Tech-Air

MotoGP technology available to everyone.

Safety is a big issue for adventure riders. We tend to be past our physical prime, our bikes are heavy, and speeds upwards of 150kph are available to most of us. That makes a get-off a potentially very serious proposition.

It seems the next big step up in protective apparel has become available. In a nutshell, it’s an air-bag jacket. The same way the air-bag in a car inflates in milliseconds to cushion a driver, Alpinestars’ TechAir jacket will inflate almost faster than thought and cocoon a rider in a series of scientifically placed air pockets.

Does it work?

It works well enough for MotoGP.

Set and forget

Alpinestars says the Tech-Air is: ‘The first and only completely self-contained, independent air-bag system offering full upper-body protection’.

That’s a good start, but the system needing no bike-to-rider set-up configurations, and not relying on bike-mounted sensors, makes it seem like it’d be really easy to live with, and that’s important in any safety equipment. If it’s a pest to use, people will quickly start running without it. With the Tech-Air, all sensors and the ECU are incorporated into the vest, and the vest fits under a compatible outer garment.