POOF! Roll away from your next crash

This, ahem, ridiculous video comes to us courtesy of England’s Motorcycle News, which featured Rejean Neron’s “Safety Sphere.” We imagine that nearly every motorcyclist has had a friend propose an inflatable protective sphere. The idea is simple—basically, an airbag enbubbles your entire body. In practice, it would take an awfully powerful explosion to inflate such a large bag, and an accidental enbubblement would throw a rider clean off his bike.

Though the Safety Sphere is possibly tongue-in-cheek, the idea of both rider-mounted and bike-mounted airbags does have merit. In 2005, Honda rolled out the first motorcycle airbag system on the luxurious Goldwing. In a front-end collision, the airbag comes out from between the handlebars and helps slow the rider down gradually.

In the rider-mounted, partial enbubblement corner is Dainese with their relatively new D-Air suits for racers and street riders. It combines a bike-mounted accelerometer on the forks, which detects collisions, and a rider-mounted pneumatic system with an inflatable airbag. The systems are in radio contact, and in the event of a crash, the airbag deploys and helps minimize rider injury.

We love seeing these developments. Yes, they might increase the complexity and cost of motorcycling, but if a full or partial enbubbling device would mean the difference between being laid-up with injuries and being back on the bike, the extra cost could be well worth it.