I’ve been lucky enough to partner with @iconmotosports for my Pilgrimage, and they’ve sent me this amazing new helmet. The Airframe Pro, comes in many different color styles, the one pictured is the Aiframe Pro Halo in Green.
You know me, I can’t leave anything alone, so I’m repainting the helmet to reflect me a bit more. However! I thought that before I get my grubby little hands all over it, I’d give you a short breakdown over some of the features of this helmet!
First things first, this is my first ICON helmet. I’m upgrading from the cheapest full face helmet I could find two years ago and that happened to be a BILT helmet I found at Cycle Gear. That said, I know the pitfalls of my old helmet and I know that the technology that ICON has for their helmets is leaps and bounds ahead.
I’m pretty curious about how the Fog-Free Icon Optics Shield is going to behave when I hit more rainy weather. However, I’ve already started to notice just how clear the shield is. I was riding home on the second test day and I had the realization that the only way I could tell that my shield was down was that there was no wind blowing at my eyeballs.
There’s also a shield lock, which is essentially a metal pin that sticks out and a hole in the shield that the pin pops into. It’ll probably take a little bit of getting used to but more about that later on down the line.
I’ve had this helmet for a week now, and I can tell you that -true to name- the air vents are the holy grail of this helmet. There are three major vents around the temple/forehead that are my best friends. The air goes straight to your forehead and it’s the best thing since sliced bread.
As you can see in the photo above, there is enough padding to keep your head nice and snug in your helmet, but also minimal enough to keep the air flowing through your helmet and close to your hot head.
I’m also quite excited about the hydra-dry liner. I’m excited that it may mean that my helmet won’t still be wet with my sweat from the day before when I put my helmet on in the morning. Although, I’m reserving my judgement on this element until I’ve got a little more miles in it.
There are also a few vents hidden slyly in the rest of the helmet, along with a lovely ‘warm air out’ vent at the back of the head. This air out vent has the bonus of having a small ‘spoiler’ that uses the air moving over your helmet to pull out that warm air.
One of the other things that makes this helmet stand apart from others is this sculpted neck roll. It’s primarily for people who are riding more aggressively like on sports bikes, where you’re sitting much farther forward. It’s meant to reduce interference from your Jacket’s neck line or if you’ve got a big ol’ backpack.
Ironically, I’ve been loving it because it means my hair isn’t trapped against the back of my neck.
It does come with a chin curtain, to reduce the air that normally sneaks up past your chin to pelt your eyes. So far so good. This is another thing I’m reserving final judgement on until I can ride on Lazarus, since she doesn’t have a windshield like Hephaestus.
A few final notes, this is what the baby looks like on a head. It’s designed for longer/oval heads. But do not despair! I have a very round head, and I have no pressure points with the helmet. I wore it for about an hour around the house when it first showed up to make sure I wouldn’t start getting a headache.
It’s quite comfortable and I haven’t had any issues with weight at all, it’s very light, about 3lbs. Although, if you are concerned about weight I would encourage you to look into the Carbon version of this helmet.
I’ve also discovered that there are different liners you can order to reduce pressure or what I like to call the chipmunk cheek effect. There are more features that I haven’t gone into here, but these are the ones that are immediately noticeable from a consumer point of view. ((For more about this helmet, I’m a big fan of the video reviews on Revzilla))
I’ll keep you guys updated, and make another review of this helmet when I’ve gotten a few more miles on it, but for now this has been my first impressions of the Airframe Pro.