[license2ill]

Originally Posted by luvtolean

Possibly.

But the data was quite interesting. If nobody monkeyed with it, the Shoei, Arai and AGV were all better above what I'd call statistical uncertainties. I believe their population was around 1500.

No other report has even tried to quantify different helmets in a meaningful way. The Motorcyclist article wasn't worth the paper it was printed on.

Funny enough, looking for the RRW article I found a thread on the WERA boards where you and some "lizard" guy were going back and forth about helmets back in 04. Well, you ASSuming, you are the same "license2ill"...

Yeah, that was me. "Lizard" was pimping Suomy if I recall corectly. I'm glad the dialogue has graduated a little, especially with the MC Mag article, if it did nothing else. My understanding has certainly increased in scope since then. Poor Lizard did get banged around for some questionable logic in that discussion, and my understanding wasn't much better back then, but it prompted me to do some more research, as well as have some discussions with Rick Marlin, of SuomyUSA on another board. I've corresponded quite a bit with Ed Becker of Snell about some of the issues as well through email and posted them on various forums over the past couple years. It's an interesting topic that needs a lot of attention from riders that it hasn't really gotten yet, if you ask me. I'm amazed the questions of safety and individual crash experiences still come up as well, along with the idea that concussions are a design goal. It's a nice thought for some that crash often enough, but I don't think it's ever been a remote consideration, as making sure that a helmet can effectively save you from fatal injuries could still use a major dose of data and dialogue. Then again, we are talking about a product not even used by 75% of the riding community.

[tigerblade]

Slight tangent, but did anyone read that piece in ESPN the Magazine about the doctor/dentist/whatever who makes mouthpieces for NFL players? The mouthpiece is designed to lessen the possibility of concussion. Pretty interesting stuff.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=2314899

[BDA116]

I had a mild consussion after one of my wrecks wearing an Arai.

Then again, ever since my first major concussion skiing I've been prone to them.

[license2ill]

Originally Posted by tigerblade

Slight tangent, but did anyone read that piece in ESPN the Magazine about the doctor/dentist/whatever who makes mouthpieces for NFL players? The mouthpiece is designed to lessen the possibility of concussion. Pretty interesting stuff.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=2314899

Good stuff, thanks. I've been meaning to pick-up a mouthpiece for while and haven't done it. THought it would be a good idea for simple teeth protection, though it's just one more thing to insert and adjust, seems like. A buddy of mine is wearing one at the track, cuz he saw Rossi do it, haha.

I acutally asked Ed Becker of Snell about the use of chinbars and Snell's stnace on them recently, and he told me that there just isn't any data available about brain injury and jaw impacts. The ECE standard requires the chinbar as an impact site, Snell tests for deflection, to ensure it's not a breakaway structure that looks nice, and BSI tests for force transmission, but much of the testing is flawed and the proper measurements are sort of in the dark speculations. And that's all just tlaking about profdound brain injuries, not even the milder stuff like concussions.

Here's what Becker said about the chin bar and safety purposes:

"Our stance on full face helmets is really a reflection of how uncertain we are about them. The best crash injury data I've seen does not point up any convincing relationship between helmet use and neck injury. Particularly, I haven't seen anything implicating chin bars. Crash injury data confirms that full face helmets protect against facial injuries but, so far as I know, no one's certain about the mechanisms by which they prevent injuries. Since even well-fitted helmets can be shifted dramatically fore and aft on a wearer's head, it could be that the chin bar merely provides a friendlier surface for the wearer's chin to strike than, say, pavement. The Foundation's deflection test looks for a rigid structure, something that might keep what ever the wearer strikes from jumping into his helmet with him. BSI has a much more involved test that supports the helmet on a headform back facing up and puts a surface behind the helmet shell and then drops a weight onto the chin bar and measures the shock delivered to the weight. The implication is that some sort of equal and opposite force is also applied to the chin and this should not exceed 300 G. ECE 22-05 specifies a regular impact on point "S", the chin bar. They use a full headform and specify the orientation of the helmet as it is dropped. The shock is measured by a triax accelerometer at the c.g. of the headform and must not exceed 275 G. Since the impact severity is 5.5 m/s and since a whole lot of the shock is dissipated in rotation there's rarely a problem (the orientation of the helmet puts the headform c.g. well away from point "S" in the horizontal plane). To be sure, our impact is only 3.5 m/s but our helmet is locked into a test rig so that the entire shock must be born by the chin bar itself.

On the whole, a peak G criteria doesn't sound like a bad idea but there's not much information at all about the G sensitivity of the chin, facial structures or teeth in this context and no chance at all that testing with a full headform would give any insight into what might happen with the highly mobile human jaw. The virtue of the Snell test is that it establishes that a chin bar structure of at least a given strength is indeed present and that our technicians have not been hoodwinked by holograms or paper cut-outs."

[luvtolean]

Originally Posted by tigerblade

Slight tangent, but did anyone read that piece in ESPN the Magazine about the doctor/dentist/whatever who makes mouthpieces for NFL players? The mouthpiece is designed to lessen the possibility of concussion. Pretty interesting stuff.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=2314899

I knew a guy who started wearing one as the stress of racing made him clench his teeth...which gave him nasty headaches by the end of trackdays. It worked great he said.

[Pete]

Originally Posted by tigerblade

Slight tangent, but did anyone read that piece in ESPN the Magazine about the doctor/dentist/whatever who makes mouthpieces for NFL players? The mouthpiece is designed to lessen the possibility of concussion. Pretty interesting stuff.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=2314899

Last season, more than 2,000 football players in the Philadelphia school system wore "Brain-Pads," mouthpieces that are not custom-fitted but are designed to be clenched between the upper and lower teeth.

After researching this last year, I switched my son over to a Brain-Pad mouthpiece for football.

[license2ill]

Ahh...essentially it's just additional padding aournd the mouth. Not usre if this would be useful or practical under an mc helmet, but I'm sure it would only add to the deadening of facial impacts under an EPS lined chinbar. What that's really good for is stil lsomewhat of a question, but I'd settle for less chance of a borken jaw or minimized tooth pain.

http://store.everlastboxing.com/ever...nce-model.html

http://us.st11.yimg.com/us.st.yimg.c..._1893_16965606