Time to grow up: FIM rated helmet choices

[tommymck]

The politics are more than stupid, but its the science that matters.

I actually have a sneaking suspicion that there's some tiny difference between the corsair X and the rx-7v that isn't readily apparent and there's a reason why they distribute it in North America and don't pass it through FIM. No telling what though. I cant figure out why they'd change the name if there was zero difference.

Honestly, I'm kinda stumped at the moment because I wanted the Shoei offering, only to discover today that my head is going to require a size large in that helmet. The catch? Size large apparently didn't pass the top safety regulation. I'm not sure which way to turn now.

Don't know if you watched the video, but SNELL and FIM were, until recently, mutually exclusive. The SNELL rating, if left as-is, wouldn't have been ECE/FIM compliant (the SNELL test is multiple direct impacts to the same location). This evidently made sense back in the day because the test was originally meant for race car applications. This lead to an emphasis on making the shells very hard. ECE/FIM determined that a more realistic motorcycle crash scenario was that the rider would be bouncing around along the ground, never hitting the same spot twice, and the emphasis should be on not transmitting glancing blows through the helmet, which argues for a softer shell.

So, SNELL decided to have two standards because they didn't want their label to be left off of EU helmets. They apply one standard (the double impact, leading to a hard shell) for the US market, and another standard (their second standard is designed to satisfy FIM, leading to a softer shell) for the EU market. The problem is that it's the same SNELL label, so you never really know which is which. Clearly from the Revzilla description, the Coarsair X uses the SNELL testing that satisfies FIM, but they won't say that specifically because it's a US market helmet and they don't want to imply that they have a double standard. The issue is that SNELL just won't admit that they've been wrong over the years. It's silly face-saving thing. And manufacturers are stuck having to provide different version to the different markets.