Here’s a verbal diatribe about air bag vests…because I truly believe I’ve been round the horne on this…
Maybe this’ll be useful. Maybe it won’t. At best it may help you sleep. If nothing else it may help me to coalesce my thoughts! So don’t get grumpy, this is really a thread for my benefit 
Current status … Helite Turtle 2 sold, sent, and now lost in transit by DPD…
But now what?
Let’s start with how we got here…
Ok, fessing up time…I’m new to riding. I’m late 40s. I’m married, mortgaged and kids. Knee down, peg scrapping, carefree blasts around the Oxfordshire countryside are as far from what i am, or aspire to be, as it gets…
I use my bike for transport. To commute. I like to go fast enough to put a smile on my face, but am equally satisfied filtering between the Oxford traffic. I enjoy a good fettle…the hobby, for me, is ownership. From riding, to reading, to pootling to speeding, cleaning and preening, to fixing and switching … I like it all.
The caveat to all this, by current, MK1 wife, is that I always come back in one piece…
To this end I was and have been “sold” on the idea of airbag vests for about 4-5 years. If you, absolutely and entirely, are not interested in the whys and wherefores, the benefits or hindrance of airbags …then move along. You’ll just get wound up…and the country is going to hell in a hand cart enough that requires your venom, this little rant simply isn’t worthy of your time.
Right, for the rest of you still reading …
Did I make a mistake selling my Helite Turtle 2 high Vis airvest?
I made the purchase for this about 4 years ago, when getting on my second “big bike” having been sold on them being a good idea. The Helite, for me, was a no brainer… Having scanned the whole of the internet it is plain for all to see (well, for me to see at least) that the Helite wins hands down on an area of comparison that no one, ever, EVER, compares…and that is the level of protection/coverage in an off - which is surely the whole point, right!?
Forget the deployment method, that’s not the point of discussion just now…
The barrel shaped protection, front, neck, rear and lower back protection is simply better than anyone else’s. Isn’t it?
Others have similar systems - I’m thinking “in motion”; whether it be Klim or Ixon, or others such as Dianese or Alpinestars…
Don’t get me wrong, I’m only highlighting “differences”; it’s not for me to qualify if those differences are good, bad or ugly. Look at you own Google pages to see what level of deployed protection your vest of choice offers…
Perhaps the answer is obvious, the research and stats bear it out, that accident and injury to the back, or lumbar region is low, so Helite coverage is unnecessary? I simply don’t know … But hey …I was sold anyway…
I loved my Helite T2, I decided I had no issue with the tethered nature of this beast… And I rode with it for many happy miles…but…those miles always ended with a sore neck…
After a lot of on, off, vest on, vest off, head turning, filming, riding etc, I decided that…the Helite, with it’s length - no doubt inherent for it’s superior deployed coverage, was meaning it “rode up” slightly in use. Simply put, the base of the jacket, cupping me arse, with a Level2 back protector in it, would sit on the saddle and push up, and therefore caused the top collar of the vest to ever so slightly, interfere with the base of my helmet. This very slight interference, over the course of miles, meant my neck was in tension as it/my helmet “pushed against” the vest, resulting in a sore neck and shoulders…
I tried riding without the back protector. I tried riding with the protector in my actual jacket… Anything that meant I could persevere with my trusty Helite…but, alas…after many more weeks, I just decided enough was enough and the hunt began for a new vest…
Tbc…
