Shoei RF 1100; a short review.

[AKjitsu]

I certainly don’t hold myself out as an expert on helmets. But over the last forty five years I’ve owned a few; most recently a Shark RSI, Arai Profile, and Shoei RF 1000. Having survived another busy season and being, in my own considered judgment, an all-around splendid fellow I decided it was time to treat myself to just one more. After extensive e-chat with the lads at SportbikeTrackGear it was decided to give the new Shoei RF 1100 a go.

Took a little 150 mile jaunt up to the hills today and here’s how it went.

Venting: A Very BFD here in the Arizona desert. The guys @ SBTG claimed the RF 1100 features greatly improved air flow over the RF 1000. They’re right. My highly subjective estimate is that the 1100 flows about 40% more air than the 1000. And if you use the lever to engage the anti-fog mode (holds the shield just a RCH open) it gets downright windy inside. In fact, I’d say that the flow at or above 45 MPH equals that of an Arai. At 30 MPH or less the flow’s not as good as an Arai. But then, other than wearing just sunglasses and a doo-rag, what is?

Aerodynamics: Standard Shoei rock-solid stability and lack of lift irrespective of the rider’s head orientation. Nothing new here. What is new is the level of wind noise, or lack thereof. Given the high degree of ventilation, this thing is remarkably quiet. And what noise there is seems “ghostly and removed”. That is, the perception is that all the noise is taking place outside the helmet rather than inside. This may be in part due to the way the spring-loaded face shield snaps into place for a water/air-tight fit. Or the total lack of turbulence from underneath. No moving air gets up under the neck roll or chin curtain. None. Nada. Zip. Zero. Hell, I stood up on the pegs and titled my head back to see if I could get some turbulence. But to no avail.

Eye port: The field of view could be conservatively described as “freaking gi-normous”. It’s a big-screen experience. Head checks are a zero-effort event with this helmet. In fact, while riding in the left lane I could spin my head and eyes far enough to the left to see what was coming up behind me in the right lane. Seriously. Just riding along, the road ahead, both mirrors (a ways out there on a Multistrada), the instruments, the GPS, and the radar detector were all simultaneously well within view without moving my head a single degree. This is one of those features that takes away a big ol’ bunch of the stress involved in staying alive (and out of jail) on a motorcycle.

Face shield: The optical qualities of the face shield seem just about flawless. I made a point of scanning around the edges of the shield for any distortion and came up empty-handed. The focus (near and far) was spot on at all times. The ability to change shields is another BFD for me as I like to ride all day; often heading for home as the sun is going down. So I naturally pulled the clear shield off straigthaway and set about replacing it with the tinted version. When I first looked at the mind-boggling complexity of the locking mechanism my first thought was “Sweet jeezus, how’m I ever going to get this other shield on”. But as it turns out, the process is actually somewhat easier than with its predecessor. If we set the scale of ease of shield swapping with AGV (POS) at ‘1’ and Shark (can be swapped with one hand) at ‘10’, I would place the RF 1100 at about ‘7’. Well within the acceptable range. Can’t be done with the helmet still on your head and rolling down the road as with a Shark, but unlike the AGV, doesn’t require a mechanical engineering degree and a set of blueprints. And Shoei wisely eschewed the current dumb-ass fashion of placing the lift ledge way aft on the left side; choosing instead to place it about as far forward as possible. Thereby maximizing either-hand access and minimizing warping and binding when opening or closing the shield.

Liner: Not much to say here other than to note my suspicion that the rascals from Shoei stole a pillow from one of those high-dollar hotels in Milan and reverse-engineered it into a helmet liner.

All in all, a fair bit of kit.