Carbon Fiber helmets. Yea or Nay ?

[lapuree]

about that: does someone know what are they using in MotoGP (or F1)? Considering the number of crashes they go through during a season, you'd guess they're being pretty serious about their helmets (even though thankfully, it's rarely the head that take the hit - but still)?

[hlmiskelly]

While I am certain that carbon-fiber helmets offer significant weight savings, always a good thing, I am also concern about the potential for hidden damage.  Based on my past aerospace experience, it is easy to impact a carbon-fiber structure such as a helmet and cause damage below the outer fiber layer, damage not visible from the outside.  Carbon-fiber is incredibly strong in tension but is very weak in shear or bending loads.  Dropping a helmet on the floor could easily result in high lateral loads to subsurface layers, reducing its structural integrity.  Though weaker in tensile strength, a conventional fiber such as Kevlar has much better shear and bending strength, thus should make a stronger - but heavier - helmet.
 
Just my two cents.
 

[suitedsevens]

I am currently using a Klim K1R Raw Karbon helmet. Full disclosure this is the first helmet I've owned so I can't really compare to actually using anything else. But having tried on quite a few at the store the weight of this thing makes it soooooo comfortable especially on longer rides. Also the transitions visor is awesome.
 

 

[texscottyd]

I made sure our ride that day was long and fast. He doesn't like coming out riding with me any more.

 
@Piotrek - You're a man after my own heart. The highlight of my weekend was overhearing a kid on a new GSX-R mutter to his friends "Dude, I just got f-ing molested by that old bald guy on the touring bike..."
 
Sorry about going off-topic. You may now resume the carbon helmet discussion.

[phpaul]

I made sure our ride that day was long and fast. He doesn't like coming out riding with me any more.

@piotrek - You're a man after my own heart. The highlight of my weekend was overhearing a kid on a new GSX-R mutter to his friends "Dude, I just got f-ing molested by that old bald guy on the touring bike..."  
Sorry about going off-topic. You may now resume the carbon helmet discussion.

BWAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!  I'd have paid admission to see that!

[Cruizin]

I am currently using a Klim K1R Raw Karbon helmet. Full disclosure this is the first helmet I've owned so I can't really compare to actually using anything else. But having tried on quite a few at the store the weight of this thing makes it soooooo comfortable especially on longer rides. Also the transitions visor is awesome. 

 
And here is a link so others can check it out https://www.revzilla.com/motorcycle/klim-k1r-raw-karbon-helmet?gclid=CNKro5yJ49MCFUKSfgod89IF5Q

[keithu]

While I am certain that carbon-fiber helmets offer significant weight savings, always a good thing, I am also concern about the potential for hidden damage. 

If an impact is strong enough to damage the outer shell, it probably also crushed the EPS foam which is really the most important part of the helmet.
 
In fact, if the C-F is less prone to flexing than other liners - plastic or fiberglass - one might argue that the C-F helmet is safer overall because it does a better job of protecting the EPS foam from minor impacts like drops. I don't think shell failure is a major concern with motorcycle helmets. I don't know if this is true, just a theory.

[texscottyd]

BWAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!  I'd have paid admission to see that!

It was rather entertaining, actually.  As I was eating my breakfast I noticed his pack of fellow squids slowly circling the FJ with puzzled looks on their faces...   

[suitedsevens]

Sorry Cruizin I shall never make a linkless product post again I swear.

[motorberus]

I have the Suomy MX tourer and LOVE it. Less than 3 pounds for an excellent ADV helmet with built in inner tinted shield. Highly recommended and can be had for $300 if you shop around. No more neck pain and I can ride twice as long as before.

[2and3cylinders]

While I am certain that carbon-fiber helmets offer significant weight savings, always a good thing, I am also concern about the potential for hidden damage.  Based on my past aerospace experience, it is easy to impact a carbon-fiber structure such as a helmet and cause damage below the outer fiber layer, damage not visible from the outside.  Carbon-fiber is incredibly strong in tension but is very weak in shear or bending loads.  Dropping a helmet on the floor could easily result in high lateral loads to subsurface layers, reducing its structural integrity.  Though weaker in tensile strength, a conventional fiber such as Kevlar has much better shear and bending strength, thus should make a stronger - but heavier - helmet. 
Just my two cents.

I started playing with advanced composites hands-on in 1976 at General Dynamics Convair Division after getting my engineering degree. Convair along with Northrop were industry leaders in advanced composites.  The space shuttles payload bay is constructed of autoclaved boron-aluminum tubes with titanium clevis fittings bonded to each end and bolted together to form essentially a bridge truss load frame.  The MAB (manipulator arm boom) located in the shuttle payload bay is a carbon fiber tube with aluminum shoulder, elbow and wrist.  Carbon fiber, boron-aluminum, graphite epoxy, carbon-carbon, etc have tremendous unidirectional strength in tensile and multi-directional laminar strength when layed up so, but have very poor impact resistance as indicated above (i.e., bending and shear).  So much so that they are often protected from impact by a honeycomb structure sandwiched between skins of for example Kevlar to act as "bumpers"! Carbon fractures are also more dangerous to the body.  
Personally, I will not wear a carbon fiber helmet or body armor, nor would I have vehicle bodywork that I could contact in a crash be made of the stuff.  The cost-performance-benefit ratio is not close to a well engineered and constructed helmet made from other available advanced composites.  I have a Scorpion EXO-1100 JAG Neon that is only a few grams heavier than what it would weigh if it was fabricated from carbon fiber and then would have cost 3 times as much.  Helmets are one-use PPD, if they take a decent wack, you throw them away after caving them in with a sledge so no one else can use it.  I just don't see the logic in buying any helmet that costs more than $300 for that reason*, plus theft concerns.  Someone else also mentioned that more flexible helmet skins actually transfer lower G-forces than stiffer shells; i.e., the old and current DOT vs Snell argument.
 
