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Your experience with airbags?

bjph said:
...

An electronic vest with a status light on the chest - How do you tell if it's on when you're riding? You can't see your chest with your helmet on.
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My Dainese has a vibrating haptic device in the chest...vibrates immediately when bike is started, will vibrate again if disconnected while riding. You get used to noticing when it vibes...
 
bjph said:
I'm the type of person that always second guesses whether I turned something on, plugged something in, or canceled my turn signal.

I wear a Hit-Air vest with a tether. A simple sweep of the hand (without taking my eyes off the road) lets me know that's it's on (tethered).

An electronic vest with a status light on the chest - How do you tell if it's on when you're riding? You can't see your chest with your helmet on.
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I have an Alpinestars Tech 5. When I put it on I check the status lights before putting on my jacket to make sure I'm not in the red zone. If the charge appears sufficient I'm good to go. I've never come home and discovered the vest is dead.
 
Alright! After hours and days of research (the article linked was quite helpful), I think for my personal circumstances, I've boiled it down to this list:

- hit air MLV2 / MLV / VHR/ ST (tethered)
- motoairbag v1 (tethered)
- Astars tech air 3/ 7x/ off road (electronic)


The ones I eliminated were:
- dainese smart air road shield 3 - similar to tech air 7x, but 1 deploy. inferior coverage
- helite adventure jacket - would rather get tech air for the price
- motobag V4 - just dont need the sleeves, V1 is fine for me

- tech air 5, tech air 10 - cannot be self replaced
- d-air smart jacket - poor battery life at 12h
- klim ai-1 vest - $400 to get rid of subscription is dumb
- e-turtle 2 requires option fork sensor for under 12mph
- turtle 2 is unlikely to deploy for rear-ending due to needing full extension to deploy
 
I copied the notes from some of my research into a spreadsheet if it's helpful to anyone. I can't guarantee all the information is accurate/applicable to all scenarios, but it was something that helped me keep track of all the information I was getting.
 
You’re sure putting a lot of work into this.
But in the end you’ll be confident you made the right choice
 
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Helmet House is advertising Tech Air 3 for $500. Believe they are the distributor.

Alpinestars Motorcycle Gear - Helmet House

Motorcycle racers depend on Alpinestars and motorcycle dealers depend on Helmet House as their Astars supplier. When you want quality and performance, go with Alpinestars motorcycle riding gear.
helmethouse.com
 
greenmonster said:
You’re sure putting a lot of work into this.
But in the end you’ll be confident you made the right choice
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With how much mixed information I've gotten over airbags (even over the use of airbags), I felt like it was worth doing research about something that could mitigate serious injury down the line

I think airbags have been one of the most contentious points of gear I've encountered yet, with the runner up being which features on gloves are unnecessary
 
riskybug said:
With how much mixed information I've gotten over airbags (even over the use of airbags), I felt like it was worth doing research about something that could mitigate serious injury down the line

I think airbags have been one of the most contentious points of gear I've encountered yet, with the runner up being which features on gloves are unnecessary
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I am sure your effort will help others who are reading this thread.

Except NorcalBusa :laughing
 
riskybug said:
Alright! After hours and days of research (the article linked was quite helpful), I think for my personal circumstances, I've boiled it down to this list:

- hit air MLV2 / MLV / VHR/ ST (tethered)
- motoairbag v1 (tethered)
- Astars tech air 3/ 7x/ off road (electronic)

The ones I eliminated were:
- motobag V4 - just dont need the sleeves, V1 is fine for me
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There is some confusion here: there is no Motoairbag V1, at least not anymore, the only available motorcycle airbag from Motoairbag is the V4, which is a vest. You can attach sleeves to that vest and turn it into a jacket, but the airbag portion remains the same, and it is still a V4.

I had a Hit-Air MLV for years, and bought a Motoairbag V4 vest this summer. The Hit-Air is significantly smaller, which a) makes it packable and easy to store, and b) makes it cooler in the summer since it doesn't block much air. The V4 is bulky (and heavy), it doesn't really pack small, and it is significantly warmer in the summer since it almost completely blocks the onrushing air. The flip side of this is that the Hit-Air coverage is much smaller than that of the V4: the Hit-air has two air bladder strips down the front and back, and one on the sides; the V4 has huge bladders front and back (that's why it employs two cartridges), which turn you into the proverbial Michelin man when they inflate.

The biggest problem I had with the Hit-Air was that I was constantly forgetting to clip in before taking off, which of course renders the airbag useless. Worse than that, it made it dangerous because after realising I had not clipped in, I would fumble to find the clip and clip it in while riding, which made for some hairy moments. I have never had this problem with the V4, and I suspect this is due to the small plastic clip that Hit-Air uses vs. the metal carabiner that the V4 has: because of the carabiner size and weight, I can feel that there is something dangling at my hip, so I have never missed attaching it to the bike.

As far as the Alpinestars airbag (or any other internal airbag) is concerned, be very careful with the advice you see on the web: the vast majority of people are really bad with numbers, and thus fail to understand what Alpinestars recommendations mean: the official guidelines from Alpinestars state that for the airbag to operate correctly, there must be a 4cm gap all around the uninflated airbag and the jacket. If you run these numbers, this means that a jacket (without dedicated elasticated panels for an airbag) would have to be two or three sizes bigger than your normal size - which would make the jacket useless to wear. This all means that if you plan on buying an internal airbag, you have to buy a compatible jacket too, a regular jacket will not work.

There is another type of protector that you may have not considered: full upper body vests, popularised in the motorcycle world by Tekvest, although they had been used in the equestrian world for years. Think of them as permanently inflated airbag vests, which makes them bulky, but offer protection that rivals that of airbags (not the Tekvest though, only the ones that are certified to EN13158 Level 3 / EN1621 Level 2).
 
johnkol said:
there is no Motoairbag V1, at least not anymore
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Ahh, good to know! I was checking the listing sites for data, rather than actual shopping sites.

johnkol said:
after realising I had not clipped in, I would fumble to find the clip and clip it in while riding
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Oh, that's scary! I imagine some bigger visual indicator for the carabiner would help then. It reminds me of how riders have the little colourful wire connected to their disc lock.


johnkol said:
This all means that if you plan on buying an internal airbag, you have to buy a compatible jacket too, a regular jacket will not work.
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Well, that's makes sense, though I will admit it is quite understated.
 
johnkol said:
Think of them as permanently inflated airbag vests,
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Essentially then, the "hard armour" version! Interesting, and thank you for letting me know! I didn't know these existed. I imagine perhaps they're not popular due to their bulk/weight?
 
When I was young and learning, leathers and Aerostich saved me from all kinds of suffering. That was a good move. Now that I'm old and crafty, I like to keep things "high speed and low drag" -- minimalist, risky, and interesting -- just enough enduro / ADV gear to stave off sunburn or hypothermia, conditions depending. I'd probably feel differently if I was still commuting in a metro hellscape, but riding only for pleasure / travel mostly in the lightly populated Mountain West, I'm embracing my inner HST, defintely airbag-free.

(Can y'all tell what bike that is? It has features that narrow it down quite well)

1732683780691.jpeg
 
riskybug said:
Essentially then, the "hard armour" version!
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They're actually soft armour, and that's why they don't weigh much (less than the Motoairbag V4), although they are bulky: you would need to go up one jacket size to accommodate them.
 
I was side-swiped by an inattentive 19 yo on a surface street in Palo Alto. It was a pretty hard hit, and I was wearing a Dainese Smart Jacket (which is actually a vest). Luckily I sustained somewhat minor injuries and I was very glad to have the airbag. Who knows how bad it could have been without it.
 
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