Damage limitation
Crash in Dainese’s top-of-the-range airbag suit and things will happen. Good… and bad
CRASHING IN DAINESE’S Misano D-air race suit reveals it to be both incredibly good and fearsomely expensive. I paid the charming gents at Bike Stop in Stevenage £2629 for a made-to-measure suit in standard colours. The economics look clear-cut. If, for example, you’re self-employed and earn £400/day and the D-air prevents a broken collarbone, or worse, then that price looks utterly reasonable.
Dainese insist that a damaged suit goes back to their Molvena HQ to ensure warranty and liability issues are met. This, however, means no-one else can touch them.
Low-sides and relatively low-speed high-sides – say in a hairpin – will result in the air-bag deploying above 30mph, with some cosmetic abrasion and, if you’re unlucky, the status LED in the shoulder being wiped out. Expect a bill to be £400-£600. Overseas trackday insurance can cover this. But I made the error of a 60-70 mph low-side at the Bedford Autodrome north of London. I fell on my right collarbone already plated from a high-side a year previously in my non-airbagged Crowtrees – and the bag deployed. I rolled onto the grass, winded and with a bruised spine from the kerbing. The damage to the suit was severe. The right arm was badly scuffed and torn, the leg damaged.
But no broken limbs, cuts or grazes, just a very sore back. Brilliant. Then the bill arrived, £1100, in part to the suit being made to measure. And no chance of me claiming it on, any kind of, insurance.
Along with the weeks it can take for a suit to be repaired, that is posing a question for me about the D-air system. It’s ace in terms of quality and effectiveness but there are alternatives and I’m looking at them.