Introducing
the 6D Helmet By MXP St aff Pho t o s pro vided by 6D hel met afety products seem to be one of the last frontiers in motorsports. Motorcycles have developed to be powerful, durable machines that only the best can fully tame. The parts and designs on them improve in tiny increments from year to year, but safety equipment that we choose to protect our bodies with is much the same as it has been for decades. Two former professional racers, Bob Weber and Robert Reisinger, have designed what they feel is a breakthrough product - the safest off-road helmet ever built; a helmet design, totally unique, and designed to absorb the energy of a crash. The new 6D helmet uses two separate EPS foam liners with the two liners suspended by 27 rubber dampers. In a low speed or low impact crash, the inner EPS shell compresses towards the outer shell, but is dampened by the ODS (Omni-Directional Suspension) devices, which are basically rubber shocks. The absorptive qualities of the ODS slows the compression of the foam EPS down until the force of the crash compresses the rubber completely, which leads to the inner foam liner and outer foam liner meeting each other. When the two meet they become a conventional one-piece EPS liner. To use a motorcycle comparison, it is like having tiny shock absorbers between the layers. The big plus of the ODS system is that unlike most helmet systems, which are designed for the big hit and the big hit alone. The 6D helmet is designed to absorb the small hits that are the biggest cause of concussions while still protecting from the bigger crashes. And, since the inner EPS liner floats on the 27 shock absorbers, it has the ability to move, not just vertically with the blow, but in sheer and rotation to further increase the helmet’s ability to lessen injury. In short, the 6D ATR-1 off-road helmet is designed to protect your brain over a broader range of crashes and speed. We caught up with Bob Weber as he was preparing to fly to China and inspect their Asian manufacturing plant.
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54 JunE 2013 · Motocross Performance
6D Helmets 12.02.indd 1
2013-05-03 10:15 AM