The Haslams 40 years

Ron and Leon’s mountain of kit shows just how far bike clothing has come

Haslams THE

40 Years of Product Testing 62 / April 2011

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Words Stuart Barker Pictures Jason Critchell, Gold and Goose

Q&A with Ron and Leon

Was there any kit that you feel really saved your skin in a particular crash?

Ron: I crashed the JPS Norton at about 180mph at Snetterton in the early ’90s and I was amazed how well my kit saved me. My leg was a mess but that’s only because the bike flew through the air and hit me as I was sliding along. I heard my leg snap and the bone came out through my leathers and was ground along the tarmac as I slid that took about an inch off the bone. Strangely there was no pain, just a bad sensation. I think I passed out because the next thing I knew I was in hospital. But my kit really saved me that day; my helmet hardly had a mark on it and my leathers did their job – they were only destroyed when they were cut off me in hospital!

Leon: I crashed at Silverstone in 2007 and my data showed I hit the floor at 186mph. I slid for 270 yards and the only damage I got was when I hit the kerb and got some bruising. Other than that I walked away. That was the fastest crash I ever had and my helemt, leathers, gloves and boots were totally trashed but they did their job perfectly as I was unscathed.

When Ron Haslam started racing in 1972 there was no armour in his leathers and he had his local cobbler make him leather kneesliders. His son Leon now has a GPS-based airbag system housed in the hump of his leather suit, allowing a satellite to determine when to employ his protection.

When a father and son with almost 40 years of racing experience between them talk about what makes for good riding gear, and what to avoid, you’d be wise to listen. The Haslams have taken the knocks and broken bones so you don’t have to.

Leon Haslam says: “I’ve tried on some of my dad’s early kit and it’s absolutely horrendous. But if someone looks back in 20 years at the stuff we’re wearing now, they’ll probably think the same.”

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LEATHERS Ron: In the early days I went more for heavy protection than comfort. But protection back then was just really thick leather; so thick and heavy that you had to break them in during qualifying at about three or four meetings before you could actually race in them. There were no stretch panels either, it was all doubled-up leather, so it was really difficult to move on the bike. No one liked changing their leathers, even when they were really tatty, because it took so long to break in a new set.

Years later, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, things went the other way and the trend was to make leathers as light as possible. But the manufacturers took it too

Have you ever had any kit that really let you down – that didn’t do its job?

Ron: I got sponsored to wear a Kangol helmet in my early days and it was the biggest piece of crap you could imagine. I might as well have ridden with a tin bucket on my head but I needed the money so I wore it. There are pictures of me at the TT wearing that helmet and it had blown so far back on my head that I’m almost peering our under the chin bar!

Leon: I’ve had issues with zips on my boots and leathers coming undone in crashes. And I used to wear Alpinestars boots (ones that they don’t make any more) that had a big plastic piece on the inside that was always getting caught and stuck on the chain guard. There were

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Leon goes one better and crashes at 186mph at Silverstone and walks away with bruising

▲ JPS leathers survived a 180mph spill at Snetterton

▲ Leather kneesliders were made by Ron’s cobbler

▲ Some suits can carry drink in the speed hump

▲ Stretch panels aid comfort and movement on the bike

far and the stitching wasn’t very good, so the leathers often burst apart at the seams. It didn’t matter how good the armour was because when the stitching came away the armour just rolled around and didn’t protect the area it was supposed to. But they learned from that and started using things like kangaroo skin because it’s flexible but tough too. People think that’s quite new but I was wearing kangaroo skin leathers way back in the 1980s when I was racing in grands prix. I remember it was like “Wow! You don’t even have to bed these leathers in!” You just got them and raced in them straight away, which was unheard of.

People went mad for foam armour in the ’80s because it stopped you getting bruised in a crash but I didn’t like it. I could still race with bruises but I couldn’t race with broken bones so I opted for the hard plastic armour.

