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#21 Re: Chinese Helmet - Good Quality Ones
- Join Date
- Dec 2009
- Location
- mostly Shanghai, sometimes northern California
- Posts
- 3,222
03-02-2014, 06:09 AMThis isn't the first time we've covered helmet quality in MCM. There's a lot of serious research out there testing what actually happens to your head and your brain upon impact, and I can boil down the results with basically two conclusions: 1) wearing a helmet -- any helmet -- is infinitely smarter than riding without one and 2) the differences between helmets of varying "quality" and cost are more pronounced at lower speeds, while at higher speeds, these make less and less difference, especially in a blunt impact collision (as opposed to a sliding or tumbling getoff). Think of your brain as really just so much gelatine inside your skull. It's soft and squishy, not rigid like bone or fibrous and controllable like muscle. Upon impact, especially a blunt impact with extreme deceleration, inertia causes your gelatinous brain to get slammed up against the inside of your skull, causing intensive blunt-force trauma, tearing, ruptures, etc. Your helmet might take that collision with flying colors, and might minimize skull fracturing, but your brain inside probably will be hemorrhaging badly and swelling rapidly, thus causing even more damage. Yes, having the helmet helps, but all the expensive gel or soft padding in the world won't make much difference because it's the instantaneous deceleration that causes the damage.
Blunt impact at slower speeds probably can be better mitigated by the "superior" materials of a "better" (more expensive) helmet, but it's not really rational to expect a linear relationship between expense and protection. A 2000 rmb helmet surely is not "twice" as safe as a 1000 rmb helmet. Folks spending 5000 or 6000 rmb on a helmet are deluding themselves if they think this provides exponentially better protection than an 800 rmb HJC.
One final thought about full-face helmets vs flip-fronts, with the caveat that this is my own unscientific theory: While the full-face might provide marginally better protection in a violent collision because it doesn't have a flip front that might fly open, I think I'd rather be in the flip-front in the aftermath of an accident when paramedics (OK, this is strictly hypothetical here in China) want to get the helmet off of my head. With a full-face, there's probably no alternative to cutting it off, which probably costs a lot of time, while with the flip front it may be possible to remove it safely with minimal additional damage to my head, neck and spine because it DOES come open and perhaps can be pulled apart.
I remember ChinaV, myself and others posting about some of these issues in an earlier thread.
cheers,
euphoniusjkp
Shanghai
2010 JH600 "Merkin Muffley" (in Shanghai)
2000 KLR650 "Feezer Ablanalp" (in California)
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#22 Re: Chinese Helmet - Good Quality Ones03-02-2014, 05:14 PM
I Have that helmet and it is way nicer than I thought it would be . I ride all year round up her in Canada . So the only issue I am having is the outer shield tends to fog up . Not unexpected though , with the shield just propped open it stays clear . That is one thing that it has in spite of that . It does stay open even at 80 mph . They fit tight . I ordered a l and an xl . I had a friend who was interested he takes an xl . They fit one size small or at least half a size . I am in the xl as the large was to tight . and of course I have the large now , never been used . My wife uses a medium but i am not convinced yet we are going to try when the weather suites her . Everything works good on it though . Easy to manipulate the outer and inner shield while riding off road with gloves on .
102_1578.jpgLast edited by countrymoto; 03-08-2014 at 02:46 PM.
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#23 Re: Chinese Helmet - Good Quality Ones03-03-2014, 08:50 AM
I was about to buy a HJC Lorenzo.....
T2cJJFXdxOXXXXXXXX_!!1072925884.jpg
http://detail.tmall.com/item.htm?spm...6f13c1de0bde55
TIC so I asked for 4 spare visors. Spare visors? No chance. What, I'm supposed to throw the thing away after the visor get's scratched in a month? So alas I'll not be spending my money on this.
