Julian V Taylor
October 2009
You may remember that I reviewed this Alpinestars Trigger one-piece suit in June. If you missed it, the link to the first part of the review is at the bottom of this article.
I started wearing the suit at the beginning of the 09 season; the only reason we wear these products is to protect us not if, but when the inevitable happens either on the street or the track.
And this is where part II of the review comes in; this year I hit the pavement on Turn 13 at Nelson Ledges in Ohio, one of my local tracks. I was following a rider that opened the throttle while banked over a little too much, and she low-sided, parting company with her machine right in the middle of the exit of the apex. I was too close and couldn’t get around. Not wanting to ride over her head, I re-directed and pulled the front brake too quickly and lost the front end; down I went at around 40 miles an hour.
Let’s face it, we wear a one-piece suit so that when we do go down, we keep our skin intact and are hopeful of riding another day.
I can honestly say this suit did its job overall. The crash was not at high speed. However I did hit the ground hard and slid for quite some time. The right shoulder, arm and hip all took the brunt of the force. The fabric built into the suit that enables you to bend your arm twisted around onto my right elbow, which meant that the skin was exposed to the tarmac producing a small amount of gravel rash, which did break the skin. Everywhere else was protected very well but my right arm did need some medical attention.
T
he shoulder protection worked very well, and as for the other Alpinestars gear I had on, the GP Plus Gloves kept my hands protected and the Alpinestars S-MX 5 Boots protected my ankle and heal in the impact, to the extent that the boot got damaged but my foot was not even bruised.
This whole incident lead me to finding out what customer service was like at Alpinestars. When I spoke to them, explaining what had happened, they insisted that I send the whole suit back for evaluation and repair. I did, and six weeks later the suit arrived back just before another race weekend. It had been repaired so well that at first I thought it was a new suit. You could not see anything left from the accident. They had replaced panels on the shoulder, arm and hip; I could not tell it was my suit. Then I noticed a little fix on the right knee which obviously had been repaired but you really couldn’t tell.
I have to say the experience with Alpinestars has been a very good one this season. I admit I would rather have had absolutely no road rash from the accident, but at the end of the day it really did save 98% of my body.
The only other gripe I have is that the knee sliders don’t last very long. A weekend and they are down to as low as they can go. I suspect I have the wrong compound on these sliders, so make sure you check the compound for your riding style when you buy.
For the price of $699.95 you really can’t go wrong with this very high quality comfortable suit that does protect you overall in a crash.
Click on photos below to enlarge...
