Words like "ultimate helmet", "world's quietest helmet", "best helmet in the world", "safest helmet" and more have been tossed around by exuberant marketeers in their descriptions of the Schuberth S1. 

At a cost of 700 dollars, they forgot one more claim: how about "world's most expensive helmet"?

Schuberth has been making helmets since the early 1950's, and is probably best known for their "Concept" flip-open helmet. 

BMW motorcycle riders and others who traveled in Europe back in the days before Schuberth helmets were sold in the U.S. would pay just about any price to bring home a Concept. 

The helmet had a certain coolness factor, mostly because it was very different in form and function and also because it was very rare, it was German and it was a Schuberth. 

Schuberth marches to a different beat and their helmets may be a bit quirky, but they aren't afraid to develop and incorporate new technologies to help improve both safety and comfort -- technologies that eventually seem to work their way into helmets of lesser stature.

It is immediately obvious that a huge amount of time was spent on developing the S1.  Every single feature that makes up a motorcycle helmet was considered for improvement.  I can imagine the Schuberth engineers evaluating the state-of-the-art in motorcycle helmets, and then deciding to start from from scratch and reinvent everything. 

There are so many features on the Schuberth S1 that it's difficult to describe them all.  But after all their hard work and the huge cost to Schuberth and the high price for the consumer, is it worth it?  Does this helmet truly meet or exceed all the marketing hype?  Let's take a closer look.

Paint and Graphics
Where to start?  How about with first impressions.  Our S1 carries the "Drudi Sport" graphic design, which we picked at random from the Schuberth catalog for our purchase.  It looks much better "in the flesh" than it does in the photographs.  The pattern looks modern and fresh and the bright red-orange dashes of color really stand out in traffic, especially on an overcast day. 

The white panels in the design are actually highly reflective, which make getting a good photograph difficult, but which shine very brightly when illuminated at night.  The blue color is a rich metallic.  The S1's overall finish is excellent - probably about the best we've seen on any motorcycle helmet. 

The exception is in a couple of tiny spots where the decals are slightly misaligned where  they meet.  You'd have to look pretty closely, and it's barely noticeable, but there nonetheless.

Schuberth must have laid on several coats of some type of clear coat, because the helmet has a "deep" sheen and the finish feels like a highly polished show car.

Visor
The S1's visor is huge, and fits way up on to the brow of the helmet.  Schuberth added a second row of gasket material along the top, possibly to help reduce wind noise. 

The gasket that seals the visor around the helmet's eye opening is a double-walled tube, which is designed to compress against the closed visor, in the interest of noise reduction.

The visor's rotating mechanism is located entirely out of the air stream underneath the clear sides of the visor.  The S1 has what is probably the easiest to use visor removal systems we've experienced, and the parts move with a quality feel. 

Raise the visor all the way, push back a spring-loaded lever and the visor pops right out.  No fiddling and no swearing is necessary.  Schuberth claims that the visor has a 2.5 mm average thickness to help prevent distortion; it's a touch thicker in the middle than at the sides.  It is also treated with an anti-fog coating on the inner surface and an anti-scratch coating on the outside. 

It's difficult to compare visor quality between helmets, because if it's clear and the rider can see through it with no distortion, what's the diff?  A motorcycle helmet visor is usually only noticeable when its quality is poor.   The visor on the S1 is fine - it works, it's clear and we noticed no unusual distortion.

The chin has an internal hinge that allows it to open by pushing in the lower section (bulge that looks like a smile in the photo above).  It has a separate top section that is spring-loaded and serves as an area to stick your thumb to pop open the visor (toothed section above the bulge, photo above).  The vent opening works well and is easy to locate with a gloved hand. 

But having to poke one's finger into the top part of the vent to be able to grip the visor is cumbersome and makes something as simple as opening and closing the visor much more complicated than it should be.  We think that it would have been much more effective to use a simple simple plastic tab molded on to the lower left side of the visor. 

Tabs are an effective solution that works and this technology doesn't need the persistent reinventing that motorcycle helmet manufacturers seem to find irresistible.

Without a tab, it's not immediately apparent how to open or close the visor.  The rider must use an entire hand to push on the visor to close it, and unless it's grabbed in the middle, the big visor twists as its moved, making it harder to lower it to the desired position.  The Schuberth owner's manual shows the opening and closing procedure, but it takes more time and is not as precise as it could be.

