Limar 960 Helmet
By James Sharp

Over the last few years I’ve had the pleasure to review a couple of helmets by Limar. When the good folks at BikeMine told me that they wanted to send me the 960, I was excited. This is Limar’s best mountain bike helmet and it has all the features you’d expect out of a high-end helmet.

The 960 boasts a carbon fiber skeleton to keep the weight down to a svelte 300g--330g with the visor--while retaining sufficient strength. The helmet is made with double in-mold construction to fuse the thin shell to the polystyrene lining. The visor fits into sockets on either side of the helmet for secure, Velcro-less retention, but is not adjustable--more on this later. The cranial adjustment system is Limar’s best Pro System 2 and allows for easy one-handed adjustment while riding. The pads attach with a hook-and-loop stickers on the inside, like most other helmets.

The retention device wraps all the way around the inside of the helmet, a little like a hard hat. The helmet actually feels akin to a baseball hat with a headband. If you wear hats often, this is a good thing. I do not, so it took a little getting used to. That’s not to say that it is uncomfortable, it’s not at all, just different. The padding in the front of the helmet also goes all the way across the wearers forehead, behaving as a padded sweatband on hot days--something I grew to appreciate this very hot summer.

The visor is sort of hit-and-miss. I like the way it attaches and how easy it is to remove and re-attach. I didn’t like the fact that it wasn’t adjustable. At this price point--$160--I’d like to see more adjustability there. That being said, I found that more often than not, I’d just pull the visor and use the helmet both on the road and off. Without the visor, the 960 doesn’t look like it’s missing anything, with it, the visor doesn’t look out of place. This is good news for anyone that rides both on- and off-road but doesn’t want to purchase more than one helmet, or be ostracized by the local club for showing up in mountain bike gear. We’re so vain, I know.

There are 24 vents, and they did an admirable job of keeping my melon cool. I wear my hair short, but not buzzed and I could readily feel the breeze through the vents. Unlike some other Limar helmets, the vent design on the 960 is fairly sedate, keeping with the clean lines of the helmet overall. If night riding is your thing, I found attaching a helmet light a piece of cake, and the retention system does a nice job of keep the helmet in place, even with the added weight of a light.

Summary: Using carbon fiber, Limar has kept the weight down on the 960, while maintaining the safety and protection that we expect out helmets. At $160, the helmet is not cheap, but the construction, materials and features are in line with other high end helmets--though I’d like to see an adjustable visor in the future. The fit is good, though that is something you’ll have to try for yourself. There are vents aplenty and a retention system that holds the helmet in place. All in all, if you are in the market for a new helmet, whether you ride road or mountain bikes, check out the 960.

James Sharp is a contributing editor for GearReview.com; more of his ramblings and a look at upcoming reviews can be found at his blog: Lactic Acid Threshold.

For more information, contact:
BikeMine
1639 West Sheridan Ave.
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 73106
Phone: 1-800-223-3207
E-mail: req@bikemine.com
www.bikemine.com