CarLo

for the racers, do you prefer moto or cycling full face helmet?

cryptid01

I wear a moto helmet, Airoh Aviator, but it's ACU gold stickered which is a euro certification. If not that, I personally would wear DOT only, then ASTM 1952, then SNELL, then CPSC 1203 in that order.

dminor 

I used to be a firm believer in moto helmets for downhill and used a SixSixOne Hurricane Flight for a couple or three years. There have been two schools of thought on the subject: I originally switched because, at the time, more and more team managers were wanting their racers in moto helmets because of the potential for high-energy crashes nearly or as severe as one on a moto. Plus, I came from a moto background, where Snell is the holy grail; so I wanted to get back to a Snell helmet. (BTW, as far as I'm concerned, a DOT cert is meaningless. If you've seen those 'puddin' bowl' pieces of crap that a lot of Harley riders wear, you'll see that, somehow, those jokes-for-helmets are DOT certified). For my money, SMF cert is still the only way to go on a moto.

Later, I got into a good, spirited discussion of moto vs. bike full-face helmets on another forum with Sean Estes (Easton-Bell Sports) who sat on the ASTM board that drew up the ASTM 1952 standard. Thier contention is that there was a lot of evidence that moto helmet shells are almost too stiff and non-compliant for anything but an extremely high-speed moto crash - - and that the bike full-face should not be quite as rigid (think crush-zones). I didn't want to believe him at the time; but I did more research on my own, went over his arguments again and the reasoning eventually won my over. My next helmet was an Evolution Carbon, which served me well before giving up its life for me this spring. I'm now using an Urge Down-O-Matic, which does not right now carry an ASTM certification but does meet CE1078, which is reputed to be almost as rigorous of a standard as Snell B95.

cryptid01

I don't think anyone would advocate racing dh in one of those puddinhead helmets.


Really? Even if you're racing offroad in hot weather for 4 hours through super tight woods and technical terrain without getting out of second gear? Before I got the Airoh, I was contemplating an ASTM 1952 helmet for that task. I do have a Snell helmet (Klim F4) which is touted as the best ventilated Snell helmet out there and doesn't breathe anywhere near as good as the Airoh. And it weighs twice as much.

Based on my research and observation, it's the snell helmets that are uber stiff, where as DOT/ECE helmets like the Airoh and the Rockgardn Blacklite are more flexible.

Please don't make me research anything again though, d - after reading all those certifications my brain felt like I'd gotten a concussion anyway!

/devilsadvocate

dminor 

I know; my point was just that a DOT cert in and of itself it pretty much meaningless.

Really. But maybe I'm odd (don't say it...) - - I've never really been bothered by the less-than-optimal ventilation in a moto helmet. Even wearing an early-gen Bell Star in 100-mile desert hare-and-hounds.


Yeah, that's kind of what I went through when I was looking retire/replace my Hurricane Flight. I'd seen enough of ASTM 1952 after researching and discussions with punkassean.