M/C Safety: Leathers for 2013

[firemanjim]

We went through this with the SCTA guys. The all leather rule was an ill considered response to ONE guy(John Minnono) getting some burns on his legs, They never asked him how he was burnt---it was from steam formed when hot oil contacted his leathers and his sweat formed steam. Nothing to do with perforations or fabric. I have gotten burned like that in my turnouts,get wet at one fire and have to go right to another with all that sweat----
All of the very well informed responses to this were for naught as the rule makers(all car guys) knew better. And the no fabric,----please---- modern leathers use kevlar, same stuff we had in our turnouts in the fire dept, but despite our protests it was not allowed. The SCTA "compliant" leathers I have are no where as protective as the set I can wear at Bubs.Thank goodness for motorcycle rules made by motorcycle riders!
Heck, none of your helmets would be legal there, no recognition of ECE or BCI ,only Snell.

Please do not blindly adopt the SCTA rules.

[David Leikvold]

Jim, I know how you feel about people who "know better". I used to be a federal public servant and we were forever being told how Head Office (aka Idiot Central) knew so much more about our jobs than we did. Thank you for your input. There's the answer, take Jim's advice, he knows what he is talking about. There's no point at all in adopting "ill-considered" rules that mandate inferior safety. The BUB rules for motorcycle leathers are clearly better than the SCTA rules. If Jim (and every other bike racer in the USA) has gone to the trouble and expense of having two sets of leathers then it is obvious that the SCTA compliant set is, as he says, inferior to the BUB set. Why don't we just go with the BUB rules instead? Or as I first suggested, MA-approved race leathers with Nomex underwear. Encouraging the extensive use of body armour wouldn't be a bad thing either. The Dainese website has a huge variety of clever stuff.

And while we're at it, change the bike design rules to reduce the possibility of an engine fire blowing straight onto the rider. For most bikes a flattish panel on both sides of the bike starting at the engine and going just past the rider's boots, between the bike and the rider's legs might be enough. For bikes with custom fairings and leg cutouts have the cutout completely lined with fibreglass so no flame can attack the rider's legs.

We're red hot (pardon the pun) on fire safety in cars so why not start to consider it for bikes?

Cheers
Dave

[Greg Watters]

David the aerodynamics of a bike greatly influence where and how a fire may come at you
good example here
http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9 ... 69dnfL1w6x

negative pressure behind the screen pulls the flames forward on a fairinged bike

[David Leikvold]

G'day Greg,

I can't print what my first reaction was to seeing that photo! Thanks for the instant education. That really couldn't be worse, could it? So now I'm wondering what could be done by individual bike riders, rather than by rules, to make a rider less vulnerable to a fuel fire. A standard bike doesn't give you many options but anything with a modified or scratch built frame would be better. The ultimate (without thinking for long) might be to design a fairing that was actually some kind of big tube arrangement around the engine with cooling and engine air flowing in from the front. Behind that it could taper off to swoopy exit vents either side of the back wheel. If the bike had an extended wheelbase the fuel tank could be moved somewhere else further away from the engine and rider. In a sidecar it could be part of a fairing for the outrigger wheel. If a bike used a fuel pump instead of gravity feed killing the ignition would at least stop fuel feeding the fire. But I suppose it ultimately boils down to keeping the fuel away from anything hot. If the exhaust was ceramic coated and shielded from anywhere near fuel that would help. Similarly if the carby/injector area was shielded at the head face so that fuel under pressure couldn't spray forward that would help too. Quality fuel lines should be a priority. Instead of having a fuel tap on the original tank perhaps a solenoid that shut off the fuel with the ignition would help a standard bike. A fire bottle wouldn't hurt either. Plenty of possibilities to consider.

Cheers
Dave

[zork]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQr8YkzEEWQ

[RGV]

Fcuk That.

We could stay at home and die of old age.

[Dr Goggles]

Fcuk That.

We could stay at home and die of old age.

Dude, that falls under "the great unspoken truths of Landspeed racing" they are generally better left unsaid, or at least unpublished.