When you used to have fast crashes wearing really thick leathers, the leathers

wouldn’t be damaged but your own skin would get so hot and burned from the friction generated. At times you were grazed right down to the bone yet you could barely see a mark on the leathers. In later years, you’d crash and your leathers would be shredded

they can create arm pump and all sorts of discomfort. After that, it’s safety and no matter which company you go with, it normally takes time to get it right. Even riders who are with the same manufacturer have totally different suits to fit their specific needs. They like to have different shaped padding, different materials, different amounts of padding... Colin Edwards hasn’t changed his padding and design of his suit since 1995 because that’s the way he likes it.

When you look at the differences from when my dad was racing it’s incredible. The suits now contain memory foam, carbon fibre, titanium, Kevlar, and you can even have drinks fitted into the hump on the back of your leathers. Another advancement is screen-printing sponsors’ badges on to save weight. There can be huge differences in weight. My Spidi kit (including boots, gloves and the like) was a full two kilos lighter than Troy Corser’s Alpinestars kit. The Dainese

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“Whatever kit works for a racer is usually available to the public later that year” away to nothing but your skin would be fine.

And that’s the way it should be – the leather should be designed to rip and take the abuse.

You just don’t want the seams bursting; if they burst, your armour will move and can’t do its job.

Leon: First of all you’ve got to be comfortable; there’s nothing worse than not being able to move around on the bike and if your leathers are too tight

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suit is the heaviest but it offers the most in protection, mainly because of the airbag system (see separate story on page 69).

As far as padding goes, I agree with my dad. Soft padding prevents bruising but doesn’t protect you from breaking bones so well. It also means you can crash in a suit and not damage the suit too much. When you crash in hard armour it usually rips straight through the leathers so there are pros and cons to both.

I used to think that the aerodynamic humps on the back of leathers was just a style thing but last year I spent four days in a wind tunnel and we found the hump really did work in terms of gaining a few mph.

For road riders, I’d say go for comfort.

Don’t go for a skin-tight race suit, it’s better to have a bit of room to move, especially since you could be walking around in the suit for hours when you’re off the bike.

Q&A with Ron and Leon co n t i n u e d

many times when I almost fell off the bike as I was trying to free my foot. But that’s why companies sponsor racers – so they can find out about problems like that and rectify them. They’re always trying to make the kit better for you and that filters down to the road rider. Whatever kit works for a racer is usually available to the public later the same year or early the next year.

▲ Dainese D-Air suit is the shape of things to come

HELmeTS Ron: When I started racing I used one of those helmets with the visor that came down to your chin but had no chin bar. It was really weird wearing a full-face helmet for the first time. Full-face Bell helmets became all the rage so I bought one but it kept breaking my collarbone. Every time I fell off and got the slightest knock on the back of my head, I broke my collarbone in exactly the same place. Turns out the chin bar on was so deep it was digging into my collarbone when I fell and it kept breaking it. So I stopped wearing it.

Visor misting was a big problem back then until we discovered the Fairy Liquid trick. Anyone who says it doesn’t work isn’t applying it properly. You have to rub lots of it onto the visor and keep rubbing until it’s really well coated. Then warm it up with a hairdryer or put it on a radiator until it dries

Leon puts another set of leathers through their paces

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then rub it off with a cloth until you can see through the visor. It works perfectly – you couldn’t make it steam up no matter how hard you tried. The only downside was that if rain got between your visor and helmet the Fairy Liquid would really sting your eyes. That’s why you’d see us with duct tape over the top rim of our visors to stop the rain getting in. It was primitive but it worked.

Is there anything you wish you had worn that you didn’t? Anything that might have saved you from injury?

Ron: Today’s boots are really good because they protect you without restricting your movement. They’re designed to not allow your leg to bend too far in the event of a crash. So I wish I’d had better boots because I broke my ankles a few times and I could have avoided doing that with good, modern boots. If I’d had good boots on during that Snetterton crash, they might have stopped the bone coming out through my leathers.

The boots I was wearing were too short and the bone snapped just above them. But that was probably my fault because I had chosen old-style boots for comfort rather than protection.

Leon: I should have always worn better gloves. Even two years ago people were telling me my gloves weren’t suitable for racing. I took the ends of two fingers off in a crash at Brands Hatch – just ground them away – and that could probably have been avoided.

