Just recently I decided to buy a down hill mountain bike helmet for snowmobiling. Ok, ok, all you naysayers hear me out. I know that mountain bike helmets are not Snell approved, but there is a lot of independent tests out there that prove that the Snell rating is really good if you are traveling in excess of 150 mph, but detrimental if going any slower anyways. A lot of those independent studies recommend buying a DOT approved helmet only. The helmet I bought is the SixSixOne Comp Shifted. It comes very very close to the exact regulations of DOT approval. So the other thing that comes into play is the kind of riding I do. If you look at the spedo on my videos you will notice that I am only traveling on average about 9 MPH on my snowmobile. Downhill mountain bike racers can reach speeds of 45+ MPH, and this helmet is rated to handle those kinds of impacts.
It would be nieve for me to think that we are going 9 MPH all the time. That just isn't true. Usually on the trail we average about 35 MPH and go as fast as 60 MPH on short bursts. But lets face it, if you crash at 60 MPH chances are you are going to be so mangled you may not live anyways. It is just part of the thrill I guess.
Why would I buy a mountain bike helmet you ask? Well I have two very good reasons. It only weighs 2lbs, and it only cost $60. To get a 2 Lb motorcycle helmet they are well over $400, and I just didn't want to spend that much. I went to a motorcycle store and weighed all their carbon fiber helmets that came in under $200. The lightest one was made by Corona, and it wasn't even carbon fiber. It did not have a Snell rating, and it was only $80. But it still weighed 2.3 lbs. I was surprised to see the full carbon and Kevlar helmets coming in even heavier than that.
Anyways my mind was made up after weighing all the motorcross helmet competition and studying the different test ran on the SixSixOne vs. a motorcycle helmet, and seeing how similar they are.
And for those who itch to do anything involved in snowmobiling, here is a video of one of our trips last year. Enjoy...
Thanks for reading...
DPS
