Body Armour or Padding for Races ???

[jhcolman]

Hi All:

My son races alpine GS and PGS here in Ontario Canada. He might also run the occassional slalom.

For GS or PGS, would some form of padding or alternatively body armour be useful, to allow him to carve turns "lower" and/or closer to the gate?

The protection might provide a psychological benefit, making the rider feel more comfortable carving lower/closer. Or protection. Or both.

But would this encumber his movement?

Necessary or useful? Or not?

If useful, then what type or armour or padding, for what body parts?

Such as a shinguard ?? If so, full or half? What length?

Thanks all.

Regards

Julian

[Gtanner]

SHIN GUARDS!!!!

Grab a set of hard plastic soccer (or Mountain bike) shin guards that have straps. This is the cheapst option. Make sure they cover over your knee above teh cuff of teh boot (may require some do-it-yourself mods). If you have the cash, a set of actual shin guards made for ski-boots are awesome (but run upwards of $150).

Also you need them for BOTH shins, not just the first one. Racing is all about setting-up early for the turn. Most coaches will use sayings like "you should be finishing your turn at the gate...". THis means that as you pass the gate on a toe-side, it's quite common to clip the stubby (especially true for Slalom as you pop out of the turn)...and without a shin guard...IT HURTS.

If he's a rider that gets really low, a thigh guard for his leading leg isn't a bad idea, but again you don't really need an expensive articulating leg guard. Or if you're super-budget, I've seen someone tape 2x4s' to their legs...it was hilarious and made awesome sounds as you rode against him (clunk at every gate, I knew exactly where he was during the PSL).

Good luck and have fun,

Gord

[philfell]

If he is entry level he'll be fine with out anything. Snowboard stubbies don't hurt that much when you take them off the shin, when you get to a higher level and the speeds increase than it's different. If he is into for the long term it wouldn't be bad to make the investment in shin gaurds, because eventually he'll need them, but if he is still just doing it for fun, I'd save the money. Here is a link to some shin gaurds that would work, http://www.reliableracing.com/detail.cfm?edp=10729556&category=3510

[Guest Randy S.]

I've become a big fan of my Dainese back brace. It really protects my back if I crash hard. Helmets are obvious. On the occassions when I race on a skier course with tall poles, I wear a Dainese full flack jacket. I used to just wear fore-arm guards for it, but kept bruising my biceps, shoulders. I also like to wear padded shorts under my ski pants. Dainese, Skeletools, Red and Serius make the best ones of those that I've seen.

[Guest tdinardo]

If you have the cash, a set of actual shin guards made for ski-boots are awesome (but run upwards of $150).

Dig around on Ebay. You can get some really good deals on gear for running gates. I've seen Scott shin guards go for as little as $20 or so if no one was paying attention.

I picked up a fully padded Spyder GS suit, Scott shin guards, and a Spyder stealth top for $150 in a single auction that no one was paying attention to. The stuff looked like it had been used maybe 10 times.