We also found it difficult to click open the S1's visor to a desired location without some fussing.  It ends up being a two-part procedure: pop open the visor higher than necessary, then grab the lower edge of the visor with the left thumb and forefinger, then lower it to the desired opening.  Too much to concentrate on and it would have been much simpler to use with a tab.

Sun Shade
Underneath the visor lives the Schuberth signature feature: the internal sun shade.  Much has been written about this device, and some motorcyclists claim that once you've owned a helmet with an internal sun shade, you'll never want to be without it again.  On the S1, a lever on the left side of the S1 is pushed forward and the shade rotates down from under the helmet's shell with a click.

We have mixed feelings about this feature.  We've used three different helmets with a built-in sun shade; the Schuberth Concept, the Jarow Mono X2 and now the S1. 

But the optical qualities of each each leave something to be desired, because they distort the view just enough to be annoying.  The distortion seems to be accentuated by some prescription eyeglasses, and eyeglass wearers may find that the distortion bad enough to be prevent taking advantage of this feature.

The S1's sun shade distorts my vision enough to give me a slight eyestrain headache.  For some reason, the sunshade creates a slightly out of focus split image between my two eyes.  The lower edge of the sun shade is just at the bottom of my peripheral vision, which I also find annoying. 

Apparently, the sun shade is designed so that the coverage stops at a point where the rider has an un-shaded look down at the motorcycle's instruments, but the lower edge seems to be in constant view, which can be a distraction.

NOTE:  It has been brought to our attention that Schuberth helmets with the drop-down dark visor can be modified to a straight bottom edge rather than the sculpted edge.  Simply remove the visor and turn it upside-down and refit it with the straight edge at the bottom.

The S1's shade also is about 15% lighter than it should be to really block the sun; we estimate it at about 35% visible light transmission.  Schuberth may have been hesitant about making it darker for reasons of liability, but to be really useful, it would have to be darker than 35%.  

I'm sure we'll get a lot of grief over this statement, but after some debate here in the webBikeWorld shops, our opinion is that the sun shade is a bit of a gimmick.  When an internal sun shade can be made with the same optical qualities as a good visor, we'll reconsider. 

This may be impossible, due to the curvature necessary to house the shade inside the helmet.  Until then, our opinion is that it's an interesting feature, but it may not work well for all riders.  It's not something we feel like we must have; we wouldn't pay much extra for it and in its current state of evolution, it's a feature we don't really miss.

Venting
Schuberth claims to have spent a great deal of time on the aerodynamics and internal air flow on the S1.  The air flow system consists of the typical chin vent, top vent and rear negative pressure exhaust system that is now ubiquitous on almost all motorcycle helmets. 

The chin vent flows an acceptable amount of air, no more or less than other helmets we've tried.  Perhaps if the vent opened in, rather than out (as shown in the top photo, left), it would provide more air flow.

The helmet's top forward-facing vent opens by pushing back and forth. It's not apparent which way is open and which way is closed, because it isn't possible to look under the vent to see when the vent hole is uncovered. 

The owner's manual says that back is open and forward is closed.  It would have been nice to at least mold an arrow or something on to the vent to illustrate its operation.

There are also two rearward facing vents on the top of the helmet that are designed to exhaust air out the back of the helmet.  Each one covers two holes drilled into the helmet shell. 

It's always difficult to tell if these type of negative pressure vents are effective, but it is apparent that these two vents do cause a great deal of high-frequency noise, which is very disappointing and which we will discuss below.

Overall, the S1 flows a decent amount of air through the chin vent, but the top vents don't seem as efficient as other helmets we've tried.  It seemed to make no difference to air flow whether the top sliding vent was open or closed. 

We're not sure why it seems to be so difficult to engineer a cool, clean flow of air through the top of a helmet, but no one seems to have yet developed the perfect system.  The ideal system would be small, unobtrusive, have minimal protrusions on the helmet and do nothing to increase wind noise.  It should also be easy to turn on and off and to control the amount of air flow.  Apparently, it's not as easy as it sounds, but we're sure some manufacturer will get this right sooner or later.

Fit
The Schuberth S1 liner is relatively comfortable; again, no breakthroughs here.  Our opinion is that the S1 fits at least one size small; i.e., order one size larger than you normally wear.  My head borders on a size large and extra-large, depending upon the manufacturer and their head shape template.  The size XL S1 fits me, but it is very tight, especially at the temples.  I may have been able to get away with a size XXL. 

