Result !!
(As in, I've made a decision)
After checking some of the other threads I realised there was a 10% discount offer to UKGSers from both Helmet City and Just Helmets.
Helmet City had most of the helmets I was interested in, so I visited this morning and spend an hour or so checking everything out.
To recap what I want... I need a helmet that's suitable for both cold weather and hot weather in the same trip (e.g. Spain in winter, followed by southern Morocco). I want to be able to flip the chin bar to improve ventilation, but still have a full pull down visor that's effective against wind in my eyes. Also I'd like a pull down sunshield. You'll note my criteria are all comfort based.
At well over £350, the
Schuberth J1 was the most expensive alternative and I had high hopes, but for me the concept is flawed. It has a huge visor which is great, but the chin bar is just a thin rod that can be unclipped, so offers no additional weather protection over the Jet version. Also, the visor can't be lifted high enough, so interferes with my vision. Duh.
When I compared the
Shark Evoline to other helmets I realised the visor is quite short, roughly the same as the BMW System 5. BMW got around this by having a different visor for the Jet version (which was a right pain to pack). So on the Shark, when the chin bar is pulled over the top of the head, there's not as much wind protection for the eyes as on alternative helmets. Some people might value the ability to swing the chin bar back into place whilst on the move, but I couldn't envisage changing formats more than three of four times in a trip. At around the £300 mark the Shark is getting on for twice the price of some of the other offerings.
I wasn't expecting to be able to try the
HJC IS-Multi, but Helmet City had one in stock in my size. This offers seven different formats including a peaked Jet style which would be very useful when riding into the evening sun. But everything seemed a bit flimsy and the padding didn't match my head. So no thanks.
The one I was really looking forward to was the
Nolan N43 Air. There's now a N43E Air which has some more features. In concept it's similar to the Caberg Hyper X, see below, but for me there's something wrong with the depth of the helmet--it sits too high on the head and the pull down sunshield cuts right across the field of vision. Adam at Helmet City also warned the top vents might not be waterproof in a downpour.
The one I kept going back to was the
Caberg Hyper X. This has a detachable chin bar, and one side can be pulled out slightly to make it easier to put on. Plenty of room for glasses/sunglasses, though might have to take them off before the helmet is pulled off. The chin bar offers good bad weather protection, and the large visor overlaps the chin guard about 50%. What this means is that when the chin guard isn't in place, it's a huge deep visor with great wind protection.
The colour choices aren't great--white, black, black with silver, white with antracite. The size/colour I wanted isn't in stock so will have to be shipped to me next week.
List price is £180, with the 10% off this would mean £162. We settled on £160 shipped.
I knew I could get it shipped to me for £150 from
Caberg Helmet Shop but I was happy to reward Helmet City with the additional funds for the time Adam spent with me going over all the alternatives.
Hopefully the helmet will arrive in a few days time, when I'll update this thread with my thoughts. Many thanks to those who've offered advice and suggestions, especially darrenptalbot for suggesting I look at the Hyper X.
Tim
.
