‘Bionic’ was big news in the 70s when fictional US TV spaceman ‘The Six Million Dollar Man’ crashed on a NASA test flight and was ‘rebuilt’, giving him superhuman strength. Motorcycle PPE specialists Alpinestars has cleverly adopted the term for its range of gear that protects riders in a crash so that they - hopefully - won’t also need a rebuild.
Its latest, the modular ‘Bionic XTR Plasma Protection Jacket’, is an impressive piece of kit, looking so high-tech it could almost have been designed by those space guys. Importantly, it is aimed at ‘all forms of off-road riding’. Why? Because XTR stands for ‘extreme’, meaning Alpinestars intends it to be used not just for gentle tootling along green-lanes but for full-on motorsport too.
