Any MotoGP can tell you that Alpinestars is one of the few brands making integrated airbag suits available to racers — perhaps one of the best safety features to come out thus far in the 21st century for motorcyclists.
How to take that technology off the track and onto the street though is a a tough proposition though, as there are infinitely more variable at play on public roads, when compared to a race course. Hence, we’ve had to wait a long time for this tech to trickle down to the masses.
The current trend of thinking seems for apparel manufacturer to partner with motorcycle manufacturers, as a way to popularize the expensive safety feature.
As such, rival apparel-maker Dainese has already made a very public deal with Ducati, which lead to the Ducati Multistrada 1200 D-Air, and the Vicenza-based company has (had?) other less-public deals in place, with companies like BMW.
It seems Alpinestars wants in on that action too, and has now signed an exclusive partnership deal with BMW Motorrad, which will see the German manufacturer and Italian maker enter into cooperation on designing and making jackets with the Alpinestars Tech-Air technology.
The first fruit of this cooperation with be a BMW Motorrad jacket, and later a waistcoat, both with the Tech-Air airbag technology integrated into them. The items will be co-branded by both BMW and Alpinestars, and they will be available in versions for both men and women.
According to their press release, the Alpinestars system will not link to the motorcycle, instead using Alpinestars integrated computer systems to detect a crash. This allows a rider to get on the bike and ride, without having to spend the time pairing the jacket to the motorcycle’s system.
This deal would seemingly nix the partnership in place between BMW and Dainese, which was announced at EICMA just over two years ago. It’s safe to assume too that Alpinestars will be making BMW’s other apparel items as well going forward.
There is no word yet on availability or pricing on this new Airbag jacket. This is especially important since both Dainese and Alpinestars have been reluctant to bring their airbag technology to the US market.
Our sources say Dainese will have the D-Air available later this year in the United States, but it’s not clear when Alpinestars will follow suit, no pun intended.
Source: BMW Motorrad
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