Tonight I am going to Iron Pony (the Wal-mart of motorcycle stores here in Columbus) to check out replacement face shields for my HJC Helmet.  There is currently a clear face shield on it but I didn't realize how many options there are in colors for face shields (clear, light smoke, dark smoke, blue, rainbow, some metallic reflective, etc.) and I'm wondering what suggestions you all have as to which would be better.  I only have my permit currently so I can not ride at night, but I do not like to wear sunglasses under my helmet.  The helmet is black with white designs on it so I was leaning towards a smoke colored one, but once I pass the license test I'm wondering if this will affect the night riding?

Thanks for your help!

Nick

Smoke or Chrome would look sweet. However, any colored visor is like looking through sunglasses, so it will affect night time riding. Not bad if you're in the city, but if you live in the country, you're gonna get a face full of bugs at night.

I have HJC CL-Max flip face, Shoei RF-1000 full face, and Shoei RJ-Air open face helmets that are usable. I was wearing transition eyeglass lenses and clear shields for years but due to developing cataracs requiring frequent lens changes I went to clear eyeglass lenses a couple years ago and went looking for a tinted face shield.

Since I wore my convenient CL-Max most of the time I bought a smoke shield for it and could only find a rather dark one available.  Forget the night riding, it was a pain in the butt on sunny days; I keep to the twisty back roads mostly and I was constantly having to flip it up when going from bright sun into dark shade and back down again so I gould see the road surface, possible gravel, etc in the shady curves. 

I found Shoei had both the light and dark smoke shields available and bought the light one and it's been perfect for me.  Can see clearly from sun into shade and even in the late evening as the sun is going down.  I wear the Shoei full face all the time now with the light smoke shield year around.  Except for those few very hot 90+ days every summer when I get the open face out for local riding.

I use to take the shield off for hot summer days and since I wear eyeglasses all the time they keep the crap out of my eyes and bugs in the face are standard equipment for a biker so I have no problem leaving the shield open if I'm still out after dark occasionally.

GSjack, thanks for the comments.  I was thinking the light smoke would work for me and its good to hear it also posted by someone on here I trust.

I've got an anthracite colored Shoei RF-1100 with the spectra silver shield. It's kind of like "black chrome" if you've seen that. Excellent protection from the sun, I dont even have to squint when sunlight shines directly in my eyes. I don't do much night riding but I can tell you in the city I can ride pretty late into the evening and still see fine. I wouldn't want to get caught that late in the twisties though since the tree cover makes it darker. YMMV with local law enforcement riding at night with a tinted shield.

I have a scorpion exo700 and have a light smoke, dark smoke and clear shields for it.  I bought the light smoke shield first but for my preference of daytime driving it wasn't dark enough for me which is why i bought the dark smoke.  I typically don't ride at night at all to begin with but when i do i carry my clear shield and will use that since trying to see out of the tinted shield at night just doesn't work and getting a face full of bugs just sucks.  One time i did ride and only had the light smoke shield and couldn't see anything at night (backroads with no street lights) with the shield down so just had to accept a bunch of bugs hitting me in the face. 

I also tint all the windows except the windshield of my cars with 5% tint so i am used to looking through darker windows when driving in my car even making the dark smoke shield feel normal to me even in and out of shaded areas.

I just bought a new HJC IS-16.

It feels a lot cheaper component wise compared to my old Shoei, but it's got a flip down sun visor that makes you look like a fighter pilot.

I wear glasses and have light-sensitive eyes and the flip down visor lets me keep the external visor clear and have to squint from bright sunlight.


Flip down visor helmets are awesome.

Figuring the Smoke Shield was worth a shot, I got it and replaced the clear one. Then I did a lot of night work. Smoke Shield was useless - couldn't see jack - so used to wear clear safety glasses with shield open. But the half dead bugs still squirming between the side of my face and the padding was really annoying. Plus their smell would attract ants to my helmet at work. So took the smoke shield off again. Now I just use sunnies under the clear shield cause I do a lot of intermittent night work and couldn't be stuffed changing the shield every couple of weeks.

If all I did was day riding, I'd go with the smoke shield. But you still need sunnies for when you take your helmet off.

Michael

I've got the Shoei TZ-R.  I bought the dark smoke, which is great during the day, but pretty unusable at night.  Luckily, the Shoei visors only take about 10 seconds to switch out.  If I'm ever out late enough that I think I'll be riding at night, I just take the clear visor with me and throw it in my tank bag, or I'll just switch it out before I leave the house.

I have a dark tinted one for my helmet as well. I love it. The only times I do not like it is when I go for an evening ride after work. I'll wait for traffic to die down, but by that point I can't take the tinted visor because I know the sun is going to go down, so I have to deal with an hour of the setting sun directly in my eyes. I'd just wear sunglasses but I already have normal glasses.

I still recommend the dark tinted visor for normal day use. I had a lightly tinted one before and thought it was worthless. No tinted/colored visor should be worn at night because it's already hard enough to see. Mirrored visors look cool, but they scratch so easy, and you can see every single scratch from the inside of the helmet, so it always drove me nuts.

Next helmet I buy is going to have a retractable tinted visor built in so i don't have to worry about it anymore.

Just check the visor before you leave the store. I went to buy a dark smoke one for my HJC helmet and four different visors at two different stores had a distortion in them just a little left of center. Not bad when you are in the store but get out in the sun and it was really distracting. Just thought I'd let you know to check for this.

Quote from: Worm on July 13, 2010, 03:57:59 PM
Just check the visor before you leave the store. I went to buy a dark smoke one for my HJC helmet and four different visors at two different stores had a distortion in them just a little left of center. Not bad when you are in the store but get out in the sun and it was really distracting. Just thought I'd let you know to check for this.

Good point -- one of the Shark helmets I tried on at the cycle store was horrible with distortion.

the HJC visors are so easy to switch if you want a tinted one for day and a clear one at night it would be no problem.

yeah HJCs aren't bad. The tinted ones look a ton better, but you have to get used to mounting it without seeing what you're doing, since you can't see the tracks throught the dark visor. My Arai was easy to mount until the side tab cracked. They're a bit too fragile with how they're designed.

Has anyone tried hi-def yellow or hi-def orange with their shoei?