Did you ever have any lucky items of clothing that you raced in?

Ron: I had some lucky underpants for a while. I won my first race wearing them and I wore them for every race after that. Even if I finished tenth, I’d still wear them because I thought they might be lucky next time out. I wore those pants for years and only stopped when I met Anne and discovered what girls were for.

Leon: I’ve tried to stay away from all that but there’s always something that crops up. The worst one last year was a silly routine we got into on the grid. My team was mostly Italian and they were really superstitious. I had a cold at the first round in Australia and I blew my nose on the grid. I had nowhere to put the tissue so my mechanic shoved it in his pocket then I went out and won my first ever WSB race. So every race after that I had to blow my nose on the grid and give him the tissue.

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Q&A with Ron and Leon co n t i n u e d

What other kit is important apart from helmet, leathers, boots and gloves?

Ron: Knee sliders. You couldn’t buy them when I started to race. The early ones were made of rubber instead of the hard plastic they use nowadays but rubber gripped the kerbs too much and would rip your leg round if you clipped a kerb. So I had my local cobbler make me really thick leather pads with a Velcro backing – but I’d end up wearing right through the leather and the Velcro so I’d have to tape the leather pads on. I got a back protector from RS Taichi when I started riding in GPs and I wore it for the rest of my career.

Leon: I always wear a back protector but I’ve never worn a chest protector because I’ve always found them to be quite restrictive, but I’m going to start wearing one this year. A chest protector really saved Troy Corser last year when he had a bike land on his chest at Brno. If he’d not been wearing a chest protector he’d have sustained a lot of damage so I need to start wearing one.

I’ve never worn earplugs either. I don’t like having anything in my ears and they always seem to fall out anyway, but I’m going to start wearing them because my dad’s going deaf from all the years of not wearing any!

Leon: When I was in the wind tunnel last year, we tested the little fin on the back of my Arai helmet and it was incredible how much difference it made. It’s just a little, 10mm fin yet it completely stabilised my helmet at speed; when we took it off my head was wobbling all over the place. It probably wouldn’t make much of a difference at road speeds but from a fashion point of view it’s all about having it.

I’ve had an Arai since I was four years old and wouldn’t wear anything else. I’ve been to Snell tests and seminars and seen how well they perform, even compared with the other top brands so, for me, it’s a no-brainer.

Fit is very important. My helmets are always a very tight fit because I don’t want them moving around at all. Noise is an issue too; you don’t want a noisy helmet. And I

BOOTS Ron: Boot technology was really poor in my day. I used to wear the softest type of boot available – it was more about comfort than protection for me. I always used to ask for the zips to be on the inside (as opposed to running down the back of the boot) because when you crashed, it was very rare to slide down the road on the inside of your leg. The zips were made of metal back then, not plastic, and they would burn your legs due to the friction created by sliding down the road. There was so much heat generated that it left a perfect scarred imprint of the zip on your leg.

I got toe-sliders towards the end of my career but before that I’d just keep getting my boots re-soled at the cobblers and would ask him to add a big lump of rubber on the side of the soles. But I was always grinding my toes away in the early days. I’ve filed them down countless times. I used to keep one good set of boots to get through scrutineering but I’d race in tatty old ones because I couldn’t afford to buy new ones all the time.

think that helmets which are really light weight don’t offer as much protection – anything that’s going to have to take an impact needs to be robust. A lot of manufacturers just strengthen certain parts of their helmets in order to pass the safety tests because they know which part is going to be tested.

We’re talking about protecting your head here so you really can’t afford to take any chances. Buy the best you can afford and make sure it’s a comfortable fit.

“At times you were grazed to the bone yet you could barely see a mark on the leathers” don’t want your boots to bend sideways which is why they’ve mostly all got rigid plates down the sides now. But you do want them to bend easily so you can move around on the bike, change gear, and use your rear brake. I need my boots to be well ventilated too because my foot is right next to the exhaust and I’ve sometimes had to hold my foot out and away from the bike on the straights because it was covered in blisters and felt like it was on fire!

Road riders should really consider comfort because they might be walking in their boots for hours when they’re off the bike.

