Motorcycle Helmets (Arai, Shoei)

Anyone know where I can look at a range of good full face motorcycle helmets, such as Arai or Shoei? (I’m not interested in anything made locally.) I already know of a half dozen places where I can order imported helmets, but I can’t find any place that has any on display, especially in my size (61-62, or XL). There are a couple places on Jianguo North Road, including the shop that sells big bikes, and another place just north of Minquan Road, but they only have a couple of small ones on display.

I’ve often wondered what the differences are between the top name brand helmets and the cheaper ones. Is it a different kind of filler material or shell?

What’s the difference?
Try an ergonomically and structurally-designed “safety device” that absorbs shock on impact.
Then try putting an ice-cream bucket on your head.
Sorry to be cryptic, but the difference is “everything” - design, core, surface material, buckle, etc.
Regards,

Babou

Well, I found a place on Roosevelt Road, Section 5, #20 that sells Arai helmets, found one in my size that I liked with fairly wicked graphics that more/less matched my bike’s colour, and bought it. It’s light, super comfortable, has eight adjustable vents and two additional non-adjustable vents at the back of the helmet. For summertime, there’s no better full face helmet available.

The price was $16,000NT, which hurts a lot, but it’s a little cheaper than what they’re going for in the US ($557.95). The boss threw in a black visor that even works well at night. Anyway, it does come with insurance, which means $2,000,000NT for my family if I die of head injuries wearing it. Let’s hope that policy never gets used!

The helmet is an Arai 2001 Quantum Series Full Face Okada Replica. (Whew! Long name - works out to 2k a word!) Click here to check it out…

Poagao, it’s all about SNELL - the definitive standard in helmet safety. Click here for more info…
:sunglasses: :sunglasses: :sunglasses:

Thanks for the info. I will probably get one of those myself soon. One question, though: how does a dark visor work in the dark? How can it not impair visibility at least a little? I would like to get one of those but I also want as much visibility as possible at night, particularly if I am riding out in the middle of nowhere on Taiwanese roads.

Well, I found not one but two places that sell the helmet I bought cheaper. They had more selection too, not that I’m unhappy with what I chose - it’s jsut that I could have saved 3k if I had gone to one of these other places. Oh well, live and learn.

One of the two places is on Heping West Road, on the south side of the street, maybe 1 k past 2nd floor (formerly @live). The 2nd place is on Yanping North Road, Section 4, #114.

The short answer is that it does - but not as much as I expected. :sunglasses:

Hello, Does anyone out there know a place that sells quality motorcycle helmets? Any recommendations on helmets to buy? I know that there is another thread about helmets, but the helmets they discussed seem more “high end” (and expensive) than what I am looking for. Basically, I don’t want to pay NT$ 16,000 for a helmet, but I also don’t want to buy the NT$ 99 helmets I see at the road-side stalls. I’m looking for a helmet in the NT$ 1000-3000 range. Also, is the closed face helmet better – I have heard conflicting comments on this. Any advice, thoughts, or comments about motorcycle helmets would be appreciated.

I might be wrong, but as far as I know, if you pay less than NT$5,000, you’ll not get anything better than a “Penguin” brand, which would not pass safety standards in the US or Europe.

You really do need to spend a bit of money to get a good helmet, but this is true everywhere. It just appears worse here because there are so many cheap ones. Remember, you won’t even SEE these cheap ones in the West – they’d be illegal.

My first modern bike at home cost 8 hundred pounds and my first full-face helmet cost about 170 – almost 25% of the cost of the bike.

Shoei, Arai, AGV are all readily available here. If you want a safe hat, those are the ones to go for. If you just want to cover your noggin, Penguin’ll do it.

Full-face is much more cumbersome and hot, with poorer visibility, than open face. On the other hand, maxillary reconstructive surgery is very expensive and eating through a straw sucks .

Those little skullcap things are for morons.

Thanks, Sandman. It’s helpful to know that a good helmet starts at NT$ 5,000. Of course, I certainly think that it’s worth it, and I’ll be looking to buy a helmet at this price. I’ll look for the brand names that you mentioned when I go helmet shopping this weekend. I was thinking of trying some places along Roosevelt Road, further down towards JingMei, on the way to Lao Chen’s scooter shop. Do you have any specific shops that you’d recommend–there or elsewhere? Thanks.

There’s a few shops on Roosevelt Rd just south of the intersection with Keelung Rd., just before the turn-off to the Shida #2 university.

Check out the one with all the Harleys out front – he usually has some good helmets.

Thought I’d try to help future searchers by linking this with
forumosa.com/3/viewads.php?p=108830#108830

I have an Arai. It’s light, well ventilated, and quite comfy, as full-face helmets go. I got it at the Japanese cost price (around NT$15,000) via a friend who’s in a bike club. If you’re paying 16 for the Quantum that’s not too bad. Make sure you check the year it was made. I’ve seen two-year-old Arais for sale here as new.

I am looking for a motorcycle communicator, from driver to passenger. In the US they are pretty easy to find, but in Taiwan it seems hard to even find saddle bags.

Does anyone know where to get a communicator like that, that cancels out wind noise. Nady makes some models (PMC-3 is the one I want).

Wait, let me restart my heart…NT$16,000 for a helmet? You must be joking. That’s more than the cost of some second-hand bikes.
I don’t know where this mystical NT$5,000 limit came from, but I’d say that any helmet (excluding those silly helmet-caps) are better than nothing.
That seems a lot of dough for a helmet. I understand the protection aspect, but do you also wear full leathers and gloves and boots? I didn’t think so. Seems like helmet overkill to me.

