Dennis Kavish

A few years ago doing a ride with Rally Connex up in Sudbury I was booting down an old abandoned road behind a buddy of mine only to see him hit what looked like a small rock in the road and him depart his bike at about 70km/hr. He was no where near the graceful vision of Superman flying through he air, but more a vision of the pain that he was going to receive on impact with the rhubarb and rocks that were lining the road.

On impact he managed to suffer some well-bruised ribs and right shoulder blade, and his bike fairing much worse. In retrospect, he should have suffered much much worse, broken ribs for sure and quite possible a broken collarbone and possibly separated shoulder. The lucky thing was that he was wearing Tekrider's Rally Sport TekVest.

From that weekend on my hot stuffy, smelly, black, nylon and plastic form fitting body style armour was a nuisance and I was jonesing for a Tekvest.

My full time career is that of a Sports Therapist, both Massage and Osteopathic. Needless to say I take safety very seriously and weigh the pros and cons of every item of gear I own and wear. In retrospect watching my buddy go flying in slow motion will surely give an appreciation for safety gear. A year or so later I was fortunate enough to have had a tour of the Tekrider factory and got to see how they form the armour, how it is all manually stitched and assembled, the care that goes into each and every piece, not some stamped, computer automated item that is rolled off in the hundreds per hour. Having the tour, seeing all the returned vests that are battled scarred but still intact, plus knowing my anatomy and were the panels are placed and how they are to perform I was sold on the safety benefits of their products.

Unfortunately with the advent of the Leatt Brace (which I purchased) my Body Armour no longer worked as the Leatt is rather wide around the neck and I would have had to do a whole lot of cutting and modifying for it to still work. Fortunately I was up in Kinmount pre-riding an event for Rally Connex again and came across the Steve of Tekrider as he was just returning from a long 4-day ride. We got to talking and I noticed he was wearing a Leatt with his Tekvest. After chatting about it, he told me he was wearing the 3rd version of a new Tekvest built specifically with the Leatt in mind. This new model being the Rally Max. Steve offered it to me to take, wear, thrash and take notes and in a few weeks let him know what I found, thought, etc...in short become a product tester!

So, I did as he asked, I beat it up, got it dirty, thought about crashing in it (didn't though!) and sent him some feedback that made it into the newer versions!

I now wear the final version of the Rally Max and can say with confidence it is one of the most important pieces of gear I put on when I swing my leg over my KTM 450EXC.

It is breathable, adjustable, fits snugly around the base of the Leatt, has an insulated sleeve for your water bladder tube, lots of pockets, and most importantly PROTECTION.

Thanks Steve, and staff at Tekrider!