Nolan N102 helmet

[Henn]

Last year I rode in a group of 3, where all of us used Nolan N102 flip face helmets (bought early 2008). And the things worked incredibly well. After 7months and 28000km they all still work as they should. We would have had the chinpiece up and down at least 20 times a day and still no drama.

I took a nasty fall and have a nice serious scratch right across the chin piece of mine, so they stay closed in a crash (as far as I'm prepared to test it).

Noise can get a bit irritating at 100kmh for extended periods, but a neck scarf cuts out a lot and so would earplugs. In particularly dusty conditions the visor hinge can stiffen up a little, but a clean and some silicon spray fixed that.

So I think they do their job well.

Ben

[stuxtttr]

Nice review Ben

I used one of those neoprene things that sticks around the helmet has a hole you poke your head through it worked real well but it wont work with the flip front helmets

[ep!c]

I've been touring with an n102 for about a year now. LOVE IT.

-Eric Nolan

[CosI'mFree]

I've had mine for three years now and find this helmet very very confortable! I love the easy one hand action clip to open up the face of the helmet.

What I'll like to ask you more experience lot is the following:

I recently dropped the helmet while carrying it and it landed on the edge of it's fin at the back of the helmet. The impact left a small scratch on it

It probably dropped off my hand from about half a meter in height onto concrete floor.

Is that the end of it? Should I replace it?:confused1:

I've heard that you can have it tested. Is this true and if it is, does anyone know of where I can get this done in the Sydney/Newcastle (Australia) areas?

Cheers

[Margus]

After some 120 000km mine and wife's are completely worn. Don't open and close well, rough movements, often get seized etc. I though they'd last longer.

What I really don't like on the N102 is the upper visor seal design. Who ever the guy was in Nolan who designed it needs a good slap on the head! I guess that person never has studied different seal designs, just put "italiano" beauty in there and it doesn't work.

On our N102-s, our both upper seals have leaked since brand new and I hate constant drops on my face in the rainy (esp. cold) weather while the visor is completely closed. My old N100 worked much better in the sealing department.

Firiend of mine just bought a brand new N103 and he said the same - upper seal leaks in the rain. So there's no change even in the newest Nolan model.

Pin-lock inner visor design suck big time!!! Who ever designed this pin-lock design (used in many manufacturers helmets) deserves to be fired from the work - it only works in VERY clean air conditions, riding gravel and dirt roads (even rarely) puts dirt between the two visors and they start to scratch each other like sand paper - both visors will be ruined within exponential time trend when you ride dirt roads. You need to completely open pin-locks and throughoutly clean them after every ride if you want them to last in rough conditions.

I find glue-in antifog visor much better and well thought-through solution, from my practice, it's lightyears better design than the overhyped pin-lock. With dead simple glued type inner layer they never touch each other like in pin-lock design, there's always space between visors and the outer edge is completely sealed in Fog-City visors - no dirt gets between and absolutely no scraching between the layers.

The only con of gluable antifog layers is you must glue them in the right spot. Doing this wrong the fog layer may start to eat one of your helmet's seals when opening/closing the lid. And you must clean the old visor throughoutly and glue it on in very dry conditions with no residual humidity left between them. I do this after I buy a brand new visor and anti-fog layer lasts the lifetime of a visor.

Don't have money to buy new ones yet (will keep trashing those N102Es for some time) but I'll probably look elsewhere next time - Schuberth, Arai or BMW modular helmets, I'd gladly pay more to know it really works, what it is supposed to do or what is written on the tin (mainly no f***ing water drops inside the helmet when the visor is fully closed please!).

As a used-to-be big fan of older Nolans, I'd say Nolan has regressed, not progressed IMHO. I really hope they fully revamp the coming N104 from scratch and hire proper workers who really know something about engineering and perfected design, not some italian beauty contest wannabes.

[stuxtttr]

After some 120 000km mine and wife's are completely worn.

Margus that sounds like pretty decent wear to me although I don't know how long other peoples helmets have lasted.

How many years usage is that ?

your review makes me think this might be just what I need If an Arai is only double the price would it still be working after 240 000 km ? although I suspect a similar Arai schubert maybe even triple the price.

Fair enough about the leak that shouldnt happen ina modern lid.