Dave is well known for his awareness of and willingness to provide well thought out solutions to the inherent risks associated with our chosen SPORT....by the way Dave I won that bet.

I hope people are getting the right balance of helpful advice and also the feeling that asking questions is good,but asking the wrong people isn't .....As the saying goes, you're better off not asking questions you don't know the answer to, at least in public.

So, ask who it is you need to ask. Contact them with a succinct enquiry after you have familiarized yourself as well as possible with the rule book.

That way you will get a succinct answer. The forum is a great place, for information. Supposition, guessing, interpretations,not so.

This will never be safe, if it was you'd do something else. It doesn't need to be un-necessarily dangerous though, or prohibitively expensive.

[grumm441]

Fcuk That.

We could stay at home and die of old age.

Or we could get on the net and "what if" until the cows come home

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQr8YkzEEWQ

Nice animation
Though in my limited experience, you get many of your injuries when you first collide with the other vehicle

All of the very well informed responses to this were for naught as the rule makers(all car guys) knew better. And the no fabric,----please---- modern leathers use kevlar, same stuff we had in our turnouts in the fire dept, but despite our protests it was not allowed. The SCTA "compliant" leathers I have are no where as protective as the set I can wear at Bubs.Thank goodness for motorcycle rules made by motorcycle riders!

As I understand it the most recent rule "clarification" was made by Matt Schuss, Van Butler, and Tom Evans, and was sent out for comment to all of the guys that were involved in SCTA tech, myself included.
And Although I would be happy for bike guys to run leathers with limited perforations under the arms and around the backs of the legs, the term "limited" means very different things to different folks. I would also be happy if the guys with perforated leathers ran fire resistant underwear under their leathers, but how do the guys on the start line check it. "quickly. drop your strides (pants) I want to see your underwear"

I'm all for progressive changes to the rules made by the people that those rules would affect
In fact I would point out that at the back of the rule book there is a rule change form

[David Leikvold]

Doc,

I suspect you may be right. I'll buy you that beer

And to everyone else, if I sometimes raise subjects, make suggestions and express opinions that aren't met with universal acclaim the people concerned by this are welcome to tell me so, by whatever means available. I'm in the phone book. Understand also that I don't know everything about everyone on the forum so I have to make guesses based on the available clues, which means I don't always get it right. But be assured that anything I write about any subject is well intended and, I hope, thought provoking and might encourage other readers to contribute and add value to our discussions.

"We could stay at home and die of old age" That just means you might die of old age, a truly miserable death, it doesn't mean your life will be any fun. I want to have lots of stories to tell my mates at the old folks home when I get there. I once had a supervisor at work who went straight to DSS from uni, stayed there for 35 years and then retired. You could write his life story on the back of an envelope Of course, there's always The Sir Billy Snedden Exit. He died in 1987, aged 60, of a heart attack while on the nest with a much younger woman (not his wife).

Cheers
Dave

[RGV]

Fcuk That.

We could stay at home and die of old age.

That was meant for Zork's post of the balloon suite not your post David.

[zork]

You would look good in one of those balloon suits Dave, and fit one to your exhaust pipe, ha.
Cheers JD #921

[David Leikvold]

Yeah, that ball would be a great idea if I high side the (non-existent) bike on the salt. Trouble is I'd probably roll two or three miles in the stupid thing before it stopped And to be serious for a moment there are airbag suits already available that do a better job and stop you in a normal distance. Can you imagine what might happen with a ball suit on a public road ?

Mind you, I do look good in orange!

Cheers
Dave

[RGV]

Yep GP guys have been using air bag leathers for quite a few years.

[grumm441]

Yeah, that ball would be a great idea if I high side the (non-existent) bike on the salt. Trouble is I'd probably roll two or three miles in the stupid thing before it stopped

Cheers
Dave

" Er, this is northern rescue, a giant orange ball has just gone past"

G

[penny]

That Billy Sneddon thing , is that on you tube yet ?