What is your role at Leatt?
Initially, I wore many hats, now I am the chairman of the board and head up R&D efforts.
What is your background? How did you come to invent the neck brace?
I trained as a medical doctor, worked in various disciplines and ultimately decided on a surgical specialty. During my specialization, I invented the neck brace. This came about after I attended an enduro motorcycle event near Cape Town, South Africa – where a rider I knew fell and broke his neck. I was post-call and with my young son Matthew who was 4 years old at the time, so I wasn’t riding that day, when a paramedic asked me to help him with the fallen rider. Alan Selby had fallen over the handlebars at relatively low speed. I proceeded to attempt to resuscitation him, which despite having all the correct equipment at hand was not successful. Matthew had just ridden his first little motorcycle and with this in mind, I began to work on the neck brace to satisfy myself I was doing all in my power to keep Matthew safe during his future riding.
How does the Leatt neck brace work? How did you test it?
It works as an alternative load path technology (ALPT) injury. In other words, some of the force transmitted to the neck in a fall onto your head is redirected safely to other body structures. By reducing the magnitude of the neck force, the likelihood of an injury is reduced. Consider a high jumper, at a certain point when the bar is continuously raised, the athlete will not be able to clear the bar. Say you fall over the handlebars and land on your head. The force would usually be transmitted from the ground, to the helmet, then to the neck – all caused by the weight of your body compressing and moving your neck and head. With a neck brace on, the force is transmitted from the ground to your helmet in the same way, however the helmet at a point now touches the braces and unloads (ALPT) some of the force onto the brace. The amount of force transmitted down the neck is thereby reduced as is the risk of injury. The bar is just too high for our high jumper to clear. Testing is done in a number of ways, including physical testing on dummies in various scenarios, lab testing of components of the brace, complex computer modelling and now with the release of the EMS action sport study – 10 years of real life crash data is available. This study and much more on testing can be found on
our web site.
Many riders claim that you are more likely to break your collarbone or get a head injury in a crash with a neck brace on. Is there any truth to that?
This is probably the biggest misconception with respect to the brace. You are LESS likely to break your collarbone wearing a LEATT brace than without one. Let me explain; you break your collarbone in one of three ways, namely 1) a fall on an outstretched arm, where the force is transmitted up your arm to your shoulder, where your collarbone being the “weak link” fractures to prevent a more serious injury. Collarbone fractures generally heal without complication. 2) A fall directly onto your shoulder. 3) Your helmet rim strikes your collarbone.
As we know, collarbones are one of the most common fractures in riders with or without a neck brace. If one considers causes 2) and 3) above, if you fell on your left shoulder you would expect a left sided collarbone fracture. If the brace was the cause of collarbone fractures, you would expect to see this occur on the opposite side as the head and neck would be moving to the right, however, the brace is designed to protect this helmet rim strike with a collarbone relief area whereby the helmet rim strikes the brace upper surface and not the collarbone, the force is dissipated and does not cause an indriven right-sided collarbone fracture.
This is demonstrated by dummy testing with an instrumented collarbone incorporated into our test dummy that measures peak clavicle (collarbone) forces in all the impact scenarios we test. Additionally, there was a reduction in collarbone injuries cited in the EMS study alluded to above, as a result of cause 3) also discussed above.
Have you done any mountain bike-specific studies to prove that neck braces don't cause an increase in collarbone breaks? The speeds and impact forces are different on a bike vs moto, would that affect the statistics?
No, but then this is not speed-related, but rather a mechanism of injury. A collarbone will still be broken with a fall directly onto the shoulder or an outstretched hand, but the brace’s ability to shield the collarbone from a helmet rim strike will remain, independent of fall speed, type of helmet or other accident dynamics.
Do you sell as many mountain bike neck braces today as you did eight years ago?
Yes. We continue to see growth in the volume of MTB neck braces sold globally as we introduce innovative products that appeal to a wider group of riders.
At Whistler, neck braces used to be everywhere, and now barely anyone wears them. Is that growth of neck braces coming from the mountain bike segment? If yes, is it moving from the North American market?
We are seeing growth in the volume of neck braces sold to mountain bike riders in the US and abroad and across different MTB segments. Whistler is of course a certain segment of the market.
Enduro has exploded in popularity and the tracks are essentially mini DH tracks. EWS racers don’t wear neck braces. How do you plan on addressing this market? Can you?
