For maximum protection in a Shoei helmet it must be a good fit

Now, inside every Shoei helmet, there's a label; and that's the label above. And one of the things this label is telling you is that if a helmet is to do its job properly, it has to fit properly.

To us here at Motolegends, this seems pretty obvious. And that's why we have always gone to such lengths to get the fit right on customers' helmets. But not everybody realises how important the fit is. And that may explain why we seem to see so many people in the shop with helmets that are just wrong for them.

It was in in 2019, that the government’s Transport Research Laboratory issued a finding that “25% of motorcyclists were wearing not just a helmet that didn't fit them well, but a helmet that was actually the wrong size.”

To us, this is inexcusable, but of no great surprise. What people lose sight off is just how important a helmet is. It is the most important piece of protective gear you'll wear on a motorcycle. It is more important than any jacket, pant, glove or boot. And that's because its role is to protect our most vital organ: our brain. Now if, in an accident, our helmet collides with a hard surface with force, the energy that is transmitted by that force sends our ‘jelly-like’ brain flying from one side of our skull to the other. When it hits the other side of the skull, it compresses, and then ‘bounces’ back. It is this impact of the brain against the other side of the skull that can cause brain damage.

And what has to be borne in mind is that brain damage cannot be repaired. Surgeons can do things to reduce the swelling of the brain after an accident, and pathways can sometimes be reconnected, but damage to the brain is basically permanent. The best we can do is to learn how to cope with the results of the damage.

But who is to blame for the fact that so many motorcyclists wear poorly fitting helmets?

Well, frankly, sometimes it’s motorcyclists themselves. They spend so much time on the internet fretting about how their helmet is going to match with their outfit or their bike that they lose sight of the fact that a helmet is not a fashion accessory. The helmet arrives. They look at themselves in the mirror, figure that they look sharp, and pretty much disregard the fit.

Sometimes it’s the fault of the shop. One might expect motorcycle shops to make sure that poorly-fitting helmets never leave the premises, but in most shops you don’t tend to get much help. Somebody might tell you you need to make sure the helmet is comfortable and doesn't move about too much. But more often than not you will be directed to the helmet display, and told to get on with it. I have never understood why most shops don’t go to greater lengths to help. At times, it’s because the people serving you don’t know what they’re on about. Sometimes it’s because leaving you to your own devices allows them to spend more time looking at their phones. But often it’s because nobody wants to take responsibility for getting the fit right. If you choose a helmet on your own, and down the road it turns out to be too loose or too tight, well that’s not anything you can hold against them!

Sometimes it’s the fault of both, say at events like the NEC. With hundreds of helmets needing to be shifted in a very short time frame, it all comes down to price. The guys and girls on the stands want to get through customers as fast as they can. The quality of the fit is the last thing on their minds. Whilst the hapless customer is so besotted by the fact that he has beaten the system, that he can think of nothing else but his saving. And don’t forget, at these events, there’s no comeback; you make a mistake on the day, you own it. You're stuck with the helmet!

Why is a poorly fitting motorcycle helmet dangerous

There are two basic things that can be wrong with the fit of a motorcycle helmet. In essence, a helmet can be too tight somewhere or everywhere. Or it can be too loose, somewhere or everywhere.

Now a helmet that is too tight won’t necessarily perform less well in the event of an impact, but a helmet that causes pain can most certainly make a contribution to your having an accident in the first place.

Motorcycling is a dangerous undertaking. Everything around us is a potential hazard. The state of the road. The weather. Other vehicles. Pedestrians. But the issue is that if we have an accident on the bike, we are horribly vulnerable. It’s not like driving a car. When things go wrong on the bike, there’s a good chance that we’re going to hurt ourselves. Sometimes, we get away with it, but if we do we’ve just been lucky.

It’s why wearing proper, protective gear is so important, but the fact is that skin grows back, broken bones heal, and we can recover from internal injuries but, as we’ve stated, there’s not a lot we can do as far as damage to the brain is concerned.

And that’s one of the reasons why having a helmet that doesn’t cause us pain is so important. Comfort on the bike is nothing to do with our sense of wellbeing. It’s about making sure that we are in possession of all our faculties, so that we can focus all our attention and energies on doing what is necessary to stay alive.

