Picking the Right Lid for a Ride
Posted by Ben Baker on Nov 16th 2016
| Since 19 states require helmets, 27 have some sort of helmet law and only three leave it up to the rider (Iowa, Illinois and New Hampshire, the “Live Free or Die” state), if you ride you going to need a lid. | |
| Depending on the source, there are up to 9 types of helmets. | |
| 1. | Open Face - 3/4s - Covers the ears, but no chin guard. Small visor or full-face Plexiglas shield. |
| 2. | Half - Exposed ears, no chin guard. |
| 3. | Dirt-Motocross - Designed for dirt tracks. Usually doesn’t have a shield since riders wear goggles. Reinforced chin guard. Has a visor coming over the forehead. |
| 4. | Modular - The chin piece slides up and the shield may slide up independently. |
| 5. | Sport - Just the shield slides up. |
| 6. | Adventure-Touring - A visor and shield. Often has electronics built in. |
| 7. | Touring - Shield slides up. Sometimes has internal integral sunglasses. |
| 8. | Scooter - Half helmet with a large fixed shield. |
| 9. | Race Replica - Similar to motocross, but has a shield and no visor. |
| More practically, this list can be whittled down to 5 types. The are only a few differences between modular, sport and touring, few differences between open face and scooter and few differences between Motocross and Race. | |
| PICKING A FIT | |
| The first thing to do is make sure the helmet fits. The best way to do this is to try one one. It should be snug, but not tight. If it’s tight, it’ll cause pain on a long ride. If it’s loose, it will slide around. Having a helmet slide down over your eyes at 60 MPH is not a good thing. | |
| There are three basic shapes: | |
| Long oval | |
| Intermediate oval | |
| Round | |
| You need to pick the shape that best fits you head for the reasons mentioned above. If your head is very round and you get a long oval, you’ll develop pressure points that cause pain. The helmet can slide. This is why it is important to try helmets on if you can. | |
| Head Size | |
| Take a cloth measuring tape. Wrap it around your head just above your eyebrows to the thickest point on the back of your head. This tells your head size, which can be cross-referenced to a lid size chart. | |
| Adjustable | |
| Sometimes cheek pieces and liners can be replaced to make a better fit. Higher end helmets offer this. | |
| Vents | |
| Make sure a full helmet has enough vents to provide air flow. To few and it’s going to be hot in the summer, no matter what the safety people say. | |
| RIDER’S CHOICE | |
| Since you can get a helmet in just about any color, many riders opt for one that suits their style. Some helmet makers are now turning out lids that look like the beast from the Predator movies. You can get Darth Vader, Storm trooper or something else that strikes your fancy. | |
| Most riders are going to opt for something a bit less flashy like the German Style helmet that’s very popular. You can even get helmets with full-skull wraps. | |
| With an individual style picked, the decision now comes to comfort. Full helmets are not supposed to be hotter than partials, at least that’s what the safety experts say. Reality can be different. Cruiser says, “But we will concede that there may be circumstances, notably traffic jams in hot, humid weather, where you are significantly hotter in a full-face helmet than with a lesser one or no helmet.” | |
| I ride in South Georgia. In the summer time, my modular helmet is HOT. I have to slide the shield up to get enough air flow to make it bearable. In the winter my half helmet is COLD! I pick a lid based on where I’m riding, how long I’ll be in the saddle and the outside temps. Most of the time, I wear the half around town and put on the modular when I head out of town. | |
| Another reason for picking a helmet style is in-helmet electronics. If you have a two-way radio, then a lid with a chin bar is just about required. You can’t put enough wind baffle on a mic to keep the roar out if you’re doing 65 MHP. You need that chin guard to block the wind. | |
| SAFETY | |
| Looking over the list, the least safe helmet is the half, sometimes called a brain bucket. The nickname comes from the fact that a half helmet is just enough to hold the biker’s brains if he is killed in a crash. | |
| The safest helmet is usually a full helmet of some kind. The quality of construction is going to make the difference when comparing individual lids. What makes these safest is they cover the entire head, including the chin. | |
| There are two groups in the United States that test helmets for safety, the Snell Foundation and the Federal Department of Transportation (DOT). The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is a department within the DOT. | |
| Both agencies test helmets through impact measurements. That means the helmets get hit until they crack. The hitting is usually done by dropping a helmet on a steel anvil. | |
| Beyond this, the two agencies have different standards for the tests. A Snell helmet may not meet DOT requirements. A DOT helmet may not meet Snell standards. | |
| “Both Snell and DOT measure the suddenness of the stop with an accelerometer, a device used to measure acceleration or in this case deceleration, that is mounted inside the headform. When the helmet smacks into the anvil, the accelerometer measures the headform deceleration throughout the duration of the impact event. This acceleration pulse is generally plotted as G's versus milliseconds where one G is equal to the acceleration due to gravity on the surface of the earth. The testers analyze the acceleration pulse to determine whether the helmet passed or failed the test,” Snell says. | |
| Helmet Check offers a database of helmets and safety reports. The information is voluntarily supplied by helmet makers. The website offers a place for riders to check their own lids to see if it passes a safety test. | |
| Not all helmets are listed on Helmet Check. | |
| Snell Foundation | |
| “Snell testing also impacts the helmet against a steel edge anvil that may simulate the edge of a sign stanchion or guardrail,” says the Snell testing comparison page. | |
| Snell Foundation testing is done in it’s labs by its researchers. | |
| DOT | |
| Under federal law, “Helmets that do not meet the minimal DOT certification standards may not be sold as ‘motorcycle helmets’.” | |
| DOT certification is done by helmet manufacturers. | |
| The full DOT rules for helmet safety can be read here. | |
| Joint certification | |
| If Snell and the DOT both sign off on a helmet, does that make it even safer? No. “A motorcycle helmet that carries both DOT and Snell standards may have gone through different testing schemes, but may not necessarily be superior to helmets that meets the DOT standard,” says Web Bike World. | |
| It’s easy to make make this more complicated by considering the helmet standard for other countries. | |
| ONE LAST THING | |
| If you get in a wreck, CHANGE YOUR HELMET. A lot of companies say if you drop a helmet it should also be changed. Hairline cracks and internal cracks can’t always been seen on an external inspection. | |