I believe we have already addressed this. For the Enduro market, we have put focus into helmets. In 2017, we released the DBX 3.0 Enduro Helmet. A convertible helmet with a removable chin bar consisting of Leatt’s signature 360 turbine technology. The first company to offer a convertible helmet to reduce both rotation and impact energy to your head and brain. Expanding our helmet line, the DBX 4.0 Helmet came to market in December 2018. A full ASTM DH certified helmet with maximized ventilation, 360 turbine technology and very lightweight, weighing from 850g. Strong enough for DH, yet light and ventilated for Enduro.
Modern riders are reluctant to wear a hydration pack, much less a Leatt brace. Has fashion taken its toll on protection devices?
We always aim to promote safety over fashion but at the same time, we design our safety products and apparel so that riders don’t need to compromise on either. It is our strong belief that the neck brace should be an integral part of every rider's equipment when riding in a full-face helmet. Leatt neck braces are very slim, lightweight and aesthetically very well designed, so they look good and radically reduce the risk of serious injury. With top models weighing in at under 700grams, we would also like to see more enduro riders wearing them. The sport is progressing and we are convinced that the neck brace does not hinder performance on climbs as well as descents.
It is our company mission to educate consumers on the benefits of neck braces and abolish some the myths surrounding them. We collaborate with professional athletes and ambassadors to primarily raise confidence in the product and in turn, as it becomes more popular, this promotes the neck brace as something cool and trendy. AS the sport continues to get faster and bigger, we are confident that neck braces will grow in their popularity because riders will look for that extra protection. It will give them the confidence to progress.
Strider racing, mini motocross events… There is lots happening in the children's end of power and bicycle competition. What can be done to better protect children?
The most important concern of a parent is to keep their child safe. Therefore protection is an obvious solution to do so. In a time where information is at our fingertips, parents should educate themselves on what proper protection is. We take protection for junior riders very seriously and continue to invest in developing products for children, this is a challenge as when impact protection is added to a product the weight and breathability is effected significantly, with a child in such a small and fragile frame this can then lead to exhaustion, which should be avoided being one of the biggest causes of accidents.
In 2014 we introduced the Fusion 2.0 neck vest, a product that combines neck, chest, back and shoulder protection for children that is an acceptable weight. These are very popular with parents and can be used for junior riders from as small as 100cm tall. We also offer many other products such as elbow and knee protection for children of this size.
Do you anticipate consensus in helmet and safety testing standards? What is missing from the equation?
I believe there is more conversation today in the industry than there was a decade ago about various safety standards for our sport. The improvement of helmet standards (there is a new proposed FIM standard in development), the development of more EU apparel safety standards and discussion around a neck brace test standard are all positive signs for us. The adoption of standards and an outcomes based approach to safety equipment would presumably make adoption of new standards easier for homologation and sporting bodies.
Do you anticipate a breakthrough in materials that might revolutionize the protection industry? If you could invent one, what would its properties be like?
As the field of biomechanics is so vast and complex, numerous iterative changes to material and designs will probably be the way the industry improves its offering. At LEATT we are constantly striving to find and develop the best materials possible for our various applications. We are also constantly innovating and testing new ideas – from small iterative improvements to radical new ideas. My new material would therefore ideally have properties to allow for radical innovation to offer a better protective product for our sporting applications, were usability and ultimate protection are enhanced. Materials like shear thickening (getting stiffer the harder you hit them) are an example of this sort of material innovation.
Nearly 10 years of accident data from American motocross racing. 8529 recorded patients, 4726 without neck brace and 3803 with neck brace. The data is pretty convincing in favor of neck brace use
Neck Brace Effectiveness Statistics by Great Lakes EMS Inc (Action Sports EMS).
Introduction/Background
Action Sports EMS is an ambulance service catering to the amateur motocross industry in five states.
Founded in 2008 in Northern Wisconsin we have managed to procure some of the largest motocross venues
in the Midwest. Our annual coverage includes multiple area and regional Loretta Lynn qualifiers, Flat track
grand nationals, ISOC, sno-cross events, and more. We work directly for the AMA providing care and
transport at various events, often managing over 1000 riders in a single weekend.
Over the years we have overheard and had conversations about the positives and perceived negatives of
wearing various kinds of safety gear, in particular neck braces. Regardless of make or manufacturer people
seem to think they are “bad”. This perception may be based on old designs, personal experiences, social
media commentary, and/or a total lack of knowledge when it comes to body mechanics.
Riders from age 6 to age 50+ have shared some horrific fallacies about neck braces, much of this
information is coming from other riders during what we call “campfire talk”. More frustrating are trainers with
junior riders feeding this information to parents and young riders. Some examples:
• A neck brace will break your collarbone.