Leon: I’ve always had a big issue with What kit would you like to see developed for the future?

Ron: I think more people should be using airbag technology. Particularly in big crashes, where you’re in the air for ages, there’s lots of time for an airbag to deploy. They’re looking at all-body airbags now so that’s something that could be really good.

Leon: I know that Spidi is working on a suit that has veins of ice running through it to keep you cool in the really hot races. I think that’s a fantastic idea for places like Malaysia where you really suffer from the heat.

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boots because I’ve got really short, but really wide, feet. Boots aren’t usually made to measure – they’re just off-the-shelf sizes – but I’m finally getting made-tomeasure boots this year. Until now, my little toes have always been crushed and that gives me pins and needles in my feet.

I think a lighter boot is better for safety because you don’t want a big, heavy weight on the end of your leg when you’re flying through the air and tumbling through the gravel trap. Impact is the biggest thing; you

▲ Boots with buckles? What was he thinking?

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LEON’S NEW DAinESE DEAL

Leon does his best to give his sponsors more air time

GLOVES Ron: Gloves are a big thing because it’s all about control and feeling for the bike. At first I used normal lightweight gloves because they felt better but after I’d damaged my hands a lot I started looking for more protection. So I’d have lots of protection on the backs of my fingers and hands but I always made sure the underside was really thin so I could feel the bars and the controls easily. They say that in a road crash the first thing to hit the ground is the palms of your hands but in a racing crash you tend to get flicked off the bike and slapped onto the road on your back so protection on the palms wasn’t so important to me – there was usually a double panel of leather on the bottom part of the palm which was fine but you don’t want the underside of your fingers to be too padded. The manufacturers went a bit overboard with protection on the backs of the gloves at one

“Soft padding prevents brusing but doesn’t protect you from breaking bones so well” www.ride.co.uk

stage and it got to the point where you couldn’t bend your fingers properly. There was too much carbon fibre and hard plastic being used so it was difficult to find a balance between protection and feel. But modern gloves seem to have found a nice balance.

Leon: I’m really bad with gloves. Given the choice, I’d probably wear oven mitts because they’re more comfy. I know I need protection but I like to have as much feel as possible and absolutely no restriction of movement. Unless you find gloves that fit really well and are made of the right kind of material so it doesn’t bunch up, you lose feel.

The best gloves for me are ones with the thinnest leather on the underside of the fingers and the top part of the palm. You need the little fingers to be made of heavy duty stuff and the back of the hand needs to be well protected against the slap you get from a highside, but I also need to have really good level of feel for the brake and throttle.

Another problem is that we have to race in lightweight summer gloves, even when it’s pouring with rain and freezing cold. In those conditions, I always wear a pair of latex surgical gloves under my race gloves to keep my hands dry and warm.

After years of loyal service to Spidi leathers, Leon Haslam has struck a deal with Dainese for the 2011 season, mostly because of the firm’s revolutionary D-Air suit.

“Dainese are putting a big effort into World Superbikes now and they’ve put a huge amount of development into the D-Air airbag system over the last five years. Over the years, everyone’s seen airbags go off on the outside of a rider’s leathers but now the bags are on the inside, so the leathers actually expand with the help of some stretchy panels. Dainese has only run the suit in MotoGP up until now because there needs to be a full-time maintenance guy on hand to deal with datalogging system in the hump of the leathers. In the event of a crash, the leathers get expanded but they’re designed to deflate again after 10 seconds so there shouldn’t be a repeat of the scene where Jorge Lorenzo’s suit inflated and then failed to deflate.

When Rossi had his big crash at Mugello last year, the GPS system in his leathers recorded the speed that he crashed at, what speed he hit the ground at, how far he slid along the ground, and how far he was from his bike. Dainese showed me the data and it was phenomenal. They’ve been developing the suit with Rossi, Lorenzo and Simoncelli in MotoGP for the last few years but now they want to get involved in WSB which is why they approached me. Max Biaggi will be wearing the D-Air suit as well.”

Internal airbags inflate in thousands of a second

Hump houses system’s complex electronics

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