I’ve finally replaced my aging Airoh, and have got a shiny shiny white Schuberth C3, in preparation for a ride to Land’s End next weekend.
First Impressions
Really good. Really very good. It’s light, comfortable and airy, and the view is fantastic. The visor sits a lot lower than the other helmets I tried on, which is odd at first, but I don’t spend a huge amount of time looking up. It’s also a lot cooler with the front down and the vents open than it is with the chin up, provided you’re moving at more than about 10mph.
In short, it’s a _really_ nice place to put your head.
About a week later
Land’s End didn’t happen, due to one half of the participants testing the abrasion resistance of the A1 with his jacket and trousers. So I went to Milton Keynes with my newly-CBT’d brother instead. I’ve not yet had a chance to test the quiet-at-speed (though even at the heady speed of 50mph that I got to, it felt oddly quiet). It’s very accepting of headsets, quite comfortable to wear all day, and doesn’t feel too daft with the chin up off the bike. Though I’m sure it looks it.
Some More Time Later (30th August)
Finally done some quicker riding in it, and just been to Newquay and back. It’s not quite the silence at speed that I was hoping for – at 70mph+ you know you’re moving through air. But I can listen to music and the radio comfortably at that speed, and in stark contrast to before, the engine noise is the biggest disturbance to that. Also, after an entire day’s riding it’s still pretty comfy, and the pinlock visor adamantly refused to mist up in ~200mi of fog, which was rather nice. It makes a surprisingly loud roar when you turn to look over your shoulder to check for lane clearance. About the noise of a ‘normal’ helmet, really, but it took me by surprise the first time I tried it.
2 Months Later
It’s still good. Not a lot else to report, really. It was beginning to feel a little old and less comfy, but since I’ve stopped keeping it in my topbox, and allowed it to air occasionally, it’s returned to it’s normal comfort.
Trivia
An XXL C3 *just* fits in a Givi E45. You wont get another helmet in there, but there’s still about 40% of the topbox free. Of the helmets I tried that fit me, the C3 looked peculiarly narrow, but I didn’t measure it.