Review Detail
Very disappointing
My old Shoei was well past its use-by date, so got this helmet in September 2009. I liked the design, the shape and the fit. The inflatable air bladders were, to me at least, a good idea and ensured it was a snug, but definitely not uncomfortable, fit at all times. I was really after a helmet with an integral sun visor and I prefer Double-D fasteners, so this helmet appeared to fit my requirements ideally.
Oh dear, what a disappointment this helmet was.
The first thing I noticed on the ride from the shop was the visor opening. The first “click” on the visor is a 2 inch wide opening resulting in the wind being blown straight into your eyes, with or without the sun visor down. In fact, with the sun visor lowered I personally felt the wind was channelled into the eyes slight more.
By itself that would not have been too much of an issue, but I like to crack the visor open a little to clear any fogging, and boy does this helmet fog-up! At the slightest hint of any moisture, both the outer visor and inner sun visor (if lowered) would fog up. When both fog up it was very difficult to see and I had to open the outer visor to clear it, but then I cannot see because the wind is directed straight into my eyes.
I tried the air vents in all possible combinations with and without a cowl covering my mouth and nose, but all to no avail. In the end I resorted to a fog free visor insert, which at least prevented the outer visor fogging up, but the sun visor would still fog.
The press-stud on one side of the chin curtain lasted about 2 days before it refused to stay snapped shut. Not too much of a problem, but given the price of the helmet I was disappointed with the quality.
The integral sun visor itself is a good idea (IMHO) and is extremely easy to open and close. The standard sun visor is however not very dark and hardly made any difference in bright sun. You can purchase darker sun visors, but I never got round to doing so (see later).
The helmet is reasonably quiet, defiantly not the worst I have had, but not quite as quiet as my old Shoei. It is also reasonably stable at speed, though some buffeting occurs as you approach higher speeds.
What really disappointed me with this helmet however was the build quality. In addition to the press-stud annoyance mentioned above, after about 5 months of use one of the visor release catches popped off whilst ridding about 30MPH. So with one side of my visor flapping open I had to stop and run to pick up the catch before someone drove over it – luckily it was early one morning and there was not much traffic about.
Maybe I had not fastened it properly when I refitted the visor after cleaning, but the fact that the whole catch detached completely from the helmet when it itself had not been removed was worrying. It has happened a couple of other times since as well.
The last straw for me was when the plastic round the bottom of the helmet started coming unglued. After 4 weeks of waiting, the local supplier had still not got the parts to repair it, so I demanded a refund.
For the money I really cannot recommend this helmet. At half the price I might have put up with some of its failings, but even then I would not expect it to fall apart after about 2,000 miles worth of use.