Furthermore, new helmet technology is including components that isolate the shell from EPS liner to permit limited lateral slippage to dissipate rotation shear forces that are what are now believed to be more deadly than straight-on G-forces; i.e., that tear the soft tissue and circulatory system between the brain mass and skull thought to be responsible for concussions and traumatic brain injuries.  It is estimated that most decent helmets today only are good up to about 15 mph.  To protect at higher velocities would require helmets that are 4 or more times their current size!  Today's helmets really mostly protect your skull from penetration, not its contents unfortunately.  I care more about comfort and features than shell construction at this point.
 
*I'd pay more for a cheaper version of the 6D helmet which currently uses carbon fiber.  I believe Bell and a few other manufacturers are developing similar technology.
 
http://www.motorcyclistonline.com/new-twist-on-motorcycle-helmet-safety-from-6d
 
But the core components of the modern motorcycle helmet remain largely the same: a stiff(ish) shell meant to prevent penetration with a collapsible liner meant to absorb crash forces. It’s here, with the use of expanded polystyrene (EPS) liners, that the state of the art is more aptly described as the tried and true.
 
But there’s significant new thinking in the field from 6D Helmets, with its Omni-Directional Suspension (ODS). Think of ODS as a suspension system fitted into the helmet liner to reduce shock energy transmitted to the brain under impact. Elastomeric isolation dampers serve as the key element. Depending on helmet size and type (street or dirt), between 26 and 29 of these rubbery little hourglass-shaped nubs sit between the layers of the multi-part EPS liner.
 
Bob Weber, co-founder and CEO of 6D Helmets explains, “By separating the helmet liner into two parts, we have the outer EPS layer mated to the shell and the inner layer up against the wearer’s head. On impact these separate layers have the ability to compress and come together. They can shear omni-directionally within themselves, reducing angular acceleration, and we gain superior low-energy performance from the ability of the suspension action on lesser impacts. By having a suspension system in the helmet, the helmet is active at a much lower energy demand than a traditional helmet design. And if the energy is high enough, the layers come together and the EPS takes over.
 
“Another significant benefit of our ODS system is simply time,” Weber continues. “By allowing the inner liner to travel within itself, we add time into the impact event equation. If you take any given impact and stretch it over more time, you’re basically going to reduce the severity of that impact.”
 
 

[minkster]

I have never worn a full face helmet due to neck pain, but I recently bought a kali protectives helmet. Their catlyst carbon helmet is the only full face helmet I am able to wear because it only weighs about 1350 grams. I have had it about 4 months now, but am extremely happy with it. It fits a slightly round head, so if you have neck pain with a heavy helmet, I recommend giving this one a try. Ain't cheap, but your head ain't cheap either.

[2and3cylinders]

I have never worn a full face helmet due to neck pain, but I recently bought a kali protectives helmet. Their catlyst carbon helmet is the only full face helmet I am able to wear because it only weighs about 1350 grams. I have had it about 4 months now, but am extremely happy with it. It fits a slightly round head, so if you have neck pain with a heavy helmet, I recommend giving this one a try. Ain't cheap, but your head ain't cheap either.

 
 
Start doing reverse and forward neck bridges with your significant other sitting on your back and stomach. They also make a head harness for use with weight machines and fee weights. Strong neck muscles protect your spine and work with your core to enable long days in the saddle.
 
I not suggesting you need to have an 18.5 inch neck (mines now down to 17.5 in my old age) but I tell my wife I'm going out on a Sunday morning to grab breakfast and a newspaper, and ride 250 miles in 4.5 hours including breakfast and a couple pit stops wearing a relatively heavy flip front helmet (my current favorite is the Kabuto Ibuki but my Nolan N90 runs a close 2nd), and get home in ok shape even with ruptured, herniated C5/C6 from a by cycle wreck with the help of ibuprofen every 4 hours.

[antiplastix]

All the pros I see are wearing Shoei or Arai, which don't have any CF helmets listed at Cycle Gear that I can see.

I don't think they are wearing the same Shoei or Arai we can buy at the Cycle Gear.

I don't think they are paying for them either. I have a 702 Carbon Xlite, its a work of art. 
 

[mattemike]

Arai does indeed make a CF helmet you can purchase. Retail is well over $2.5k so you won't find that model in Cycle Gear. AGV has a brand new CF modular for '18 that I hope to try on for fit.