I want to get some body armour for DH riding, but at 6’5” I’ve got stupidly long ‘monkey arms’. Should I go for a full suit with the arm protection attached or would I be better with a T-shirt style suit with separate elbow /arm pads? Thanks.

I’ve been looking at this:

or this:

but can only guess at the pros and cons of each, any help will be greatly appreciated.

I’m only a measly 6’3″ but found the back protector on 661 armour left my lower back completely exposed.

The newer designs might be better but I went to a Dainese Pro shop and tried a few jackets on – they even offered to mix and match back protector and suit size to find the best fit (I’m tall but skinny). They are a bit more expensive but if it doesn’t fit properly it’s not worth anything.

Also with Dainese you might find a snowboard/MX is a better fit and are all pretty similar.

Generally I prefer to keep the jacket in one piece as I’ve seen plenty of crashes where separate arm/leg protection rotates or slides along a limb and leaves exposed flesh to slide along the ground. Are you likely to ever ride in a jacket but no arm protection?

plenty taller than you ride/race DH so I can’t see it being a major probem getting the correct size.. it’s entirely down to you what/how much armour you want to wear. unless I’m riding uplifted I tend to wear as little armour as possible, I find even the smallest amount of armour pretty horrible to wear and I ride better without any.

I’m 6’4″ and have a Dainese job which fits me very well. I guess the answer is to try and few on and see what fits.

Thanks guys, where’s the best place to try some as none of my LBS’s stock any and it’ll be a specific trip (from Oxfordshire)?

Oxfordshire? 😆

break into Rob Warners garage and help yourself, he’s a big lad too.

He’ll be away in South Africa at the moment as well.

(please don’t actually break into his garage though – unless you’re hideously wasted at the time so that it goes hilariously wrong and you can post about it on the silly drunks thread)