Anyone here have a Shoei GT air or Icon Alliance GT? | GTAMotorcycle.com

Anyone here have a Shoei GT air or Icon Alliance GT?

Zoodles95

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I am getting sick of the twice a day shield swap. I am starting to get a hankering for a helmet with a built in drop down sunvisor.

The Shoei GT Air is obviously an entirely different price point. I imagine it would be a lot quieter than my current Icon Alliance helmets (yes I own multiples but then again my wife fits the same size so she wears one when she rides with me).

The Alliance is an okay helmet but loud. Lots of wind noise. Not sure if the GT version with the drop down visor would be any better/quieter in this regard.

Any other drop down visor full faced helmets I should be considering?
 
I've got a GT-Air. It is a nice helmet, with the usual Shoei quality. It is one of the quieter helmets I've owned, at least with the vents closed. With the vents open it flows a lot of air, but that does add a fair amount of noise. It is a touring helmet so the ventilation is designed to work with an upright seating position. If you have a very sporty forward lean the vents won't work as well. The helmet opening is quite tight to reduce noise, and the internal fit is rather round, which doesn't work well with my head shape.

The inner visor is nice. The tint is dark enough, and optically, I found the Shoei drop down visor way better than any of the other brands. The drop down visor also comes down far enough so the lower edge doesn't sit in your line of sight when looking forward, but when looking down there is an uncovered gap at the lower edge which lines up with my gauges. That can take some adjustment to get used to. The main visor comes with a pinlock anti-fog insert. I like pinlocks, but the combination of the pinlock edges and the drop down visor edges can make for a busy sight picture the first couple of times you use them together. The pinlock protects the main visor, but the drop down visor will still fog a bit at a stop with the main visor down. You won't ever really need to change the outer visor, which is probably good because the outer visor change mechanism is considerably harder to use than past Shoeis.

The drop down mechanism works well. It is not spring loaded, which I like. In comparison, my wife had an HJC with a spring loaded drop down visor and it retracted with a gawdawful clang that was so loud it was painful.
 
I kind of want drop visor but they look dorky....

Smoked outer visor looks so much nicer.

Maybe for my next helmet I'll give it a go.

Sent from my SM-G930W8 using Tapatalk
 
I don't have the ones you mention but once these come here to Canada I am thinking of picking one up

BMW System7 Helmet

http://www.bmw-motorrad.com/com/en/equipment/system7carbon/main.html



System7-Carbon-moto.jpg


bmw-system-7-black-1%7Cc%3A715x475.jpg
 
I recently replaced my Shoei RF1200 with a Bell Qualifier DLX Devil May Care Helmet and love it more than the Shoei.

It comes standard with a transition visor so I never have to swap my shields or wear sunglasses anymore. It works quite fast as well.

Only issue I have with it is that the bluetooth mount at the side adds noise to the helmet but stuffing the hole with some sound dampening material will probably fix it.
 
I recently replaced my Shoei RF1200 with a Bell Qualifier DLX Devil May Care Helmet and love it more than the Shoei.

It comes standard with a transition visor so I never have to swap my shields or wear sunglasses anymore. It works quite fast as well.

The GT-Air is not Snell approved, so I recently picked up a 2016+ Bell Star for some track stuff that I have planned later this year. Royal Distributing has it on sale for a great price right now.

I didn't expect much from a Bell helmet, but this is a really nice helmet. It has quite a narrow fit that suits my head much better than any of my Shoeis ever have. You can get a Transitions visor for it (quite pricy, but might be worth it for commuting). But it also has the best visor release mechanism I've ever used if you want to stick with conventional visors. You can easily swap shields in under 10 seconds
 
As much as I'd like a transition visor (which is possible with the next helmet I am looking at -- RF1200), swapping shields on my RF-1100 never really bothered me. Takes maybe 10-20 seconds, and I always have my tailbag, so I just put the other one in there (in a visor pouch thing so it doesn't get scratched).
 
