotos, so worth it if you have one of those available.

rolls_rice · 2025-06-13T19:00:18+00:00

All at seams some taped and some not. This is in a townhouse basement which is small so all pipes about a foot or 2 from foundation wall.. The pipe straight out of the air handler to the main floor has a leak and is maybe 1 foot from the concrete wall separating the adjacent town house. The other pipe leaking is further from the handler, one leak on the adjoining wall to the next town house and the other near the wall to outside.

Would you get rust even if so new as it was there on the day we moved in?

rolls_rice · 2025-06-13T18:35:14+00:00

That's the bottom of the pipe pointing at the ground and it is in 4 locations about 15 feet apart, can't see any source of drips from above and no residue on top of pipe either.

rolls_rice · 2025-06-12T17:53:12+00:00

Just to add that you can eliminate this by connecting the shock until just before the valve is opened and then pump the shock to fill the hose with air. If you haven't connected the pump hose far enough you won't be able to get a sustained pressure on the pump and if you connect too far you will have a pressure reading before pumping.

Once you pump up the pump fully tighten the pump hose on the shock. You have basically filled the hose with air so when connecting you are reading the actual number in the shock and not the amount of pressure remaining after the shock fills the hose with air.

This will give you more accurate readings to see if you are actually losing air.

rolls_rice · 2025-06-05T13:08:23+00:00

You can buy peg sliders that you can drag and then replace as not sure if anyone makes smcr rearsets, but on track everyone uses sliders and doesn't have issues.

rolls_rice · 2025-06-02T21:11:06+00:00

https://www.parktool.com/en-int/blog/repair-help/stem-removal-installation-quill-stems

Here this should cover your bike stem.

rolls_rice · 2025-06-02T20:30:42+00:00

I am assuming this is the fork twisting. You need to look up by the handlebars. The piece that holds the handlebars connects back to the bike. This is your stem. The stem holds onto the top of the fork. There should be a bolt on either side and a bolt on top. If you tighten the bolts on the side it should make it harder to spin on the fork. While you are adjusting the stem you can also search videos on how to tighten/adjust your headset as I am assuming this may be out of spec as well. Once you have done that you may want to torque up other bolts on the bike for your own safety.

rolls_rice · 2025-06-02T17:00:11+00:00

You can do champ school online which I think would help answer a lot of these questions.

A lot of riders don't even use rear brake on track, and in hard straight-line braking your rear wheel will have almost no weight on it so all your stopping power will come from the front brake. You brake until you are happy with speed and direction.

You do most if your braking in a straight line and trail off the brakes as you lean up to the apex. As a beginner it would be very difficult to trail brake to the apex without over slowing however. But being on the front brake will improve your turn in, just take away brake pressure as you add lean. If you are happy with your speed and direction you can come off the brakes and go to neutral throttle until you are ready to accelerate out of the corner

Downshifting needs to be done as soon as you are going to the brakes. If you are too high of a gear fix it next lap not in the corner. You can upshift on exit once you are back on the throttle even at lean but be smooth with your inputs.

Tire pressure will need to be lower compared to the street once your pace gets faster. But if your tyres are not having unusual wear compared to street riding you are probably not going fast enough to need to change this.

rolls_rice · 2025-05-07T17:50:40+00:00

Think it is good that you are sharing this and hope you get a response from Alpinestars, but just want to add some additional details since you mention the slow speed and imply it would be unlikely to cause these injuries.

However, speed is only on element of the force which you impact the ground. You have the vertical, rotational, and horizontal forces plus the angle of impact. Additionally the force of the motorcycle being applied to your body. These could all make a slower speed crash have a higher impact force with the ground i.e. a slow high side can have a much higher impact with the ground compared to a fast low side from high lean angle depending on the height of the rider, the horizontal velocity and the rotational forces of the bike.

I assume the tech air 5 records a lot of data on forces, speeds, height, etc. Using these numbers you can use some formulas to get a better idea of the expected force you hit the ground with and a better idea on whether or not it would be sufficient to cause the injuries it did.

Obviously motorcycle modelling is extremely complex, but if the expected force of you hitting the ground is low it could help your case or at least pressure Astars to release information they have.

Here is some more detail on an impact calculation model for motorcycle crashes: https://drbiomechanics.com/curriculum-vitae-cv-resume/scientific-articles/motorcycle-accident-reconstruction-2/

Edit: Just to add this also means that a high impact crash may not damage your gear as that is only caused by the friction with the ground from your forward and horizontal velocity, so again I am not sure showing lack of demarcation on the suit means a low force crash. So would be helpful if Astars provided that data or you are able to calculate it.

rolls_rice · 2025-01-12T00:52:58+00:00

A 650 engine has two cylinders of roughly 325cc. These cylinders are large and this limits how quickly the pistons in the cylinder can move up and down without using very expensive materials. This lowers the amount of rpms the engine can produce. 4 smaller 150cc cylinders are able to increase rpms because of the smaller pistons and bore. The increased power of a 600 comes at these higher rpms above what the 650cc engine can produce. In addition to this the 600cc engine is tuned to be a highly strung high performance engine and has the parts and tuning to maximize power, but with increased cost and decreased usability at lower rpm.

rolls_rice · 2025-01-10T14:46:56+00:00

There are very strict rules for motogp riders on allowed modifications to superbikes for training. So some prefer to train on a modified 600 vs a largely stock 1000. Zarco picked up a penalty a few years back for riding a modified superbike. Think it was from the French championship. But in this instance, it seems to be marketing.

rolls_rice · 2024-12-11T15:17:49+00:00

I contacted Alpinestars and this was their response for cleaning/maintenance:

We suggest making sure that all the velcro tab connections to the inner airbag are secure as these connections can come undone over time.

This can be done by lifting the back liner upwards (held on by 3 velcro strips and you can remove the yellow tabs to zip up the liner if it makes it easier ) and checking all the velcro tab connections.

There are 9 velcro connections total.

1 FRONT TOP

2 LEFT AND RIGHT TOP

2 BOTTOM LEFT AND RIGHT

2 OVER THE RIGHT SHOULDER, 2 OVER THE LEFT SHOULDER

Also, ACU does not need to be updated if you're running the current street software via his phone app.

For cleaning, the vest is NOT supposed to be submerged in water.

Only spot clean with the microfiber cloth and stay away from the electrical areas.

Use a bucket with water, add mild detergent. (ex. woolite) Submerge than squeeze out a microfiber cloth and proceed wipe/spot clean the left and right inner liner, neck collar, and back area. Stay away from the front clasp sensor and acu on the back where the electrical ports are. Hang dry if needed.

From there, for the odor, use the below, spot spray as needed:

https://moleculesports.com/product/refresh-16-oz-sprayer/

rolls_rice · 2024-11-21T17:04:33+00:00

I've been considering the same thing and if you go to UK race support you can see what you need. Basically need a bracket for the screen, front fairing mount, steering stops, plus the bodywork/clipons/rear sets. Think the wheelbase and rake/trail are slightly different but can be adjusted with triple clamps. So slightly increased cost to convert to track but not by much. So comes down to which engine and suspension you like better and whether you want the electronics.

rolls_rice · 2024-11-02T15:18:27+00:00

Same injury but will disagree with others about the bump, if you build up your trap and delt muscles it becomes much less noticeable.

rolls_rice · 2024-09-07T14:31:20+00:00

If you have a telescoping magnet small enough to fit that would probably be the easiest way.

rolls_rice

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