Well, it's going back as 'unused' even though I used it on the way home, on the way to work today and will have to use it on the way home today too.
The Good:It's very comfortable, 2nd time wearing it and I'm happy with the fit. It hugs your head nicely and has two "bumps" at the back, either side, that makes it feel like your whole head is held in the helmet. The liner is comfy, soft with no seams that bother at all. The helmet feels like it weighs less than my Shoei even thought it weighs 30g more and is very balanced when on your head. The aerodynamics are superb, it eliminated the last little bit of buffeting I had.
The top vents are great, better than the Shoei. If you look into the inside of the helmet you can see the air channels going see right through the helmet. The top vents work in two ways, you can press at the back of them and the front lifts up to scoop air into the helmet, this works extremely well and I had to close it after 2 minutes this morning because what's left of my brain was freezing. If you press on the front of the vent to close them the rear has a slit that is now open and instead of scooping air in it sucks air out by venturi effect! On top of that there is a slider that you can move back to close the slit for the venturi position and the vent is closed completely, ingenious
The chin vent directs air right into the mouth area and up onto the inside of the visor. Because I sit behind a screen none of the chin vents on any of my helmets ever work as intended, but I did blow through it with my mouth and the air flow is unrestricted and I'd wager it works great on a naked bike or with the screen in a lower position.
The forehead vent is effective, it channels air into the cushion that's presses against your forehead and I could feel it getting cold when I tried it out so it works.
Closing the vents blocks out air and water, tested this in heavy rain this morning and they are water tight when closed even though the top ones look like they will leak. There is also a large rear spoiler with a permanently open rear extraction vent under it. The vents make surprisingly little noise when open considering that they work so well. The top vent on the Qwest is more noisy and doesn't work as good as the top vents on the N85.
On the subject of noise, the helmet doesn't have as much wind rush noise as my Quest, but I can hear the engine and other sounds a little bit better. I had the chin curtain on this morning and was perfectly happy with the noise levels.
The visor is new so it's nice and clear, no distortion and easy to operate with either hand because the tab is in the middle. The internal sun visor works better than expected, but has a niggle that I will discuss later. It operates very easily by a slider on the left and is just dark enough to be of enough use in very bright sunlight although I would like a darker one. I am light sensitive so it will be fine for most other people. The main visor is easily removed and replaced with out any tools once you figure out how to (tip: read the manual first then do it, not the other way around
) The pinlock type insert works very well and you don't even notice it's there unless you strain to look left and right with your eyes. The view port in the helmet looks a bit narrower (top to bottom) than my Qwest, but I didn't feel as if it restricted my view at all.
The ratchet closing system is very adjustable and easy to close and open, with a bit of practise you could probably do it with one hand.
Finish on the helmet is quite good, the paint is vibrant and the graphics are quite detailed. Handling the helmet you know that it's not from the bottom of the quality pond, the lining has a real quality feel and gives the feel that the helmet is much more expensive than what I paid for it (it's better than the Qwest, but I don't know how well it stands up to regular use.)
And maybe most important of all, you feel safe wearing it, even if it's just a perception (4 stars SHARP rating.)
The Bad:There are 3 things that is making me return this helmet. The first and main reason is that the visor leaks when it rains, I started off at home today in light rain and it was fine for a while. On the M40 things got gradually worse as I got closer to Reading. By the time I got onto the M4 I had a drop going down the inside of the helmet every 5-10 seconds. The drops runs down and leaks out the bottom again, but the water streaks left eventually causes the visor to mist up. By the time I got to Reading the visibility was so bad because of misting and distortion caused by the drops inside the helmet that I had to slow down quite a lot. I checked the visor, it appears to seal properly and there is no way to adjust it.
The second and equally important thing is the ratchet closing system. I was fine with the idea of a ratchet as opposed to a double D-ring system because I thought it would give enough adjustment. It does give enough adjustment, but no matter how tight/loose I close it or how I adjust it there is a problem. If I look down slightly my chin presses the hard plastic and metal bits that make up the ratchet closing system into my hyoid bone. This is causing me a lot of discomfort and touching it now I can feel it is bruised.
The third thing is something I could have lived with if everything else was fine. If you look at the picture I posted earlier you will see that the sun visor has a curve cut into the bottom of it "for the nose." The cut out is a bit distracting, the visor would be much better if it didn't have this cut out at all. The edges of the sun visor causes a little bit of distortion (as with the edges on any visor) and the cut out's edges is right where you want to look when you check the clocks. So if there wasn't a cut out it would be fine. There is plenty of space for a nose, I can't imagine anyone having a nose so big that you'd need to have the cut out in the visor. I can only think that they did it so that it shapes with the little bump on the chin bar. In making the cut out so the sun visor looks better and fits with the lines in the helmet they have spoiled an otherwise great visor design.
The Ugly:There's no Ugly unless you don't like orange
So if if it didn't leak and if it had a double D-ring and if there wasn't a stupid sun visor cut out wasn't there it would be the best helmet for the money.
