#helmets

Guess what month it is at MO? It’s geeaar month, sergeant. The kind of motorcycle gear you wear, that is, that makes life on your bike much more pleasant no matter the climatic conditions. No doubt there will be amazing breakthroughs in the future of which our feeble 21st-century minds can’t even conceive: I’m picturing a shoulder-mounted rocket-propelled drone that deploys in 0.001-second to lift you above and away from an imminent left-turning Buick hovercraft. For now, we celebrate the 10 best pieces of gear the human race has come up with so far. Some you wear, some carries the gear you might want to wear later, some just makes the ride way more enjoyable.

This motorcycle helmet sale over at Cycle Gear is a big one, including a ton of our favorite helmet brands including Arai, Bell, HJC, Shoei, and many more. Literally hundreds of offerings are up for grabs for discounts ranging from 15% to over 60% off, covering a healthy mix of styles from full-face street helmets to helmets for motocross and ATV/UTV riders as well. Solid colors, race replicas, and bold graphic helmets are all part of the equation as well, and a quick skim revealed that a number of HJC’s Marvel Comics series helmets ( Captain America, The Punisher, Iron Man, and others) are up for grabs for a reasonable 20% off. If you missed the info on the Revzilla End of Season Clearout sale we covered a few weeks back (it’s still on!), here’s another chance to save big on new gear.

As we roll into fall, you’re looking at primetime motorcycle gear shopping. With roughly half the continent reaching the end of riding season, motorcycle helmets, jackets, and other types of motorcycle gear are popping up on sale across the web. In particular, Revzilla.com has recently opened up a significant closeout sale featuring all sorts of gear from Dainese, Alpinestars, Icon, and many of your other favorite brands, with savings ranging from 20% to 65% off!

Skully, the techie helmet company with a reputation among riders worse than Harvey Weinstein’s, has reorganized itself and is preparing to deliver its AR-ready helmet this summer, according to a presentation at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last Sunday.

Privateer Superbike/Superstock 1000 racer Hayden Gillim suffered a horrifying crash last August at MotoAmerica’s race event at the new Pittsburgh International Race Complex, culminating in Gillim ragdoll-tumbling into a tire barrier at high speed while his GSX-R1000 cartwheeled and bounced all the way over the fence. The race was immediately red-flagged, as Gillim surely would be requiring prompt medical attention.

Bell Powersports invited us to tour its American R&D and design facility this week so we could see with our own eyes the care and dedication that goes into the creation and testing of its head-protection efforts. It was enlightening to learn all that goes on behind the scenes at its Scotts Valley, California, location.

Hey Y’all,

Dear MOby,

If the technologies driving motorcycle components progressed at the same rate as motorcycle helmet technology we’d still be riding around on drum brakes. Where’s the motorcycle helmet equivalent of cutting-edge technologies such TC, C-ABS or semi-active suspension? The general construction of motorcycle helmets hasn’t changed much since leather lids became passé: a hard outer shell, impact-absorbing EPS (expanded polystyrene) liner, comfort padding. Helmets are certainly lighter, quieter, more comfortable and safer than their bygone counterparts, but I would have argued 20 years ago that the features touted by failed helmet company start-up, Skully, would have been commonplace by now.

Dear MO,

At one time back there in the mists of time, a Bell helmet was the motorcycle helmet to have. If Bell didn’t invent the full-face helmet, they did have the first one everybody wanted. Things changed, the brand was sold, quality became poor or inconsistent, and those of us lucky enough to have our druthers started wearing Shoeis, Arais and other expensive foreign lids.

Over the course of his 20-year Grand Prix career, Valentino Rossi has slipped his cranium into countless helmets, each with its own design. Most regular-season helmets incorporate the Sun & Moon motif first seen in his freshman GP year. Other helmets are one-off designs created for special events such as his hometown race at Misano, winter testing, Marco Simoncelli tributes, etc. Regardless the occasion, the Aldo Drudi-designed helmets are usually delicious looking lids recognizable by their attractiveness and flamboyancy. Here are my 10 favorites.

It’s fair to say that those who work in the motorcycle industry do so out of their love for bikes and our two-wheeled sport/hobby. It doesn’t really matter if you’re a PR agent, a journalist or a factory representative, a person could earn more money if their job was instead in the automotive field. Meanwhile, there are thousands of moto-loving people who work tirelessly behind the scenes to promote and help enhance the world of motorcycling, routinely without any fanfare whatsoever.

Today, Black Brand launched its line of motorcycle gear aimed squarely at the V-Twin/Cruiser market, and you might be wondering why you should care. Well, when developing the line the folks behind Black Brand did their due diligence and found what they think is a huge hole in the cruiser gear market. Anyone on the cruiser scene is aware of the 800-pound gorilla of the V-Twin world, and the Harley team does a pretty good job of dominating its corner of the market with well-made clothing with its name emblazoned all over it.

Shortly before our clan chieftain grabbed his Samsonite carry-on bag and blasted out the door for LAX, he took a moment to drop a line to myself and my esteemed colleague, J. Burns, the content of which caused a chorus of, “Oh no, not this again.” It concerned a proposed rule by our beloved National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) concerning their current regulation, FMVSS No. 218, the regulation addressing U. S. Department of Transportation (DOT) standards for motorcycle helmet testing. It seems NHTSA wants to revise their standard because they are concerned about “novelty” helmets.