And you simply cannot do this if you’re wearing a helmet that is too tight, and that gives you a headache. If you’re feeling pain, you are going to be distracted, and on the bike you cannot afford to be. When things go wrong, it all happens so quickly, and if you were worrying about how uncomfortable your helmet was instead of watching that car ahead that might pull out, then really whose fault was the accident? It might technically be the the car driver’s, but if you were too preoccupied to take evasive action, it’s still you that’s going to come off worst!

The other potential issue is a helmet that’s too loose. Again, there’s a comfort issue here, but more importantly a helmet that is too big will not absorb the energy of an impact in the way it’s meant to.

In terms of comfort, a helmet that is too big will inevitably be noisy. A helmet that is too loose will also move about at speed. This will, again, be distracting, and of course if it moves around too much your field of view can be compromised.

But the real issue is that a helmet that is too big will not absorb the energy of an impact in the way that it’s meant to. Now when our helmet comes into contact with something hard, it's the eps (expanded polystyrene) liner that absorbs the energy, and therefore diminishes the force that is applied to the skull. But if a helmet is too large the initial impact against the skull will not have been slowed down by the eps. And obviously this can be crucial when it comes to mitigating brain damage.

All of this explains, perhaps, why Shoei warns us in every helmet that to do its job, a helmet has to fit properly. And, of course, it is just as important that an Arai helmet or a Schuberth helmet fits well too.

The sizing of a Shoei helmet

One of the reasons that we have always been such Shoei fans is that the company is streets ahead of any other brand as far as custom fitting is concerned. Only Arai gets close to offering what Shoei offers, but even then they don't get that close!

What Shoei has always offered is a range of different thicknesses of headliner, and different thicknesses of cheekpad for every model in their range, in every size. And it's these changeable liners that have always allowed us to offer the kind of custom fit you simply don't get on any other brand.

And that's why, if it's true that a helmet has to fit properly to work properly, a Shoei has always been the helmet to go for. Certainly for us.

Of course, more recently Shoei has taken this to the next level with what they call the Shoei Personal Fitting System. In concept, it's really rather simple, but the work that has gone into developing the system is impressive, as is the technology employed to make it happen.

Basically, when you come to see us for a PFS fit, we measure your head in a number of different ways. We input the data into Shoei's software, and the system then, in essence, creates a 3D representation of your cranium.

Now, as Shoei clearly knows the internal architecture of all its helmets, whether we are talking Shoei Neotec 3 or the race ready Shoei X-SPR Pro, it marries the two images together, and then tells us what pads to fit where to fill in the gaps. And to this end there are a dozen or so different pads for every helmet, all of which will come in different densities. We then affix these pads to the helmet's removable headliner. And bingo, we're in business.

Of course, the fit around the face itself still has to be addressed, and as ever this will entail trialling the different thicknesses of cheekpad until we reach an acceptable solution.

The result of a PFS session is, for most people, a near perfect fit.

The problem, in the past, has always been that, however diligent you were in trying to get a good fit, one could never be absolutely sure what was going on inside the helmet; in other words, in those voids between the skull and the helmet's eps liner. Well, PFS allows us to see what's going on, and fit the padding that is necessary to get the helmet to sit on the head, touching it wherever it can, but without creating hot spots.

In our view, in this market, PFS marks a revolutionary step forward. Shoei is potentially decades ahead of all the other manufacturers. Most brands, even the well known ones, still often make do with just two shell sizes. Very, very few brands offer the ability to even swap out cheekpads for different densities. The number of brands that offer changeable headliners could be counted on the hand of a man who has lost a number of his fingers in an accident. The truth is that most brands are more interested in shifting boxes than in getting their helmets to fit better.

The bottom line is this. Whether you want a better fitting helmet just to make your riding more enjoyable, or whether you want a better fit to ensure that you get the best protection in an accident, you really have to think about a Shoei.

And if you want to achieve the gold standard in terms of a fit, come and see us for a PFS fit. It doesn't take long, and you'll be amazed at the difference it can make.

You can buy Shoei helmets with free next day UK delivery online, or visit our store in Guildford to try it one on.