• You cannot look up a hill or jump so don’t wear one.
• You cannot compete wearing one of these and not many Pro’s wear them.
• They will break your upper back and cause nerve damage or paralysis.
• They are uncomfortable.
• They restrict movement.
• They are stupid looking.
• None of them fit right.
We as a team feel our riders need to be educated on the mechanics of a neck brace, what it can and cannot
do. Furthermore, we must dispel these myths about a product designed to help protect the cervical spine
and potentially save a life. The same can be said for seatbelts and air bags many decades ago.
We feel the results of this actual patient data is proof that neck braces are providing the results intended
since their creation. This is something the manufacturers of these devices have known for several years, and
we hope the extensiveness of this report (and other reports like it) will finally show people real world data. We
feel the manufacturers are on the right path and the data from the study will back up their claims.
Data Collected
*Data is collected for all patient contacts per DHS rule in any state a provider is licensed.
Data in this study has been collected from January 2009 to October 2018, (nearly 10 years) and includes
9430 total patients, 8529 of which fall into the criteria pertaining to wearing (or not wearing) a neck brace,
along with Cervical Spine and/or Clavicle injuries, and/or deaths recorded during this time. The other 901
pre-date the “Yes brace or No brace” question, so data from these instances was excluded. This case study
strictly isolates data pertaining to these injuries, as well as accompanying factors like hospital admit, ALS
transport (Advanced life support ambulance or flight service), spinal immobilization, fatal injury, and more.
Of the 8529 recorded patients, 4726 of them were toggled as “NO” which indicates neck protection was not
in place at the time of injury and when the record was created. 3803 were toggled “YES” which indicates
neck protection was in place at the time of injury and when the record was created.
Statistics
1. A Critical Cervical Spine injury is 89% more likely without a
neck brace.
Over the course of the 10 year study, there were 239 recorded cases of Critical Cervical Spine injuries
without a neck brace, and 26 with a neck brace.
2. Death is 69%+* more likely (due to Cervical Spine Injury)
without a neck brace.
Over the course of the 10 year study, there were 4 recorded cases of death caused by Critical Cervical Spine
injuries without a neck brace, and just 1 with a neck brace.
*It should be noted that the patient who experienced death with the neck brace had a full Cervical Spine
Fusion from a previous injury, and received a blunt force (part of the motorcycle) directly to the back of the
neck. Since the injury falls into our report criteria the accident is included in this report, but the circumstances
are worth mentioning.
Deaths due to Critical Cervical Injury
3. A Non-Critical Cervical Spine injury is 75% more likely without
a neck brace.
Over the course of the 10 year study, there were 702 recorded cases of Non-Critical Cervical Spine injuries
without a neck brace, and just 109 with a neck brace.
4. A Clavicle (collarbone) fracture is 45% more likely without a
neck brace.
Over the course of the 10 year study, there were 443 recorded Clavicle fractures without a neck brace, and
291 with a neck brace.
5. Cervical Spine injuries sustained without a neck brace are
more severe, require greater care.
As shown in the left above, of the 239 Critical Cervical Spine injuries without a neck brace (Shown in black),
100% (239) of them required a hospital admit (Yellow) and ALS transport (Orange), compared to just 73%,
and 42% for neck brace wearers respectively (Right chart, same colors).
Of the 239 Critical Cervical Spine injuries without a neck brace, 87% (207) received Spinal Immobilization
(Red), where as of the 26 Critical Cervical Spine injuries with a neck brace, 76% (22) were immobilized.
0
50
100
150
200
250
Without Neck Brace
Critcal Cervical Injury Hospital Admit
ALS Transport Spinal Immobalization
With Neck brace
Critcal Cervical Injury Hospital Admit
ALS Transport Spinal Immobalization
6. A Cervical Spine injury of any kind is 82% more likely without a
neck brace.
Over the course of the 10 year study, combining all critical and non critical Cervical Spine injuries, 945 injuries
were recorded without a neck brace (20% of 4726 people), and 136 with a neck brace (3.5% of 3803
people).
Conclusion
9430 recorded accidents over nearly 10 years is a substantial sampling of real world data pertaining to neck
braces, and in every instance above neck braces are an exponential improvement in rider safety. We will
continue to record this data for many years to come, and we feel with time these statistics will only continue,
if not improve if more people continue to adopt this technology. While we cannot definitively rule out that the
device (or any device) could potentially play a negative role during an accident, we feel it is important to
mention that no device known to man is 100% effective, and that same rule applies to neck braces.