[quote=“wolf_reinhold”]Wait, let me restart my heart…NT$16,000 for a helmet? You must be joking. That’s more than the cost of some second-hand bikes.
I don’t know where this mystical NT$5,000 limit came from, but I’d say that any helmet (excluding those silly helmet-caps) are better than nothing.
That seems a lot of dough for a helmet. I understand the protection aspect, but do you also wear full leathers and gloves and boots? I didn’t think so. Seems like helmet overkill to me.[/quote]

I don’t know Wolfie, whether those cheap helmets really are any good against a big smack into the tarmac. There must be a reason anything inferior to a Nolan is not legal in the UK. The construction of a good lid is completely different from plastic lids and is designed to deform over several bounces on the road. They are also designed not to spin around and suffocate you. I know blokes who have bought second hand bikes for

I don’t believe the urban myth that if you drop a motorcycle helmet it is no good any longer or compromised. Common sense tell you that this could not be true.

fascinating stuff. please excuse my ignorance but why would an arai be only good for a “couple of years”? does the lining get fatigued? can you send it back to the factory for a “rehab”?

[quote=“wolf_reinhold”]Wait, let me restart my heart…NT$16,000 for a helmet? You must be joking. That’s more than the cost of some second-hand bikes.
I don’t know where this mystical NT$5,000 limit came from, but I’d say that any helmet (excluding those silly helmet-caps) are better than nothing.
That seems a lot of dough for a helmet. I understand the protection aspect, but do you also wear full leathers and gloves and boots? I didn’t think so. Seems like helmet overkill to me.[/quote]
What I wrote before bears repetition;
“3: From a safety point of view, the International Motorcycle Safety Conference 1990 found that “A cheapo $70 helmet offers protection very close to what you get from a $300 helmet with similar coverage” (paraphrased on a page on VFR safety; cs.wisc.edu/~john/vfr/hurt.html ) My $3000NT M2R claims to be Snell approved; as M2R export to other countries, I don’t think they’d want to lie about that.”
The M2R gets its safety by using thick, heavy materials. It is not particularly well ventilated. But I have worn it for several hours at a time without discomfort. It’s important that people are not put off by the price of a top-range helmet and realise that reasonable protection can be had for around 3000NT and upwards. Of course helmets costing more will probably offer some increase in safety as well as greater comfort, but if you can’t afford more, this level is a good starting point.

I am also happy with my AXO helmet, which cost 10,000. This Italian brand is worn by some pro. racers. It fits me well; much better than the Arais and Shoeis that my local shop had (although as Hexuan pointed out on another thread, shops in Taipei sell the full range of Arais and Shoeis to suit all head shapes). It is fairly light and well ventilated.

Another brand worth looking out for is Suomy. They have had good reviews such as the one here;
motorcycle.com/mo/mcbeware/suomy.motml
The only Taiwan dealer contact details I can find, though, are the unlikely-sounding;
Sunshine Oil International Co. Ltd.
Hsin Sung N. Road, 4-1F, no.108
Taipei
Tel. 0088 6289233958
I haven’t contacted them; I’ll be interested to hear the response if anyone does.

I wear a Cordura mesh jacket with CE-approved armour in the elbows and shoulders, and ankle boots, when riding at any time. On longer rides, I also put on my Cordura pants with knee and shin armour, and wear leather gloves. I’m looking into getting some hip armour as well.

If one really only has a limited budget to spend on protective gear, though, the majority of that should go on a helmet. I was talking to a surgeon the other night. He told me that the majority of motorcycle accident injuries requiring surgery were either head ones, requiring neurosurgery, or leg ones. Of course leg injuries, especially to the knee or hip, could be complicated and very painful, but one would survive. That is not necessarily the case with head injuries.

Hexuan didn’t say that the helmets were only good for a couple of years. But helmets do have limited lifespans and if you take five years as a reasonable life expectancy for a new helmet, in the case Hexuan mentioned you’d be paying full-price for a helmet with a little over half its life left.

From the Arai website ( araiamericas.com/product/product_home.html ):

"Like most major helmet manufacturers, Arai subscribes to the Snell Memorial Foundation benchmark of five years as the suggested usable lifespan of a motorcycle helmet. Why? Think of a helmet in terms of your body. No matter how good it may look, or how well you take care of it, age still takes its toll. Even with minimal use, a helmet is affected by things like the acids and oils in sweat, haircare products, pollution, exposure to UV rays, etc. At about the five-year mark, helmet interiors begin to show wear and/or deterioration, which should serve as an alert to its overall condition. The helmet’s fit may begin to feel a little “loose”, not as snug as it once did. This unseen aging and deterioration of the EPS liner and fiberglass shell can affect the helmet’s ability to perform in an impact as it was originally designed.

These are the reasons to replace your helmet after five years. Of course, if your helmet becomes less than snug in fit, or damaged, it should be replaced before the five-year mark. And when you do, you may want to remember that Arai was the first company willing to warranty its helmets for the full Snell-recommended usable lifespan."

It is true. All to do with putting tiny fractures into what is essentially a series of built in fault lines: a bit like the way a car is designed to crumple and buffer the impact to the occupants. If you have an evident scuff on your helmet you will not be able to wear it in an approved race.

Snell is best.

HG