Jean-Benoit Buisson

What set this off

It started with an approval mark. Four characters and a number, printed on a strap, treated by nearly every listing as though it were a grade. It is not a grade. It records that a sample of that model went through impacts at defined points, at defined speeds, on a rig, and came out within defined limits. Two helmets carrying the same mark are not equivalent, and a helmet carrying it is not thereby safe — the mark describes a test, and the test is not the accident. Once that gap is visible, the same shape turns up across the whole shelf. Armour sold on a level that is the outcome of a force measurement, read as a ranking of quality. Oil sold on a viscosity grade when the specification printed beside it is what decides whether a wet clutch will slip. A lock sold on the thickness of its shackle when a published certification is what classifies it. And most pages answering these questions look alike: a ranked list, a score, a button, and not one figure a reader could check against the maker's own sheet.

The second problem arrives after the parcel is open. This equipment is bought on a headline and kept or returned on details. A chain kit with the right pitch and the wrong link count. Sprockets that will not meet a bolt pattern. A visor that fits every helmet in a brand's range except the one it was bought for. A top box with no plate, and a plate for a rack the machine does not have. A mount whose clamp is cut for a bar diameter the handlebar does not have. A helmet in exactly the right circumference that presses on the forehead after half an hour, because the internal shape is not the shape of that head and no maker publishes it. None of that is on the front of the box, and each one decides whether the purchase was worth making.

So the site does the dull part. It reads what manufacturers and standards bodies publish, confirms each product reference market by market, and writes down the line that settles the question — the approval with its version and date rather than a claim about protection, an armour level next to what the test actually measures, an oil's specification next to its grade, a chain's pitch and link count next to its brand — and it says plainly when a figure has not been published at all. That last habit matters more than it sounds: a great deal of the disappointment on this shelf comes from a number nobody printed, or from one printed without the condition that gives it meaning.

Behind the pages are notes: the specification that matters for each family, the places where a manual and a sales page disagree, which fittings tie an owner to one brand for every later purchase, what a maker means when it prints a weight without a size, and the buying mistake each family invites. The site is those notes put in order, in five languages, because the same questions are asked in French, German, Spanish and Italian and are answered worse in most of them.

Everything written so far, in one list

Nobody maintains this list. It is assembled from the catalogue each time the site is built, one line per published page, and it grows or shrinks on its own when a shelf opens or a reference is pulled. What it records is what has been written about — which is a different list, to be plain about it, from what stands in anybody's garage.

• AGV K1 S E2206
• Cyril R1
• MTR S-6 Evo
• Vinz Kennet
• VCOROS WS-609
• 2EXTREME 4200868
• Akozon 420 15T/37T
• EVGATSAUTO 420 chain kit 37/17
• Tiardey CP101125
• Yosoo Health Gear T8F 11T/44T

Three convictions, arrived at the slow way

Whatever a listing prints in the largest type is almost never what the decision turns on. A helmet is sold on an approval when the internal shape is what decides whether it gets worn for four hours; a jacket on an armour level when whether the pockets hold that armour over the joint is what decides if it is ever in the right place; a chain kit on a brand when the pitch and link count decide whether it fits at all; a lock on the diameter of its shackle when what it is fastened to decides the outcome. What equipment costs to keep outlives what it cost to buy. A helmet whose visors are discontinued after two seasons is a helmet with a service life set by its spare parts; a liner that does not come out is a liner that cannot be washed; a chain chosen without regard to its sealing rings sets the lubricant bill for years. And the thing you end up judging it on tends not to appear on any specification sheet at all: how much noise reaches the ear at speed, whether a glove can work a switch, whether a zip still runs after a winter, and whether a part will still be catalogued when the first one wears out.

What I am not

I am not a motorcycle mechanic, a riding instructor, a materials engineer or a certification body. I hold no qualification in those fields, I have never worked for a manufacturer, an importer or a dealer, and nothing on this site rests on a professional title. A page here describes a product — its dimensions, its stated figures, its published approvals — and stops there. In particular, every weight, shell size, armour level, approval version, viscosity grade, chain pitch and link count, pad reference, disc diameter, torque figure, load index and capacity on this site is reported from the manufacturer, with its unit as published and its source named, and never derived by me. When a maker gives a figure under a named condition, the page attributes both to the maker and keeps them together, and nothing here is described as stronger, quieter or safer than something else because a specification sheet says so.

This site is not a workshop manual and not safety advice. For a helmet's replacement interval, for an airbag's service and its cartridge, for a torque figure on a safety-critical fastener, for bedding in new pads and for the specification an engine's clutch requires, it points to the maker's instructions, the markings on the product and the standard the listing cites, rather than paraphrasing them. Two statements are repeated rather than assumed. An approval and an outcome are different things and stay apart, and each page says which approval, in which version, its maker actually published. And no helmet, no armour, no airbag and no lock is described here as making anything safe: a page reports what the maker supplies and what the marking states, and the rest belongs to the maker's instructions.

A byline is not an argument, and none of this asks to be taken on one. Wherever a judgement is made, what it rests on is written into the page making it; the longer account of what puts one product above another in a list sits on its own page.

The working rules

• Every figure arrives with its source attached — a datasheet, a manual, a marking on the product, a named standard, or what owners keep saying after a year of using the thing.
• Invention is out of the question, on a price, a reference or a specification alike. Where a maker has put nothing in writing, the row is left blank and the page states in words that it is blank.
• Before a page goes up, its reference is confirmed store by store. Where a model is not for sale in your country, the button runs a search in your own store rather than landing you on a listing that has gone.
• Where the less expensive option is the right one, the page says so — and where the real answer is to clean and adjust the chain, replace a scratched visor rather than the helmet, or check the pressures cold rather than buy anything, it says that instead.
• No page is organised around a headline. Nothing is ordered by how much protection a listing implies, and where a new model is barely distinguishable from the last one, the page says so.

Why a number read wrongly is expensive here

Because this equipment is sold on documents that attest one thing to people who read them as attesting another, and the gap is only noticed on a cold morning at the roadside. An approval appears where a promise is expected. A test level appears where a ranking is expected. A circumference appears where a fit is expected. And the parts everyone treats as extras — the anti-fog insert, the chain rivet, the mounting plate, the thread locker, the gauge — frequently decide whether any of it works at all.

A surprising amount of what matters on this subject costs nothing to know. Reduced to one line: a published approval records a test that was passed, and undertakes nothing about an outcome. Much of what makes equipment work better costs nothing: cleaning and adjusting a chain in the position the manufacturer specifies, checking pressures before the tyres warm, doing up a helmet strap properly, washing a liner so it stops packing down, and replacing a visor rather than looking through a scratched one at night. Sites that exist to shift equipment pass over those steps. They are not passed over here.

Corrections

Point out a mistake and it gets fixed, with the date of the fix left visible on the page afterwards. Write to [email protected].

Jean-Benoit Buisson · RiderVerdict · Montrollet, France