Helmet recommendations needed

[OakLeaf]

+1 on what Owlie said. The Snell Memorial Foundation, a disinterested nonprofit that tests and certifies helmets, recommends a five year replacement interval (if a helmet never gets dropped or crashed before that). Doctors' organizations, also disinterested as far as selling helmets, have adopted that recommendation.

My inclination is also that three years is a little much ... but on the other hand, it's usually the highly perforated helmets that carry the three year recommendation. It certainly makes sense that a helmet that has a greater amount of surface area exposed to acids, oils, ozone and UV, and less structural foam that isn't exposed to all that degradation, would have a correspondingly shorter lifespan.

Bottom line, whether a helmet lasts three years or five, brain injuries are forever. Mostly I replace mine after three and a half or four years. Even the most expensive helmets are cheap insurance in comparison, though I'm fine with helmets on the middle to low end of the price range.

[shootingstar]

Admittedly I replace my helmets every um....8 yrs. or so. I do wear one all the time.

As for bug net, maybe for women, since we tend to have longer hair ends anyway, there are tiny bugs that might fly in but we wouldn't know it and they get out of our hair once we take off helmet or we scratch our head.

I have been bitten by a bee on my eyelid...wow what an experience and I was swearing sunglasses but at the time, not tight against my face.

[Helene2013]

The thing is that this helmet has so much bigger holes, it would be easy for a "stinger" to get inside. Murphy's law would happen to be me with the bug issue. So I prefer to at least avoid this. The net fits very well in the helmet. It covers the front and sides of the helmet. The back remains opened. From those who have experience with net, they told me it does not affect venting. I'll know next summer when I try the helmet. For now, it is stored and I will use a "warmer" one as the temperature is too cold to ride with such helmet. I don't want to have to buy the shell that goes over the helmet. My Aspire can do the job under cooler weather. But boy this Catlike is so light. Unbelievable.

[CAS]

+1 on what Owlie said. The Snell Memorial Foundation, a disinterested nonprofit that tests and certifies helmets, recommends a five year replacement interval (if a helmet never gets dropped or crashed before that). Doctors' organizations, also disinterested as far as selling helmets, have adopted that recommendation.

My inclination is also that three years is a little much ... but on the other hand, it's usually the highly perforated helmets that carry the three year recommendation. It certainly makes sense that a helmet that has a greater amount of surface area exposed to acids, oils, ozone and UV, and less structural foam that isn't exposed to all that degradation, would have a correspondingly shorter lifespan.

Bottom line, whether a helmet lasts three years or five, brain injuries are forever. Mostly I replace mine after three and a half or four years. Even the most expensive helmets are cheap insurance in comparison, though I'm fine with helmets on the middle to low end of the price range.

Well, I guess it's time then, for me to replace. I've had mine since 2010--never crashed where I hit my head, but I will admit that on occasion I have dropped it on the floor when I grabbed it wrong. Thanks everyone for their input.