RockGardn Flak Jacket Premium Body Armor

Flak Jacket Premium Body Armor by RockGardn Sports

When you ride, it’s not a matter of if you’ll crash, but when. While crashing may go hand-in-hand with our off-road motorcycling, it doesn’t mean that there aren’t plenty of things that you can do to protect yourself from injury. There are a number of companies that have done a great job engineering and manufacturing protective gear that greatly increases the margin of safety and chances of walking away from a nasty get off. One of these companies is RockGardn Sports out of Camarillo California. With a great following from mountain biking enthusiasts, RockGardn realized that gravity really didn’t seem to give a rip whether you were falling off your bicycle or motorcycle. I had a chance to give their Flak Jacket Premium Body Armor a try, so read on to find out how it worked out.

Fit
The RockGardn Flak Jacket uses a one piece, front zipper design that is put on like any traditional jacket and comes in a range of sizes, from small to triple X. The jacket’s lycra construction means that there is a certain degree of stretch, making the task of finding just the right size an easy one and the material is soft enough to be worn against the skin. Once the jacket is on and zipped up, fine adjustments can be made to the forearm pads, shoulder straps and integrated kidney belt. With less than a minute of adjustments, the Flak Jacket ready for some saddle time.

Function
My initial, major concern with the jacket was heat. However, I was pleasantly surprised that the jacket ran fairly cool. The temperature at Planet Xtreme MX (formerly Amago Sportspark) was in the mid to high 80’s. Not hot if you’re from Phoenix, but hot enough for a native Oregonian transplant to Southern California. The lycra material is perforated, allowing it to breathe extremely well and it’s moisture wicking effect clearly aided cooling while moving.

I was also concerned about the jacket feeling bulky or limiting movement when riding. Outside of looking a bit like Arnold Schwarzenegger with my jersey over the flak jacket (mostly because of the jacket’s shoulder cups), the jacket was not noticeably heavy or restrictive. I personally liked the supportive feel the jacket provides when the integrated kidney belt is fastened. Not only does it support the front of you, the kidney belt pulls the jacket’s built in spine protection into the small of your back, promoting good posture and riding position. I also noticed that the jacket didn’t contact the chin of my helmet when I turned my head from side to side, as it does wearing my conventional chest protector. All in all, I really didn’t notice the jacket when riding.

So, it’s reasonably cool and comfortable to ride with, but how does it protect? As much as I wanted to rag doll to test the limits of the product, I didn’t have any nasty get offs while testing. However, without going out on a limb, I can say that the jacket is pretty much state of the art when it comes to body armor for mountain biking and off-road motorcycling use. Its one unit design keeps the pads from siding off the areas they are intended to protect (I see this a lot with individual elbow/forearm guards) and the integrated pads are large enough to spread out impacts that otherwise would likely cause injury. The pads are strategically located, offering complete protection for your chest, forearms, elbows, upper arms, shoulders and spine.

Pros
* Solid rider protection
* Quality construction
* Reasonably cool and comfortable (as far as protective gear goes)
* Integrated, one piece design with built-in kidney belt

Cons
* Not as cool and comfortable as wearing just a jersey

Bottom-line
If you must crash hard on Sunday and still make it to work on Monday, the Rockgardn Flak Jacket will go a long way to ensure this happens.