Review AIROH Connor Motorcycle Helmet

Having used the helmet Connor from the company AIROH for about 3.000km (1800 miles) in many different environments: hot and cold weather, sunny and rainy conditions, city and highway riding, on and off road, I feel to be in a good position to share a real user experience and opinion about this helmet. 

I could summarise the review and tell you that this helmet offers an unbelievable value considering its safety, price and features. If you were on the fence about this helmet and needed a final push to pull the trigger, go ahead, you won’t be disappointed.

Here are 3 main takeaways:

• You can grab this helmet for a price ranging from EUR/U$ 100 to 150.
• This is a budget friendly motorcycle helmet that already complies with the latest ECE22-06 safety standard. I can’t emphasise enough how good this is.
• This is primarily a hot weather helmet.

If you want to know the nitty-gritty (including the negatives) then read on to find out if this is the right helmet for you.

Safety

The helmet Connor from AIROH is a full face helmet, meaning safety has been prioritise over other features, and it complies with the latest safety standard ECE22-06. If you don’t know what that means, take a look in this article: ECE22-06 , but in a few words this a MUCH better testing procedure compared to the previous safety standard ECE22-05.

The chin strap uses a fast micrometrical locking mechanism (instead of double D) which priorities convenience.

At the current selling price you won’t find many helmets that compete with it.

Design

While design is totally subjective, I do believe that most riders will agree that this a good looking helmet if you are looking for a full face helmet.

It has a modern and sporty design and AIROH is well known for offering nice graphic options.

Check out the available graphic designs.

Visor

The visor offers a solid field of view and you won’t feel restricted. Are there helmets with better field of view? Yes, for instance the AIROH Commander, which I also own, offers a better field of view.

One thing that really bothers me on many helmets is a flimsy visor and I am happy to report that the AIROH Connor visor has no distortions, is strong enough to keep its shape when you are pulling it open, and has a clear feedback when you shut it close.

Another positive is the fact that the tab for opening it is positioned on the left side! I don’t like helmets that the opening mechanism is at the centre. It is easy to open the visor with the left hand while keeping the right hand on the throttle.

It is Pinlock ready but it does not come with an insert included. I will not complaint about the lack of a Pinlock insert as it already has a accessible price. If you are riding in colder climates you should get a Pinlock. The helmet will fog up on you.

It does NOT come with an integrated sun visor. Here is the thing, having an integrated sun visor means that the manufacturer needs to sacrifice some of the internals, where the material for impact dissipation is located, to fit the sun visor mechanism. So here is my take, I rather have a helmet at this price range that complies with ECE22-06 than the way around.

The mechanism for removing the visor is relatively easy (not the easiest) to operate and it does not require additional tools.

Ventilation

Straight forward. This is a hot weather helmet. In other words, you’ve got to pick your priorities.

There are ventilation openings on the chin and at the top of helmet for your scalp. The ventilation is outstanding! This is probably the most ventilated full face street helmet I have ever used. It is really top notch!

However, even when closed the ventilation ports still allow air to sip through. Specially the ports at the top don’t fully seal therefore in cold weather (below 10 C°) it is too cold for my taste. This should be improved.

There is another weak point for the ventilation ports on top of the helmet. The opening mechanism are two separate small wheels, one on the right and the other on left side, and with thicker riding gloves it’s hard to feel their position and have a clear tactile feedback. In addition, my preference is to open the ventilation ports using exclusively my left hand, so my right hand can stay on the throttle, and that is very annoying with this helmet. You have to reach over the helmet with the left hand to operate the right ventilation port. Not good. The ideal ventilation port in my opinion should be actuated only via one button/tab/notch/slide (whatever it is), offer a tactile feedback, be big enough so it is comfortable to use it with thicker gloves and be positioned on the left side of the helmet.

The AIROH Commander includes a chin skirt but I maintain my position that this helmet is better suited for warm weather.

Comfort

When it comes to comfort, first and foremost you’ve got to pick a helmet that is the right size and shape for your head. Assuming you have that checked, this is a very comfortable helmet! The inner liner is well padded, soft and feels nice against your head.

You’ve got to try it for yourself. The material is good but the size and shape are individual for every rider.

Noise

In most cases ventilation and noise are inverse to each other.

Got great ventilation? Not quiet.

Got a quiet helmet? No great ventilation.

This is not a quiet helmet, hence the great ventilation.

HOWEVER, and that’s a big one for me, I will NOT complaint about the noise because any helmet should be worn in combination with hearing protection if you are doing more than 50km/h. Maybe, and that’s a huge maybe, if you are exclusively doing city riding at low speeds you may consider skipping the hearing protection.

So while this is NOT a quiet helmet, once I put my ear plugs it’s totally fine and I feel comfortable.

Weight (perceived weight)

The weight of the AIROH Connor is 1450 grams (+-50 grams based o size).

Some riders really stress about helmet weight, maybe I’m just not a refined rider, but I never put on a helmet and felt like: “Oh, this super light” or “Oh, that’s heavy”. What really gets me is the aerodynamic.

Let me give an extreme (read stupid) example. If you’ve got a 1000 grams helmet that is super light but has terrible aerodynamic, it doesn’t matter how light it is, your neck will have to work very hard.

On paper this helmet has a decent weight but in practice has great aerodynamic. No problem whatsoever to ride all day long without getting neck fatigue.

Other Details

I wear prescription glasses and it is comfortable.

If you want to install a bluetooth device is ready for that.

Verdict

The AIROH Connor is a full face helmet that offers great level of protection at a very competitive price. Its ventilation is outstanding and better suited for warm climates, for cold weather riding you should wear a balaclava. If your riding is not exclusively inside the city at speeds below 50km/h you must wear ear plugs. It is a comfortable helmet with great aerodynamics. While it doesn’t have an integrated sun visor you can comfortably wear sunglasses of prescription glasses.

It’s not a perfect helmet but its pros total outweighs the cons.