If you wash your bike gear, take the armour out!

New research from MotoCAP shows that washing your motorcycle gear can affect more than just its appearance. They found that laundering reduced the impact protection performance of all the armour tested, even if there was no visible deterioration. Hot washing and tumble drying caused greater deterioration than cold washing and line drying, but is that even a thing riders do?MotoCAP recommends removing the armour before washing your motorcycle gear, unless the manufacturer specifically states that it is suitable for washing.They also found that washing gear with para-aramid liners, actually increased its abrasion resistance… perhaps this might encourage there to be a few less whiffy “lived in” gear wearing riders around

I don’t have access to the papers and there’s no detailed summary published on the WWW for the time being, but we snagged these screen grabs…Ride Safe, Safe ride.