Our opinion is that the internal shape of the S1 is an egg shape.  The helmet feels slightly bowed around the mid-section, and it fits very tight up around the temples, where it almost seems to turn inward, and tight at the jaw and chin area. 

The fit at the cheeks is very slightly wide, and the pressure that I sometimes feel on the sides of my jaws with a tight helmet liner is absent with the S1, but there's pressure on my lower jaw that gets uncomfortable after about 1 hour or so.  See the wBW Helmet FAQ page for more information on choosing and wearing a motorcycle helmet, including information on helmet internal shapes and matching those shapes to your head size.

Schuberth offers a variety of internal padding, including a removable head band section.  We haven't been able to locate S1 parts in the U.S.A., but will try to find replacement padding that would hopefully allow us to develop a better fit.

Mass
We've never had a helmet review section entitled "Mass" before, but the S1 deserves special mention.  It is a huge helmet.  It's also very heavy at 1789 grams (3 lbs., 15-1/8 oz.).  At just shy of 4 pounds, this is the heaviest helmet we've reviewed to date; heavier even than the Vega Summit XPV with its flip-open mechanism. 

The S1 also sits much farther down on the rider's head than other helmets; i.e., the neck opening seems to be located lower than normal.  We can only assume that Schuberth has designed the S1 to fit lower to help decrease wind noise.  Speaking of which, the S1 has much more padding than is the norm around the neck region of the helmet. 

Since most low frequency "booming" wind noise is generated in this area, Schuberth's addition of padding, and the thick under-chin wind blocker, is a good idea and something that more helmet manufacturers should emulate.

The downside is that the combination of the weight, the very large shell, the low fit of the helmet, and the thick neck roll padding, the S1 feels like a huge fish bowl.  This is the first helmet I've personally tried that is so heavy and big that it actually gives me a sore neck and back strain. 

Schuberth also claims to have done lots of work on making the S1 as aerodynamic as possible, but the helmet's bulk seems to counter any potential benefits of aerodynamic design.  It just feels big and it has lots of mass, which is made apparent during every wind gust as the rider's head is tossed around, and sore muscles may be the result of trying to counteract the momentum.

Noise
This is one area in which we're sorely disappointed by the S1.  Not only is the S1 not the "quietest helmet in the world", it's not even close. 

The low-frequency booming noises that are usually a result of turbulence around a helmet's neck area are relatively well controlled, but the real culprit are the S1's top rear exhaust vents. 

They create a noisy, high frequency whistle that starts at around 30 mph.  Placing a hand over the opening for the exhaust vents completely eliminates the noise, so there's no question where it's coming from. 

We always use earplugs when riding, and we also wear a helmet liner, aka "do rag".  See the wBW Earplugs and Hearing Protection page for more information on choosing and wearing earplugs.

Opening or closing the top front sliding vent makes no difference in the noise generated by the exhausts.  The noise is slightly diminished when riding a sportbike, where the rider is crouched and the helmet's angle of attack is less acute.  But riding on sport-touring or touring bikes, with their more straight-up riding position, causes the air to blow over the exhaust vents like blowing into a bottle. 

We're surprised that Schuberth can claim to have worked so hard on noise control and still have this basic flaw.  Low frequency noises can often be controlled with the Windjammer helmet wind blocker (see the wBW review), but vent noises are much more difficult to control.

Miscellaneous
Schuberth decided to go with a complicated quick release (so-called) buckle system, rather than the tried and true D-ring.  We have yet to find an acceptable quick release system that works as effectively and efficiently as a D-ring.  We're not sure why helmet manufacturers keep trying to reinvent a system that works.

The S1 also includes Schuberth's "Anti Roll Off System".  This is a separate harness that is attached to the back of the helmet and is claimed to help prevent the helmet from coming off or contacting the rider's chin during an accident.  The strap is hidden from the rider, and is not noticed during normal use. 

Conclusion
Is this the "ultimate helmet"?  We don't think so.  Although nicely conceived and very well made, there are some features that just don't work for us.  The S1 is too big and much too heavy, in our opinion. 

The noise levels, while not unacceptable, are higher than we expected, especially considering the price and the design.  While it may appear that we're being too hard on the S1, its high price justifies a very close look, and any faults that might have been overlooked in a helmet costing less become ,much more serious.

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