Mountain bike riding can be a dangerous sport with crashes and falls happening regularly. There is a plethora of protective gear available and I have been using a pair of Troy Lee Designs T-Bone Knee guards. These are considered a “light-weight” riding knee guard, composed of a layer of ethylene-vinyl acetate copolymer foam, Thermo Plastic Rubber and memory foam. This offers okay protection but has room for improvement.
I have owned these pads for 2 years and they have slowly degraded with various crashes and simple wear and tear over time. After taking the pads apart it became extremely obvious that the pads were past their used by date. The memory foam has completely degraded and the real only protection provided by the knee guards is the thermo plastic rubber which has a low surface area.
I have quite a bit of D30 foam so this was a perfect opportunity to upgrade my pads with some of the best available protection material out in the market currently. Essentially what would be replaced is the memory foam (2nd image, far right)
The specific type of D30 foam I will be using is the Skived 6mm thick foam. The holes shown in the orange foam allows some breathability. Unfortunately the foam is quite stiff so I have done relief cuts on the top side of the foam to allow it to flex and form to the users legs more easily along with some chamfering to the sides of the foam.
