Commuting by bike is a specific and demanding job, especially in winter. These five helmets all have sun visors to eliminate time-consuming visor swaps, and Pinlock anti-mist capability.
Our top five commuter helmets are full-face helmets that all come in under £200 (in some cases, you’ll need to choose a plain colour to stay under the threshold).
Most come with a Pinlock included in the deal, but if it isn’t included we’ve left enough room to buy one separately and still come in under the £200 threshold.
Flipfront helmets also make good commuting lids, so you can click here for our guide to the best sub-£200 flips if that's the right style for you.
AGV K3
Customer rating:
You’ll need to buy this in a plain colour to duck under our £200 threshold, but feedback from Sportsbikeshop customers strongly suggests it's worth it. After three seasons in AGV's range this lid has an impressive average rating of 4.81 from 120 reviews. The K3 has a thermoplastic shell, internal sun visor, spectacle cut-outs, a quick-release strap fastener and leaves room for a wide choice of intercoms. It’s a genuine all-rounder that meets the latest ECE 22.06 safety standard and earns plenty of praise from owners. If there’s one common complaint it surrounds wind noise, so a pair of decent earplugs would be a wise complementary purchase.
Nexx Y.100R
Customer rating:
It's listed as a sports helmet, but the Nexx Y.100R has all the credentials needed to make a decent commuting helmet. It has a thermoplastic shell, dropdown sun visor, a Pinlock anti-mist visor insert is included in the box, where there's also a draught-excluding chin curtain and a breathguard. That means it's fully equipped for year-round trips to work and back. Of the first 17 reviews posted by owners, 14 came with a perfect five-star rating, helping it achieve a very respectable average rating of 4.82.
Scorpion Exo-491
Customer rating:
With plenty of positive feedback, and an average customer rating of 4.7 from the first 31 reviews, the Scorpion Exo-491 is a cost-effective helmet for commuting. It has a thermoplastic shell, dropdown sun visor and leaves plenty of room to fit an intercom to help you stay in touch. The key absence is a Pinlock, but there's plenty of room to buy the specific anti-mist insert and still come in under our £200 price limit. Customers are very complimentary about the Exo-491 and there's no common criticism that's worth noting.
Shark D-Skwal 3
Customer rating:
Shark’s D-Skwal 3 is a good choice for daily riders who are out in all weathers, and has picked up a 4.69 average rating from the first 59 reviews. It’s a plastic-shelled lid with a full suite of practical features like a Pinlock anti-mist insert, sun visor with anti-fog coating, comfortable lining, chin curtain and breath deflector, space for intercom speakers and a micrometric strap fastener, which make the D-Skwal 3 a highly practical option for year-round commuting.
Shark Ridill 2
Customer rating:
This is Shark's entry-level full-face helmet, and the owner feedback is strong with an average rating of 4.75 from the first 32 customer reviews. It's a good option for commuting in fair weathers, but its effectiveness dips off when the temperature drops and the rain starts to fall. That's because there's no Pinlock anti-mist insert as standard, no breathguard and no chin curtain to block out draughts around your face. By the time you've bought those, you've spent more than the price of Shark's D-Skwal 3, which is in essence a Ridill 2 with all of those features included as standard.