good read. looks like a bunch of people on this site are spot on with their reccomendation of the Helds.
4kN is a small amount. CE level 2 impact for back protectors allows 9kN. 18kN for level 1.
Yeah, that force transmission level is not hard to get down to when the impact energy they are hit with is only 5 Joules though. Pretty much anything can pass, except the comfort foam with nothing over it.
I'm not sure as to how those impact and force levels were chosen as appropriate, but I can guarantee you that much of the impact energy level was a compromise within the developed CE standard had to deal with the use of the hard carbon throughout the industry that won't pass at higher severities. I guess the reasoning that may have been used is that hands are not very heavy and thus don't create as much impact energy in fall to the ground, as opposed to something like a head or arm where the baseline is 50J and up, but I think you'll find that the energies that need to be dealt with by the hands in a crash are much higher, though that may even be at the palm and not the back of the hand more frequently. Anyhow, that's why almost all of the pieces got a perfect score for impact, it's extremely easy to pass with just about anything.
The CE back protector levels are also huge compromises that were hard fought, and essentially flawed within the known info as to their efficacy. Essentially we don;t know the limitations of crash severity for any of them at the known values of bone breakage. All you can do is get a level 2 piece and hope that it passes closer to 4kN in the higher ranges, and less in any tumble that creates less than 50 Joules in the impact. As I might have said in a previous thread, those numbers and inappropriate levels were fought for by Dainese and Alpinestars, as they wanted to be able to continue selling knowningly inferior pieces with a mandate. Pretty shameful if you ask me. They put on a good face with huge marketing campaigns and spnosorship, but their real concerns seem to be fashion sales. That shows consistently in tests like this too. The Speed Metals were near the bottom, the Slams showed similarly poor abrasion and stitching performance, and the Astars offerings were not much better.
