Leather Jackets at Sublime
Leathers are 1-piece suits, or 2-piece jackets and trousers worn by motorcyclists mainly for protection in a crash. The leather used is not fashion leather but protective leather which is stronger, moderately flexible and much tougher. Both leathers and joins (seams and zips) should be officially tested for ergonomics and impact abrasion, cut, tear and burst resistance. They do not have to be too heavy and there is no such thing as competition leather - just safe and unsafe leather and joins. The most common leather used for motorcycle wear is from cattle such as beef. An inexpensive 1.1–1.2 mm South American beef leather is both beautiful and flexible and was considered entirely adequate in the 1990's for good road and racing suits. Kangaroo leather is becoming popular for its suppleness, light weight and strength compared with cowhide. The one-piece racing leather suit, usually referred to as 'racing leathers' was first used by legendary, ex-world champion motorcycle racer Geoff Duke. His suits, like the majority of those used in the 1950s, were made from horse hide. Horse leather today still provides very good protection
Many modern leathers have armour on the inside at major impact regions such as shoulders, elbows, hips, knees and back. The energy absorbers and load spreaders range from high density foam to foam backed hard polymers and carbon fibre. It is designed to spread the impact load and shear strains to prevent and reduce harm levels of injury and disablement. In Europe, by law, it has to have a CE mark. However, the present European performance level is considered by some to be very low. They argue that a much higher standard is required, because there are many superior materials and combinations available, but unfortunately some manufacturers are opposed to this. There are also motorcycle jackets that use an airbag system, which deploys in the event of an accident, inflating to protect the riders neck, torso, and lower back.
Typically, an accident at a race track will result in the racers sliding, rolling and tumbling for comparatively long distances and long times compared to an accident on the public road. This is because of the large safety run-off areas found on most race tracks; hence racers have a much lower probability of hitting hard vertical solid objects during a crash. Some racing leathers have additional protection properties to increase sliding and decrease bouncing and rotation. Racers mostly hit horizontal surfaces experiencing large high speed shear strains which may cause ligament tears. To decrease or prevent such injuries, most modern racing suits have an area that helps sliding at the knees, shoulders and elbows - often made of titanium, so the rider slides more along the track environment and so decreases the bouncing and rotation through the air, which may cause worse injuries from angular accelerations and rotational forces.
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