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Expensive helmet vs. cheap one

As long as it is DOT approved the best helmet is the one you are comfortable donning and riding. This is especially true if you ride longer distances where an ill fitting lid can soon become a real pain.
 
How much is your brain worth?
Divide by 10


I view it simply as, ATGATT someone said a $50 is as good as a $500 maybe so if you just fall over at 10 MPH

1st Rule, Buy With in your budget and get full gear, the LID is the #1 decision IMO and the more you pay the more better the fit, feel, weight, composite as stated.

DOT Vs SNELL Vs ???? As long as they claim to meet a standard impact wise they are all the same.

It is not the speed that gets ya... Its the Impact :wow
 
kingmoochr said:
$600 Nexx Carbon

Feels like I'm wearing a hat.

Can't see any other reason to spend more money, esp on some bullshit like paint or decals. It's outrageous they charge $100+ more for painted helmets.
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I still don't quite believe how light that helmet was. It really does weigh as much as a hat.

That said I love my Suomy, it's light compared to most and really comfy. Hard finding visors and otehr bits for my model now though. I also tend to stay on top of helmet developments because I've had a lot of head injuries. It's also what I would consider my most important piece of gear.

For bikes I follow the ece standard. Don't care about snell. I'm also looking forward to these 6d designs and seeing some more testing.
 
Depends on how you interpret fault, because in the majority of the left turn t-bones, the riders are going ridiculously fast and putting themselves in very risky positions. I think I saw maybe one video in that entire collection where the rider was at no-fault whatsoever, except for being a bit sleepy.

As far as helmets go, as the cycle gear clerk said to me, "$50 helmet for a $50 head."
 
mercurial said:
Depends on how you interpret fault, because in the majority of the left turn t-bones, the riders are going ridiculously fast and putting themselves in very risky positions. I think I saw maybe one video in that entire collection where the rider was at no-fault whatsoever, except for being a bit sleepy.
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There are a bunch of left-turn and U-turn accidents shown where the rider isn't going too fast. There is one where a pedestrian steps out in front of a bike, causing the bike to stoppie and flip over forward. There is one (I think #3) where a car is clearly going way too fast and rear-ends one of two bikers turning left. A bike gets side-swiped by a car going faster than the bike. An SUV that crosses into the opposite lane in a turn, takes out a couple bikes, and then drives over them. And then a car that crosses into the opposite lane too. A car that goes way too fast, passes the camera car, and hits a motorcycle turning left.

Overall, I'd say it's about 50/50 bike/car fault. And of course most (though not all) of all these crashes could have been prevented if the rider was riding more defensively. It's crazy how many people ride into intersections, with cars waiting to turn left, without slowing down or changing lane position at all.
 
DOT ironically is a better rating then Snell unless you are talking about the Snell 2010 standard, which mostly copied the DOT/ECE standards. The previous Snell standard had excessively high penetration standards which resulted in less energy absorption (i.e. harder shell == less give).

The bigger question might be where you are putting your money. Spending the extra on an Arai (as I did today) doesn't matter if you're riding around in jeans.
 
If it's both DOT + Snell, it's a safe bet in a crash, and you can get those at a wide range of price points.

You're going to pay extra for lower weight, less wind noise, more comfort. If those things matter to you, then yes, it's worth paying for.

Fit is important too and sometimes depending on your head shape you won't have many options, but that's really more an arbitrary thing than a preference.

ALANRIDER7 said:
Quality gear is worth every penny.

[youtube]WMoNK31Wm_k[/youtube]
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Christ... Those clips have some of the most cringeworthy crashes I've ever seen, and I've seen some serious shit!
Russia: Not Even Once.
 
I remember the first time I pulled padding out of my helmet to wash it, when I looked at the materials inside the shell. Our helmets are really just bicycle helmets with a harder shell around them & some face protection.

Before that "discovery", a motorcycle helmet seemed like this magical protection that would keep my head safe no matter what. I try and remember that gear is great for sliding on the ground and light contact, but a car impact will easily exceed our helmet's ability to protect us.
 
RichK said:
I remember the first time I pulled padding out of my helmet to wash it, when I looked at the materials inside the shell. Our helmets are really just bicycle helmets with a harder shell around them & some face protection.

Before that "discovery", a motorcycle helmet seemed like this magical protection that would keep my head safe no matter what. I try and remember that gear is great for sliding on the ground and light contact, but a car impact will easily exceed our helmet's ability to protect us.
Click to expand...

Yeah, they're basically Styrofoam hats.
 
wakked1 said:
DOT ironically is a better rating then Snell unless you are talking about the Snell 2010 standard, which mostly copied the DOT/ECE standards. The previous Snell standard had excessively high penetration standards which resulted in less energy absorption (i.e. harder shell == less give).
Click to expand...
That's what I thought too--that all would be well with Snell 2010 lids. But I noticed they're still heavier than their ECE counterparts. I've read that Snell 2010 has a multiple impact requirement which leads to both heavier helmets and more energy transferred to the head in single impact. ECE helmets tend to be lighter and absorb more energy in a single impact as they aren't designed to pass a multiple impact test.

While multiple impact safety would be nice I wouldn't sacrifice single impact safety to get it.

I wear a Snell 2010 lid, not because I was looking for it, but most good helmets we get here are Snell, and I wanted a decent helmet that fit.

If you want to see how helmets really compare to each other in terms of safety look here:
http://sharp.direct.gov.uk/

They test models available in the UK. Even helmets with with the same model name you buy here might be a different helmet.
 
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