Our hope is that people see this, educate themselves on the benefits of wearing a neck brace, and make an
informed decision regarding their safety when riding their motorcycle. The numbers don’t lie, and we highly
recommend everyone consider wearing any protection item that can help contribute to their safety.
It should be noted that just like your bike, helmet, boots, etc, any equipment worn must be properly fitted
according to manufacturers instructions in order to provide maximum benefit and wearability. Improperly
fitted equipment can cause unexpected results, and may hinder your ability on the motorcycle, and may even
lead to injury and/or death.
Disclaimer: We are an EMS service that is simply looking out for rider safety. This is real world data
collected over many years, and has in no way been manipulated to show a benefit or detriment either for, or
against neck braces. Keeping you safe is our passion and it is our duty to share what we have learned while
catering to the motorsports industry and to our moto-family for the good part of a decade.
#1 There is no reason to assume that riders who choose to use a neck brace have the same characteristics as the control group of non-neck brace wearers. It seems reasonable people who buy neck braces are possibly more risk-averse individuals.
#2 Alternatively there could be adverse selection, where people who are more likely to need neck braces are the ones that go out and buy them.
#3 Peoples' behavior with regard to risk-taking might change because they are wearing a neck brace and feel safer.
Some of these biases work against each so it is very hard to say which would dominate.
Studies like the one above are great but it is a real shame when they utilise exceedingly poor methodologies (like a simple comparison of raw numbers) and draw conclusions that are thoroughly unrobust and cannot be substantiated. It's not to say their conclusion is wrong, it's just this study simply cannot prove what it is saying.
"Of the 8529 recorded patients, 4726 of them were toggled as “NO” which indicates neck protection was not
in place at the time of injury and when the record was created. 3803 were toggled “YES” which indicates
neck protection was in place at the time of injury and when the record was created. "
That's 55% / 45%. Given the effect sizes and sample size, pretty sure the results are significant.
@powpowpow Inclined to agree with you seems plausible that it would be significant. Unfortunately, just because there is a large sample size and when comparing averages the gap looks big doesn't make a result significant. An even with a significant result inferring causality that the Neck Brace is what drove the results is exceedingly difficult in the presence of those biases mentioned.
Not trying to roast neck braces here. It's directed at this study cited, it's just not a great study from the perspective of the methodology used.
Si,
No, of course I don't mind you asking!! This brace NEEDS to be shoved into the face of every pro mountain biker on the circuit. Even I should have been wearing one. I mean so what that I wasn't racing DH, I was still doing about 15-20 mph hitting a super tricky rhythm section and any lapse of judgement could have been bad. Obviously I proved that theory correct!
I know Sam and a lot of those younger kids aren't even wearing f@#king knee and shin guards! I mean I know they all think they are invincible but at the speeds they are going these days and with the technology of the bikes plus the courses that are being built and always being raced in the pouring rain. You add all those together and serious injury can happen in a heartbeat. I am going to push that brace to every rider I see. I don't want to be a pain or will I be. I just want to make that point because I don't want to see anyone of my friends or even riders that I don't know go through what I am going through right now.
If only it had been out a little longer and I knew more about it. If you look at the Super Cross races this year I believe the majority of riders are wearing them and good for them. I don't want to sound like a hypocrite...I just didn't know enough about them and also didn't think I would need one while racing 4x. It's clear I was wrong because anything can happen to anyone.
Okay okay...enough ranting and raving.
Take care and talk soon!
Cheers,
Tx
Never Give Up!
======
Personally i've had two big crashes wearing a neck brace and walked away, the biggest one was at Whistler in 2014 at Crankworx as i hit a spectator crossing the track. I cracked the Leatt Pro Carbon neck brace, thats how hard I hit the guy, biggest crash in 30 years and I walked away fom it. I don't leave home without it!
dont know what would happen, feelks like exactly the same
still would wear leatt though
but i feel like this article and tara's quote are giving false sense of security
but we may believe in neck brace, influencing our life or not, opposite to god they actually do exist XD
It'd be useful to hear from shop owners and salesfolk about this (shops that actually sell neck braces) rather than anecdotal perceptions.
I don't know the price of neck braces right now, but I seem to remember them being three or four times that. At that price, there is not a chance I would ever buy one. Aren't they made in China like 95% of other consumer goods in the world? Bring the pricing down to something reasonable and I bet there would be a lot more take-up.
It's true. They can. We need more competition. The prices will eventually come down.
