What are the options for layering, and which layer comes first?
You can layer almost any air vest on top of a body protector. The things you need to be aware of in doing this are making sure that the fit is correct and making sure that there is always enough room for the air vest to inflate away from the body, even with the body protector underneath of it.
The pros of layering are that you can separate the pieces so you can choose just to wear your body protector or you can choose to wear them together. The cons are that if it's not properly fitted the air vest might shift around on top of the body protector. The other thing to be aware of is that you lose a little bit of the benefit of the air when it is on top of body protector.
Another option to consider is a hybrid. Until quite recently, most of the hybrids were built with the air vest on top of the body protector and they were just married together, so you didn't have to worry about those pieces shifting around.
Now, there is an innovative product on the market by FreeJump. This is something quite different because the air is actually on the inside, which is really interesting because as mentioned before, when you put air on the outside, you lose a little bit of the efficacy. With the air on the inside, you're truly getting the full benefit of the air, especially as it comes to spinal protection, because you have an air chamber on either side of your spine directly against your back so that effectiveness is not buffered with the body protector being on the inside.
The FreeJump hybrid is tested to be four times more effective than an air vest on top of a body protector and eight times more effective than a body protector alone. The con of this one, though, is that you can't separate the pieces. You're always wearing the whole thing. But because of the way that the canister is designed and the fact that it sits on top of the Beta Level 3 body protector, you can choose just not to plug in if you don't want to use the air on that day. This ends up being lighter weight and less cumbersome than two layers put one on top of the other.
We always say that there's not a lot of overlap between the capabilities and limitations of air vests and body protectors, so the safest thing is definitely to wear both. Depending on what you're doing and what discipline you're riding, some people will feel like that's lot of equipment and so they may choose just to wear one or the other, but if you're looking to wear both, those are some of the considerations between deciding between a hybrid versus an air vest over a body protector.
