Getting The Fit Right: A Guide To Helmet Sizing

This is slower than fully automated manufacturing, and that is the point. A handcrafted shell trades speed for a level of finish and individual attention that a purely machine made helmet does not offer.

Full face and open face helmets suit different kinds of riding, and the right choice usually comes down to where and how you ride rather than looks alone. A full face helmet covers the chin and jaw, giving more protection in a wider range of impacts, and tends to suit faster roads and longer distances.

Once the shell is formed and cured, it moves through finishing: sanding, painting or leather trimming, and fitting the internal padding and retention system. Every stage is checked before the next begins, since a fault caught early is far cheaper to fix than one found at the end.

Getting helmet sizing right starts with a proper head measurement, taken with a soft tape around the largest part of the head, just above the eyebrows and ears. That figure points to a starting size, but it is only a starting point, since head shape varies as much as head size.

ECE 22.06 is the current European standard that motorcycle helmets are tested against, and it replaced the older ECE 22.05 standard with a wider and more demanding set of tests. Helmets are checked for impact absorption at multiple points on the shell, not just the crown, and the standard also tests rotational forces, which earlier standards largely ignored.

To see the certification behind our own range, visit Hedonist.