When I was 14 or 15 my dad bought me a Specialized Sub-6 helmet for £60 and it was literally a single piece of expanded polystyrene with straps that threaded through the structure. Now the helmets available for that price is incredible. Even moreso when you factor in inflation.
I always wear a neck brace but I’ve had several friends purchase one this week after learning about the accident.
The sound of him hitting the tree is something I’ll never be able to forget.
like you point out, the opposite might be true when it comes to neck braces...i can't get myself to fork up 350 for a brace and i wonder, just like 170 travel bikes, how many riders really need one. Now, if the brace was 150...
am i wrong?
I was on the lift at Angel Fire this year, and this guy came off an intermediate trail and was on access road when he suddenly went OTB and spiked into the ground. I think he was just not paying attention and lost his bars for some reason and that was that. He didn't get up in the few minutes I was watching (I notified bike patrol).
Would be interesting to hang out all day at the medical center at the bike park and try and get a sense of where and how people get hurt.
Anyway, I advocate wearing as much armor as you can stand. Riding in the park I wear a full face, neck brace, body armor, elbow pads, hip pads, knee and shin pads. Because once I'm on the bike I just don't notice it. I've called away from 6 or 7 big crashes unscathed largely because of the armor (it's taken damage but I haven't). Riding trail I wear a light weight full face and one pads. Anything more bugs me and I get distracted by it.
It would be cool if the bike park collected data and shared it about injuries so we could get a better sense of how and where people get hurt.
Brook for example...would this have helped him at all...?
It's hard without feedback like this to know whether there is a difference between the DBX and the 450 troylee i see at every bike park...
It's why we should ask questions...without hyperbolic spewed responses.
but thanks for the heads up on the DBX.
Stay well, be well! Enjoy the new neck brace - catch ya healthy and neck injury free out on the trails!
Are you more likely to break your collarbone with a brace on? Maybe, mybe not. My brace has zero contact points with my collarbone. So I don’t think it’ll be an issue. It I can gauruntee that if I asked anyone on PinkBike if they would rather break their neck or their collarbone, they’ll say collarbone. Your neck / Cervical spine is a life supporting piece of anatomy.
I used to work in the medical device industry. And I primarily dealt with spinal implants and reconstructive surgery in the spine. I saw dozens of traumatic cervical spine (neck) injuries from bikers, skiers, car accidents, etc. these patients require screws and rods, which will inherently lock the spine in place for the rest of your life. Like bulldog... The rods that are in his lumbar spine (lower back) are there for good. And range of motion in that area is gone for ever. Imagine that in your neck. Never being able to turn your head in any direction as far as you could.
For these reasons, I’ll gladly wear a neck brace. I even wear a Moto brace for extra support. That’s my two cents.
The story that led to me purchasing my Leatt- My friend had a serous crash on Mt Spokane that resulted in a completely broken full face helmet and Leatt. The Leatt failed at the points it was supposed to, and the helmet was more or less crushed. I can’t remember all his injuries, but he still broke a vertebra or two. His surgeons directly attributed his spinal cord staying intact to wearing the brace. All of this because he caught a pedal racing.
Me and my little rider(9yo son) wear FF every time we are at the bike park and we both wear LEATT. If a brace contributes to some other lesser injury but allows either of us to literally walk away from a crash then I will accept that trade off
Personally, I chose to wear a brace for Moto riding and will continue to if I get back into DH again. I know a couple riders who crashed in braces and walked away from what should have been debilitating injuries.
The dilemma for me is Enduro... Even the convertible helmets don't seem to interface properly with a brace and I'm not planning on bringing two helmets. I have an old neck injury (cracked my C2 in half) so extra crash protection is definitely needed.
And reminded me to update/add to ALL my safety gear.
Thanks you PB, Leatt, and commenters also. More of this, please.
A few side points;
- I’d like info on the efficacy of braces paired with Enduro FF helmets. Also manufacture info per helmet of whether brace use is recommended with that model.
- Personal opinion, even after years of wearing a brace strapped down, I still notice it & don’t like it.
- I’ve seen those kids fusion neck vests & id like an adult equivalent.
While I think neck braces make you safer, that study is meaningless as presented. It just tells you the percentage of their cases who had a neck brace or not for each injury type. For that data to be meaningful, it must be compared to the total number of riders with or without a neck brace.
For the record, i'm advocating for science rather than against science.
They might as well make up numbers to support their cause. Which is effectively what they've done. It's sad since I actually support their cause. Neck braces could prevent many life altering injuries. Or at least they probably could. We don't actually have data indicating that they do yet.