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#24 Re: Chinese Helmet - Good Quality Ones
- Join Date
- Apr 2011
- Location
- Taizhou, Zhejiang
- Posts
- 526
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#25 Re: Chinese Helmet - Good Quality Ones03-07-2014, 11:46 PM
I find that it isn't too hard to just show them the helmet you're looking for and you'll be able to get a pretty similar one. HJC are surprinsgly easy to find http://www.motorcyclehouse.com/hjc-helmets.htm
but higher end stuff is pretty much limited to boutiques. Of course you're not going to be riding as fast as you would normally so... I guess a reduction in quality might be okay.
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#26 Re: Chinese Helmet - Good Quality Ones03-08-2014, 01:37 AM
So I decided to get the HJC Lorenzo. In the end the Taobao seller decided it was better to go to the trouble of providing spare visors in order to make a sale.
According to my Chinese friends helmets in China break down like this.....
1. Imported. Made elsewhere in the world, helmets are expensive, and may even be fake, new visors will cost a a lot of money 400 yuan plus if you can find them.
2. Quite a few high end brands are made in China...HJC and AGP are amongst them. Much less likely to be fake than imported brands because those companies hate small timers trampling on their territory, and will send in the mafia. Also visor prices are held down to a reasonable 150 yuan level, DOT ratings etc.
3. Lower priced helmets made in the same factory, for example HJC has a junior brand Cirus or non exported not DOT rated helmets, visor prices for an even more reasonable 40-45 yuan.
4. Other cheaper helmets.
Clearly just because a helmet is 300 yuan doesn't mean it's any less safe that a 1200 yuan helmet. It may well be made in the same factory from the same or similar materials or even be the same shape. The cheaper helmets won't be DOT or CE rated, but that isn't any indication those helmets are unsafe, just that domestic models haven't been tested by those organizations.
One reason I'm buying an exported HJC is because I want the possibility of doing track days and having test rides back home.Last edited by ZMC888; 03-08-2014 at 01:58 AM.
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#27 Re: Chinese Helmet - Good Quality Ones03-13-2014, 01:18 AM
I ordered the HJC Lorenzo and it arrived yesterday. Put it on...perfect around the crown (as I measured my head first) but about 2cm off from my cheeks so prone to flapping in the breeze. Sent it back. Smaller size wouldn't work as it would be too small around the crown. With it being that far off from the cheeks I think it could well have been fake.
So HJC is a no go for a westerner in Asia, as in the Asian market they have especially designed their helmets for people with heads shaped like deformed chipmunks. May buy one back home and bring it to China as I like the cheaper visor option. In the end the internet is just not the place to buy a helmet, especially if you're the one paying postage.
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#28 Re: Chinese Helmet - Good Quality Ones03-13-2014, 04:00 AM
Helmets are not only made to measure/fitted based on a wearers skull circumference but also on head shape referred to as 'helmet internal shape'... if you've poor understanding on the subject check out any number of sources such as webbikeworld...
Just because the HJC helmet you received didn't appear to fit snugly against your 'cheekbones' does not necessarily indicate that the helmet is a 'fake'.
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#29 Re: Chinese Helmet - Good Quality Ones03-13-2014, 05:10 AM
'Could well have been fake' not 'was definitely fake', but 'could be fake' pretty much describes everything on Taobao. 2cm on each side? I'm taking about being able to shove a 400 page softback book under each cheek when wearing the helmet? In terms of helmet parameters it's a country mile, so much so that is an extreme internal shape. So far out that I worry there is some manufacturing flaw or it is fake. Now it could be that because many Asians have deformed craniums from parental deformation during infancy that extreme shape will in fact fit many Chinese extremely well, it's just not within any shape I've ever come across before and I've owned around 10 helmets and tried on hundreds.
At the end of the day there is no point buying helmets online, imagine going to a shop and being asked to pay 60-100 yuan per helmet before you found one that fitted. Unfortunately that's what you are doing when buying online. The thing that sucks is there aren't really any local helmet shops with anything better than I already have in my area.Last edited by ZMC888; 03-13-2014 at 05:32 AM.
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