Last week we gave you AMERiders Motorcycle Helmet Information Part 2 well this is the Motorcycle Helmet Information series article conclusion. Instead of having you read so much in one sitting AMERiders decided to break it up into three parts for you, I know I don’t like reading so much in one sitting. So, breaking it down seemed the best to do. We left off with telling you how to clean your helmet so now we will explain a bit about helmet types and etc.
3/4, Open-Face And Skid Lids oh my!
Everyone has their own preference on what type of helmet to wear some prefer to wear 3/4, Open-Face or half-shell while others prefer to wear full-face or modular helmets. (We sell all of these and more). However, if you are too pretty to have your face torn off in a crash like some of us at AMERiders then wearing a full face or Modular helmet is the way to go.
Also worth considering: bugs, rain, hail, road debris, rocks, wind, cold, being seen talking to yourself, seagulls. can all be warded away from your face with a visor that covers your face as the Modular, Full-face, open face and some 3/4 helmets.
Sun Glasses, Flip-Down Shades, And Visors
Another tidbit of info in our Helmet Information series is about Sun Glasses, Flip-Down Shades, And Visors. It gets bright outside, so you’ll want to protect your eyes. Hands down the best way to do this is by swapping your clear visor for a tinted one. This completely encloses your face and encompasses your vision; everything you look through and all light reaching your eyes is at the same level of brightness. Carry a spare in an old sock and swap between clear and dark at dawn and dusk.
Some riders prefer sunglasses or even goggles. However, Looking through two layers of plastic (glasses and visor) is never going to be as clear as looking through one. Sunglasses/Goggles allow your face to get burned and don’t totally protect your eyes. Same thing goes for flip-down sun visors, which also impair a helmet’s safety in a crash.
Either way, keep your vision clear and free from hazardous debris while taking on the open road. and ensure you either have a visor on your helmet or you are wearing a pair of glasses or goggles.
Different Helmets For Different Disciplines
Some other tidbits for you in our Helmet Information series conclusion are about the different helmet disciplines. Nice, round, normal helmets do everything pretty well. If you’re not sure what kind of helmet you want or need, start here. Sports helmets tend to include more ventilation and cant the horizon up a bit, to facilitate vision when tucked in or hanging off. They may also prioritize stability at higher speeds. They tend to be very loud. Adventure helmets add a dirt-style peak for added pose-appeal. You don’t need one. Some allow you to wear goggles, but none work better with them.
Dual-Sport helmets are dirt bike helmets that are road legal. Look for ECE or Snell certification, DOT should never be considered enough. These are miserable at highway speeds. Peaks exist to deflect “roost” kicked up by the rear tire of bikes in front of you. Motocross helmets are crazy light and extremely well ventilated. They may not be road legal.
Novelty helmets allow road pirates to look like they’re abiding by the letter of the law, without being all unmanly and actually providing any safety, comfort or weather protection. Potato, potato! Retro helmets don’t work as well as normal helmets and are primarily for looking neat on Instagram.
Aerodynamics, Inside, And Out
A helmet’s job is to slip through the air with as much stability as possible, in directions other than straight ahead too. This facilitates comfort obviously but also makes things like looking over your shoulder every time you change lanes or speed that much easier and quicker and a nicely re-attached airflow is also a quieter airflow. Smooth, round shapes do all this best. Or smaller helmets with boat tails. The fewer protruding bits and seams and whatnot there are, the more stable and quieter a helmet will be.
Things get a little more complicated because there’s a number of small holes drilled in the helmet to draw air through it and also a great big one in the bottom through which you stick your head. Conventional wisdom states that the better ventilated a helmet is, the noisier it is too. In reality, this needn’t be the case.
What to look for
Look for vent channels built into the styrofoam liner. These should travel from large rear vents to the front vents, enabling air to be pulled through the helmet. Without these channels, your head just blocks things up and this through flow can’t occur.
But by far the biggest contributor to noise levels is that whopping great hole in the bottom through which you insert your head. And you’re making the problem worse. Because many motorcycle riders don’t know anything about riding motorcycles, you’ve been asking helmet makers to make helmets easier to get into. Which means wider openings, which mean more noise. Stop it. A tighter-fitting helmet with a smaller head hole is a more comfortable, quieter, better fitting helmet. The modern Bell Star is unacceptably loud (and unstable) specifically because its head hole is far too large.
Visibility
As the highest point on your body, visible from all directions, your helmet is the front line of your battle against criminally incompetent car drivers. A single bright color, like white, or a hi-viz helmet is most visible. Fussy designs, no matter how bright they are, can blend into busy urban backgrounds or otherwise befuddle a car driver’s limited brain cells. Just don’t trust your safety to them paying attention. They don’t and you should ride accordingly.
Helmet Accessories
Throughout this Helmet Information series we have tried to give you plenty of information so here is the last bit. You can seal any helmet tightly around your neck using a Quiet Rider or other helmet skirts. Most helmets ship with a chin curtain. Fit it. You’ll also want earplugs. All helmets are loud enough at highway speeds to cause hearing damage via wind noise. Earplugs block this persistent noise, allowing you to hear stuff like car horns and sirens better.
And that Ladies and gents is Motorcycle Helmet Information series article conclusion I hope that you have enjoyed it and also hope that you come back to read more articles like
~And as always….
~Live Free Ride Hard~
~AMERiders
and
Let AMERiders keep you informed with our Motorcycle Helmet Information series.
And as always don’t forget to send us your stories, pictures, and events for posting to GALLERY.AMERIDERS @ GMAIL.COM and we will post them for you. The more people that know about your event the better and we are offering free advertising. We would also love to hear about your rides and love to see those bikes so send those stories and pictures.
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