I wish I could unsend it, it doesn't provide great data. Sorry. I hope I haven't ruined your day and life.
As I see it, the total of riders doesn't matter, as the brace doesn't play any role for most of them. Is only the riders
with cercical/clavicle injury the ones becoming part of the study, that's totally logical to me.
This study compares the injuries sustained by riders who needed medical asssistance, and both sides are almost the same size.
"Of the 8529 recorded patients, 4726 of them were toggled as “NO” which indicates neck protection was not in place at the time of injury and when the record was created. 3803 were toggled “YES” which indicates neck protection was in place at the time of injury".
That's 45% with a neck brace and 55% without, almost equal size. Then you see the results and they're not that balanced.
And this is why there are standards for peer review of published research. This "study" would never pass peer review.
For the record, i'm advocating for science rather than against science.
Hard to use stat for proper testing as not all crashes are the same. And you cannot re create a single crash to see a different outcome would be different weather wearing or not wearin would have made a different.
How many crashes have happened that people have not been wearing them and nothing's happened so it was not recorded in the stats.
I want to believe... but it's hard to believe when the guy pushing them is the guy selling them with his name on the product.
Plus for the brace to even work it must be fitted to a certain gap between the helmet and brace. Which means they all need to be custom made. Does that happen? Nope. General size for everyone.
Yes I race motorcross and offroad dirtbike. I've walked away from 15 years of crashing. Without wearing a brace. But I'm not part of these stats because I was never injured in a neck injury during my crashes.
MET Anaxagore vs Parachute
Specialized Instinct vs Dissent
Now obviously you had no real identical open face alternative to hard shell full face helmets like a TLD D2 but nowadays you have them too. And a pisspot helmet was hard shell too.
So with experts on board, I'd like to ask: does the chin bar of a full face helmet any more good than protect the lower part of your face (between jaw and nose, I always prefer goggles for the upper part) and is it true that it does so at the expense of increased loads on the neck? Especially as for ventilation mountainbike helmets come with a longer chin bar (to have it more out of the way) compared to an MX helmet, it also gives the forces more leverage when rolling over in a crash.
Now of course I understand that these neck braces are supposed to take some of that increased stress of the neck and transfer it straight to the lower body. But I see this as a solution for a challenge introduced by these full face helmets. So yeah I'm curious which type of protection leads to the least severe injuries in those common crashes onto the sides and back of the head. Full face with neck brace or a comparable but open face helmet without neck brace.
Then of course back in the days BMX racers used to ride with these separate mouth guards, like what Olly Wilkins is wearing here: cdn.coresites.factorymedia.com/dirt_new/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/001-DT101-UK.jpg. Obviously most of us will need something more fashionable to look half as good but outside of fashion, it does protect your teeth but doesn't introduce any additional loads on the neck.
But story is that i lost all confindace after that crash. Than build it up slowly first on pumptrack, than HT trail raiding and now again after a yer or so again on FS ripping trails. But still didnt find my speed which i had before crash.
Point is get all protection you need. deppend what you riding. And f.uck it if it looks funny cos crash can happen any time anywhere, when it happens you will see it better ro look funny than to see, in my case, your teeth all over the ground.
And when you go in proces of healing when you are unable to funcion normal, again im case even to eat, than you see that its easier to fix a bike and broken parts than your body.
Ride safe, use protection.
It's definitely worth looking at used ones though. I got my OG GPX for $20 from a used gear store and another $20 for the right sized spacer.
Money?
Nah.
I feel like theres a lot of machismo and fatalism in the MTB, BMX etc crowd. They see safety equipment as unwarranted, and possibly uncool. It’s almost like wearing safety gear suggests you lack talent and need it, but wearing no equipment means you are skilled enough that you wont crash.
People say things like a Fox Proframe is not needed. They base their opinion not on physics or worst case scenario, they base it on the fact that THEY have never had a need or a friend.
I’m just a guy, on a bike, on a trail. I wear whatever I think I need to keep me safe and riding for as long as I can,
so are Hans collars no longer used in DH or was I mistakingly calling them Hans collars and they weren't?
So Leatt are pro safety, but only if it's them making money out of it?
I can buy a fully certified DH helmet for £50, I've never seen a neck brace for close to that price.
Is it all BS? I still don't know, but to date, I haven't seen anything independent or compelling enough
www.actionsportsems.com/case-study-neck-brace
Seems like a solid scientific study with 10yrs of data and thousands of samples. Nothing is perfect I'm sure but its interesting. Does that change your opinion?