Quite like my GT-Air. Great build quality, and fit is much better than my HJC CL-17 was (for me at least). Sometimes I wish the internal visor would drop down a little lower, but it's by no means a problem. I too prefer the look of a tinted outer shield, but the visor changes were getting to be very impractical for me given my commute times. I don't think it looks dorky by any stretch. More like a fighter pilot.

I know it to be a very quiet helmet, but with my height/bike/windscreen/riding position, wind hits me right at the neck roll and sneaks in. If I stand up and look straight - above the turbulent air coming off my windscreen edge - the helmet gets much more quiet.
 
Quite like my GT-Air. Great build quality, and fit is much better than my HJC CL-17 was (for me at least). Sometimes I wish the internal visor would drop down a little lower, but it's by no means a problem. I too prefer the look of a tinted outer shield, but the visor changes were getting to be very impractical for me given my commute times. I don't think it looks dorky by any stretch. More like a fighter pilot.

I know it to be a very quiet helmet, but with my height/bike/windscreen/riding position, wind hits me right at the neck roll and sneaks in. If I stand up and look straight - above the turbulent air coming off my windscreen edge - the helmet gets much more quiet.

i too have a GT-Air and find it to be a quiet helmet. With the caveat that it depends on the bike. On my last (Honda NC750X) the wind noise was terrible at hwy speeds even with ear plugs. Anything above 60kph i needed ear plugs. Now with the Fz07 and a sport Puig screen the helmet is super quiet and only need ear plugs for hwy (above 100kph but usually wear plugs just in case)
flip down sun visor works well and easy to operate. Nice for when going into underground parking or a hwy tunnel under a river.
 
I am getting sick of the twice a day shield swap. I am starting to get a hankering for a helmet with a built in drop down sunvisor.

The Shoei GT Air is obviously an entirely different price point. I imagine it would be a lot quieter than my current Icon Alliance helmets (yes I own multiples but then again my wife fits the same size so she wears one when she rides with me).

The Alliance is an okay helmet but loud. Lots of wind noise. Not sure if the GT version with the drop down visor would be any better/quieter in this regard.

Any other drop down visor full faced helmets I should be considering?

Keep the clear visor and use $10 sunglasses in the morning and take them off in the evening?
 
The GT-Air is not Snell approved, so I recently picked up a 2016+ Bell Star for some track stuff that I have planned later this year. Royal Distributing has it on sale for a great price right now.

I didn't expect much from a Bell helmet, but this is a really nice helmet. It has quite a narrow fit that suits my head much better than any of my Shoeis ever have. You can get a Transitions visor for it (quite pricy, but might be worth it for commuting). But it also has the best visor release mechanism I've ever used if you want to stick with conventional visors. You can easily swap shields in under 10 seconds
I got the Bell Star at RD too. Do you find it squishes your ears and hurts after a while? Mine feels fine on short rides but after a couple hours it starts to hurt my ears.
 
Yes, I'd forgotten about that. I put a few stitches through the foam on the tail of the cheek pieces to pull them away from the lower edges of my ears. Fits great now.
 
Keep the clear visor and use $10 sunglasses in the morning and take them off in the evening?

I thought the same, then this year bought a Schuberth C3. Having the sunvisor is awesome, don't think I could go back to one without for a touring helmet.
 
you didn't want to get the Schuberth C4 ?

I am having a toss up between that and the BMW one....

I picked it up off Kijiji for a decent price. Wanted to give the modular thing I go before I considered spending a grand on something like the C4
 
As someone who wears glasses, having the drop down sun visor is nice that way I don't have to be switching between my prescription regular glasses and sun glasses. I picked up a Shark Ridell which has the drop down and good venting for what I need.
 
I can confirm the Alliance GT is a loud and noisy helmet but it's a great helmet. I keep getting compliments on the looks of it, even from non-riders. I have it in a matte black finish with a gold drop down visor. It helps with the sun a lot, but it is nowhere near quiet to answer your question.
 

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