Article By: J. Ken Conte
H
elmets have become an accessory for a lot of riders, showing off new fancy paint jobs or an oldschool aesthetic. Essentially, though, helmets are meant to protect, and what I discovered at the Arai launch is that not all helmets are created equal. Arai is a family-owned company, started in 1926 by Hirotake Arai, who was a hat maker and also a motorcycle daredevil. He developed the first helmet in Japan, and Arai took off from there, but it has always been a family-owned business. They pride themselves on hand-laying the complex layer construction of fiberglass, which
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June ‘18 - CYCLE SOURCE MAGAZINE
makes their helmets unusually strong and resilient. Each shell has the signature of the person who laid
the glass and can be scrapped by the maker or the shell inspector. They aren’t completely old school,
though; they employ the use of modern technology when possible, like precision cutting for the face openings. After we got through the history and some hellacious crash videos showing the strength of their helmets, even with multiple impacts, we moved on to the helmets Arai was unveiling for the cruiser market: the Defiant X and Classic V. What took me about the helmets was the snug— but not uncomfortable— fit, the adjustability of the fit and the thought put into all aspects of the helmet, from safety to styling. The Defiant X is a fullface cruiser helmet, with aggressive styling, smooth lines and ventilation like no other. The styling of this
