Leatt Moto-GPX Club Brace Review

November 11th, 2008 • Review

The Leatt Moto-GPX Club and its more expensive brother, the “Sport,” have completely revolutionized the neck protection market.

For years, the most advanced neck protection available was foam neck donuts with little to no scientific credence. In the past few years, however, as neck injuries have risen, so has the level of neck protection available. The Leatt Brace essentially created the advanced neck brace market, and has been followed by many “copies” including one from Alpinestars and EVS. However, the Leatt Moto-GPX Club is by far the most popular, and one of the most affordable braces on the market, and this is why I choose it as my neck protection for 2008.

Build Quality

Overall, the build quality of the Club is pretty good. The brace feels very solid in the hand, and does not feel cheaply made at all. The higher end model, the Sport features carbon fiber segments of the brace which save about 70 grams (according to the Leatt-Brace website), but the added price is not worth the minimal savings, in my opinion. Another nice feature of the Leatt is the removable pads. This makes cleaning a snap after mud races. The pads can be thrown in the wash and the hard plastic sections washed with hot soapy water. However, I did find a problem with this method. When using water, the glue holding the velcro sections onto the hard plastic parts of the brace seemed to disintegrate. I have not heard of other reports of this problem, but it definitely makes me leery of cleaning the brace regularly. I hope that in the future the Leatt company will upgrade to higher quality glue in order to prevent this from happening in the future.

Comfort

Once you adjust to wearing the Leatt brace, you barely even notice it on the track. At first, I paired it with my Troy Lee Designs Bodyguard, and the combination was quite uncomfortable. The Leatt put too much pressure on my shoulders and caused a lot of arm pump problems. I eventually removed the hard plastic shoulder cups on the Bodyguard, and ever since the combination has been awesome. I can ride all day and barely notice that the brace is on and putting on/removing the brace is a snap. While not riding, the brace does limit my range of motion slightly, but it is not awful, and I can still complete all the tasks I need to such as putting my goggles on, or stretching before a moto.

Safety

Truthfully, it is impossible for me to asses the safety of the brace without sacrificing my safety. Nevertheless, I have yet to hear a report of anyone sustaining serious neck injuries while wearing a Leatt. I have, however, heard a lot of reports of riders coming out of serious crashes without serious injuries because they were wearing their Leatt. Their are some rumors that the Leatt will actually break your collar bone in order to save your neck. I am not sure of the validity of these rumors, but, even if they are true, I can say for certain that I would rather have a broken collarbone that will heal in a matter of weeks than a permanent of possible life threatening neck injury. Unfortunately, no one has conducted studies comparing the safety of the Leatt to the other competing neck braces, this is definitely a study that I would like to see conducted in the future.

Worth the investment?

Unless you sleep in a bed of money, at $395, even the lower priced Club is a sizable invest. However, I entirely believe that the high price of the Leatt brace is 100% worth it. The brace is a high quality, well designed, and comfortable brace which protects one of the most important parts of your body, your neck. The motocross community has seen too many riders injured because they were not wearing a neck brace, don’t let yourself be another downed rider. Some may try to save money by going with the cheap foam neck donuts, but I believe that your neck protection is one of the last places you should be trying to save money. If you are looking for a well-built, reliable, and mid-priced neck brace, I fully recommend the Leatt Moto-GPX Club brace.

Learn more about the Leatt Moto-GPX and Leatt’s other products on their website.

Tags: 2008, Aplinestars, EVS, Leatt, motocross, neck brace, protection, Review, Troy Lee Designs

Trackback URL.