Dainese is a well-known brand within the motorcycle world that has expanded its operation outside two wheels. Not only do they make leather motorcycle race suits and textile jackets (Valentino Rossi is one of their sponsored riders), they also make protective equipment for snowboarding, horse riding, mountain biking and most baddies you see in 'futuristic' movies seem to be wearing their body armour. Basically, if you can fall off it, Dainese will make something to lessen the impact.
For the past ten years the company has been busy developing its 'D-air' system, the motorcycling equivalent of a car's airbag. The problem with bikes is that, unlike in cars, you can't just cocoon a rider in a protective bubble. In a bike accident the rider tends to get thrown from the vehicle and so the airbag needs to be attached to the actual rider. So how do you trigger the airbag?
Last year Dainese launched a motorcycle race suit that had an airbag built into it. A lot of MotoGP riders race with this suit and in the speed hump (the lump on the back of the leathers) is an ECU that is connected to a GPS unit and a stack of sensors. The GPS tells the ECU that the bike is being ridden and arms the airbag system.
At this point the sensors monitor the rider's movement and, when the data shows that he has had an accident, it triggers the airbag to inflate. It has taken Dainese a long time to create the algorithms that identify an accident, but as racers competing at the very highest level are happy to trust it not to go off it is safe to assume they have got it right! The airbag inflates almost instantly under the race suit and protects the rider's neck and top half of his body from impact. While this system has proven very effective on the track, it has taken Dainese another year to develop it for road use.
The D-air Street is designed as a day-to-day airbag system that can either be bought as a jacket or a stand-alone vest that is worn over your normal riding equipment. The clever part of the Street is how it is activated. A sensor kit is attached to your bike's forks and frame and it monitors the bike's movement. When it detects an accident it wirelessly triggers the airbag and in less 45 milliseconds you and your pillion are protected by the airbag in your jackets.
What makes this system so neat is that there are no pull-cords or devices attaching the airbag to the bike; it's all done wirelessly so you can forget about it and just ride. The airbag itself creates a 'cage' of air around the ribs, spine and vital organs ,as well as limiting extreme neck movements. According to Dainese it cuts the forces transferred to the body by 82 per cent, making it highly effective.
The bike sensor kit should cost £390, the D-air Street jackets are £850 and £1,310 depending on style and material while the stand-alone vest is £640. See www.dainese,com