Crashed Gear Review - Gericke Celtic 1-piece suit and KBC Force S Dynamo helmet

[Spec-ECU]

Taken a lap before the crash.​

On April 24, 2009, I had a pretty gnarly crash at Infineon Raceway exiting turn 6. A highside, violently slamming myself and the bike against the ground, causing the bike and myself to repeatedly tumble until we came to a dead stop.

The nature of the crash against me is practically (and freakishly) reminiscent of my Buttonwillow crash; slamming down on my left side, encompassing my hip, shoulder, and head first before the tumbles, except I felt that the latest one was more violent than the Buttonwillow one. With that said, I thought it best to show pictures of my Aprilia suit I crashed in at Buttonwillow along with the Gericke suit, as both went through a virtually similar ordeal.

The Suits

The shoulders

The elbows

The knees

Burned sections of the arm stretch panel due to friction heat.
​

I walked away from that crash, literally. Instead of an ambulance ride back to the pits (and maybe home), I hopped behind an instructor back to the pits, and was still able to drive myself home. Sure I'm feeling some soreness here and there, but it's slowly dwindling away two days later. Though I feel the stiffness, there's no restriction in normal mobility to myself.

When I had taken the Aprilia suit off after the crash, I saw a sizeable gash on my left knee after the knee armor and the suit slid sideways after hitting the ground, exposing the stretch panel, penetrated by the ground and gashing my knee. Taking off the Gericke suit yielded no damage in the same area, even though it looks like the Gericke suit and armor might have also shifted like the Aprilia suit did, as evident by the tear shown above on the inside of the left knee.

I bought the suit at Sportbiketrackgear.com for about $600 (still the current price today) to replace my Aprilia suit. Sportbiketrackgear.com claims they don't sell products they don't use, and also provided a video review of a crashed suit. The Celtic suit not only had a claimed outstanding set of armor, but was also endowed with a generous amount of molded paddings throughout. When I had put the suit on, it felt immediately reassuring at how everything hugged my body in place. As you can see from the comparison images above, the Gericke suit fared miles better than the Aprilia suit, so much so that I can and will be using the Gericke suit again for my upcoming track days (I will be buying a new one down the line). The only resulting tears on the suit were on stretch panels of the suit.

For its price and performance, I would highly recommend this suit.

 

[Spec-ECU]

The helmet:

KBC does me right again

The helmet for this crash is a KBC Force S Dynamo, and the helmet from my Buttonwillow crash was a KBC Force Airborne. The impact against my head on the ground with the Dynamo model was substantially harder than the one with the Airborne model, as I nursed a MASSIVE headace from the crash two days ago that I didn't have in the Buttonwillow crash.

The Dynamo model was bought as a commute helmet, then eventually also a helmet cam where I fixed a permanent mount for my GoPro unit. To be fair, before the helmet impacting the ground, the GoPro unit did first and tore off the helmet, no doubt absorbing some, if not a substantial amount of the impact. Much like with the Airborne model, the visor lodged itself off of the helmet after impact (ironically, it's the SAME visor I used for the two helmets!), but the helmet still held up well against the tumbles. I think though, that much like the Airborne model, the initial impact on the helmet was the only contact against the ground throughout the incident, despite multipe tumbles.

By the way, the (cursed) visor did not sustain any impact this time around, breaking off of the helmet due to the helmet's latch sustaining damage. I promptly threw the visor away back in the pits cause I really did think it was cursed.

 

[Spec-ECU]

I was also wearing Alpinestars gloves and a pair of Alpinestars SMX Plus boots, but I forgot to take pictures of both of them after the crash. I can't remember the model of the gloves, but they did a fantastic job of protecting my hands, causing no abrasion, breaking, or bruising at all. They did suffer a hole on the bottom edge on one of the gloves which prompted me to throw them away. The boots also did a wonderful job protecting my feet and ankle. There was no incident of my feet being trapped under the bike, but I'm sure they did slam on the pavement during the tumble, and yet just like my hands, no breaking, swelling, or any kind of abrasion. The boots are actually reusable, simply dusty after the whole ordeal.

 

[Spec-ECU]

And just for reference, here's the bike:

​

 

[4tuneit1]

Pics of the Gericke didnt load

 

[Spec-ECU]

Fixed. I think.

 

[RedKawi]

good to read that your gear did it's job. what's the word on the bike?

 

[crimson49er]

dang. glad to hear your ok. seems like Gericke is a quality product

 

[mrc]

This is a really well photographed and useful series of images and inputs. Thanks for posting them, and for making your misfortune so helpful to others.

 

[schteve]

Sorry to hear about your crash Dennis..

Maybe you can submit this plug /thread to Brian at http://stores.sportbiketrackgear.com/Detail.bok?no=3134 for some swag and/or possible freebies..

 

[gsims]

Good review on the suits....I've been eyeballin those for awhile....hmmmmmm....

 

[blackOnblack]

glad you're ok! atleast the bike didn't catch on fire

 

[Nemo Brinker]

Glad you made it out of the crash so well. Thanks for the methodical and detailed writeup--very helpful.

 

[Spec-ECU]

I really wish the helmet-cam footage wasn't completely compromised cause any photo or video evidence of the crash would really illustrate how well the leathers worked. Unlike the crash on the Aprilia leathers, this wasn't a slam, slide, then tumble crash. This was a slam then tumble all throughout type of crash.

I am absolutely elated to walk away with nothing broken because of the suit.