Shoei J-Cruise 3 helmet in black

Here at Motolegends we are not fans of open-face motorcycle helmets. Many people buy an open-face thinking it's the last word in motorcycle chic, but you don't need to dig too deep on the internet to find photographs that would put you off ever riding in one. When you have an accident on the bike, things happen very fast. You are rarely in control of the situation; you are just a passenger. And if, for whatever reason, you end up sliding down the road on your face, an open-face helmet will offer next to no protection.

 

In fact, we do offer one open-face helmet. It's the Shoei JO. It's undoubtedly the best open face helmet on the market, but come into the shop, and we'll do our very best to dissuade you from buying one. In fact, Shoei will soon be discontinuing the JO, and the truth is that it will be somewhat of a relief for us. We won't replace it.

 

Now the Shoei J-Cruise 3 is, on one level, just an open-face helmet with a large visor; and that's why it has rarely been a go-to helmet for us. In terms of protection, the J-Cruise is only accredited as an open-face helmet, which means that it cannot be claimed to offer the protection of a full-face helmet. But even so I think we would have to acknowledge that the visor would serve to protect the face to a certain degree if it all went tits up.  You will not have the same level of protection you get from a full-face helmet or a flip-lid, obviously; but the visor will be way better than having nothing in front of your face.

 

 The J-Cruise 3 does exactly what the 2 did. Now this style of helmet is most popular with those who ride cruisers or large, touring bikes. Indeed, if you ride any bike with a large screen, you might feel the benefit of a helmet like this; and that's because you don't tend to get much airflow on such bikes, and a helmet like this will maximise the benefit of any air there is.

 

Perhaps the biggest change is that the helmet is now ECE 22-06 accredited. This new standard, which came into effect as of 2021 basically makes for safer helmets. 22-06 helmets have to absorb more energy, the shells have to be more robust, and with the new protocol helmets now have to be able to absorb angled impacts, in order to reduce the rotational forces that might be generated in an accident.

 

Shoei reckons that the new helmet will flow up to 70% more air than the old on. And that's got to be good. The new helmet has a thinner chin strap that is just as strong as the old one. The new helmet also takes the latest comms., the Sena SRL-03.

 

But in every other respect the helmet is the same. So you get a drop-down sun visor, three different thicknesses of headliner, and three different thicknesses of cheek pad, a micro-ratchet strap fastener, and the provision for a Pinlock visor, although a Pinlock is arguably not worthwhile on a helmet like this.

 

Shoei helmets are more oval shaped than some, but there is some consistency across the range, so if you're a medium in another Shoei, you're likely to be the same on the J-Cruise 3, and most certainly you would be the same size as you were in a J-Cruise 2.

 

One of the benefits of a Shoei over just about any helmet is the ability to change headliners and cheekpads to improve the fit. Most dealers don't care to do this, so they tend not to carry them. We, of course, always do. But now you can take things to the next level with a Shoei PFS fit.

 

PFS is a new, computerised system from Shoei that pretty much guarantees a perfect fit. Basically, we measure your head in a number of directions. We then input that data into the PFS software. The result is a 3D image of your head. Now knowing the internal architecture of its helmets, the Shoei system then tells us what additional foam pads we need to fit to the liner. And for any helmet, we have up to a dozen different pads that can be employed. The bottom line is a guaranteed, 'near-perfect' fit.

 

The bottom line is that there's nothing particularly revolutionary about the J-Cruise 3. It's an updated J-Cruise 2, the main upgrade being its ECE 22-06 accreditation.

 

If you liked the old helmet, you'll like this one. It's the same, but a little bit better. But with PFS now, we can certainly get it to fit better too.

 

Just don't make the mistake, though, of thinking that the J-Cruise offers anywhere near the same level of protection that you get with a full-face helmet, like the Shoei GT Air 3. It doesn't. If you want the best of both worlds, you could always look at a Shoei Neotec 3. Air on the face when you really need it. Full-face protection when you don't.