POC Bone VPD Leg Guards
The premium integrated knee / shin guard from POC Sports, the Bone VPD Leg is designed to provide you with maximum protection against impacts and sharp objects on the trail. A hard shell covers both your knee and shins, while an additional VPD plate sits above the knee to protect crucial soft tissue in the event of a crash. Specialising in high-end mountain bike and ski protective gear, POC Sports is a swedish brand that has burst onto the downhill mountain bike scene with a range of body armour and full face helmets that are here to rival, and exceed, the best. With a fresh approach that balances a scientific background with real world rider feedback, the POC body armour range has a focus on rider safety like no other brand. So if you're looking for high-end bike wear that fits as good as it looks, POC protection is a new alternative to the usual motorbike-styled products on the market, packed with the kind of technology that will keep you out of hospital and on the bike.

Hard Shell Toughness
When you're roosting over the top of a dusty berm or skimming over the top of a vicious rock garden, the last thing that should be on your mind is whether you have enough protection on your knee and shins. In case you hadn't noticed, your knees and legs are quite an important aspect of mountain biking, and they aren't that easy to replace! POC have come to the leg armour party with a very well thought-out design that takes the traditional hard shell design and adds some clever tweaks for rider comfort and protection. Firstly, the main issue with current knee/shin guards on the market is that when you're flying through the air and your legs are curled up in a ball, there isn't a whole lot to protect the top of your knee caps should they smash into a rock. This fleshy, delicate area is not somewhere that you want to be bleeding profusely from, so POC have cleverly added their VPD (visco-elastic polymer dough) material over this point to greatly enhance it's protection. The VPD material is a soft, dough-like substance that moulds and contours to your body (especially after a couple of minutes of wearing as your skin heats the gel) but hardens on impact to provide protection much like a hard-shell material would. The advantage of the VPD material is that it provides unparalleled flexibility and comfort, which is particularly important around the knee due to the large amount of movement that it sees, yet acts like a heavy plastic when it's given a whack to absorb the shock from the impact. Clever stuff!
Secondly, current knee/shin guards on the market focus their protection on the front of the leg, whilst leaving the back of your calf vulnerable and susceptible to damage from sharp pedals or rocks. The POC Bone VPD Leg guard has an integrated calf pad, that is included with the pads, to provide that protection, though it is removable if you find it too hot or unnecessary.
Just like the other Bone guards, the leg version uses vents in the hard outer shell to improve air flow. POC has achieved its focus on full artiulated design by ensuring the guards straps are far from the knee, and that the lower straps are fully adjustable in their postion.

From POC:

"All our products have been tested by top world gravity sport athletes and then further refined to perfection. Our athlete friends love to go flat out but without suffering cuts, bruises and headaches, or in the worst cases, risking back or brain damage as a result of crashes that sadly happens to even the best athletes. The end result is a line of lightweight, high performance gear that offers the ultimate protection against injury thanks to superior impact absorption and penetration resistance. When developing a product at POC, we do it in the spirit of doing the best. We never compromise in choosing materials or construction, to make a product cheaper or to increase margins, if that means compromising safety, quality or performance".

"It's our mission to do everything we can to develop protective gear that can save lives and reduce the severity of injuries"
 

The POC Bone VPD Leg Guard features:

• Hard Polypropylene outer shells
• EPP foam inner core
• Articulated knee support
• Visco-elastic Polymer Dough (VPD) padded upper knee
• Ventilated outer shells
• Removable calf/ankle protection
• Elastic straps with velcro closure
• Position-adjustable lower calf straps
• Colour: Matt White with black retaining straps
• Comes as a pair (left & right)
• Small: 35-43cm (centre of knee cap to centre of ankle bone)
• Large: 43-51cm (centre of knee cap to centre of ankle bone)