Quiet ride helmets?

[superfan75]

That's cool that it seems like a nice helmet. It really sucks when you get excited about getting something only to be disappointed with it. I hope you get a chance to ride and try it out and like it still.

 

[turkster]

hmmm most thing that work with air in the winter dont work well here...

 

[sgauthier]

how do the Air fox shocks work in Manitoba or the air ride suspension on semis that have been out for years? just curious because the ear pieces are inside the helmet where it would stay warm so i really see no concern.

 

[TD Max]

They also make muffs that can go into your current helmet. I'm in the process of researching these and looking for more feedback.

My hope is to add a Uclear communicator setup into a Quiet ride muff setup and install in a yet to be purchased modular helmet. I have a Bell Carbon Star that I really like, but I really want a modular so if I need to take a quick drink or get a hair in my mouth I don't need to take off the entire helmet.

 

[Mooseman]

Old thread revival. @Mtnviper , how was your experience with this helmet? Still using it? I have bad tinnitus and trying to keep it from getting worse with the track howl. Also thinking of getting their built-in speakers and communicator for tunes.

 

[Mtnviper]

View attachment 154003 View attachment 154004 View attachment 154005 View attachment 154006 View attachment 154003 View attachment 154004 View attachment 154005 View attachment 154006 Still using it, I do like it and it does make a significant difference. I have tinnitus also and like you I'm trying to save what hearing I have left.

That being said, I did modify some Bose noise cancelling head phones and installed those in place of the standard ear muffs.
There are two types of noise reduction, active and passive. Passive noise is insulating (standard ear muffs and plugs) and is very effective at canceling higher frequency noise, but allows some low frequency (droan) noise to pass through. Active noise cancellation like the Bose head phone is very effective at cancelling low frequency noise such a four stroke exhaust and track droan.
I ride a mountain sled with a 3" track so there's a lot of track droan! With the Bose head active noise cancelling head phones on, it's just about the perfect set up and just about all of the track droan goes away with a flip of the switch!
The only drawback about the Bose headphone set up (besides cost) is that sometimes when I'm doing a WOT pull the sled is loud enough that it will over power the sensing microphone in the head phone and I will get a crackling sound through the speakers.

One option that I tried as well, was wearing active noise cancelling ear buds inside the standard Quiet Ride ear muffs. It works really well for noise reduction also, the only draw back was dealing with ear buds.
They do make smaller active noise cancelling ear buds now (mine are Bose units) which are less expensive, if I was to do it all over again I probably would try those inside a Quiet Ride helmet ear muffs. Also when wearing active noise cancelling ear buds inside the standard muffs, there is no WOT crackle through the speakers, like I sometimes get with my headphone set up.

The Quiet Ride helmet is a fairly warm helmet and I tend to sweat a lot mountain riding. So today I rode with my other helmet which has more ventilation along with ear plugs. After riding today with the other helmet the tinnitus in my right ear is ringing pretty good as I type this. We have another club ride next weekend, so I'm going back to the Quiet ride helmet. (my ears will thank me)!

I would like to see them add an active noise cancellation option from the factory. I could use a little more ventilation for spring riding as well. Overall I'm happy with the helmet though and would buy another one.View attachment 154003 View attachment 154004 View attachment 154005 View attachment 154006 View attachment 154003

 

[Mooseman]

Thanks @Mtnviper . I too use a set of noise cancelling buds with replacement foam plugs (instead of the usual silicone ones) and they do help with the drone. I noticed the difference when I forgot to turn them on so they do help.

I see what you did there. You replaced the whole cup portion with the Bose ones on top of their bladders. That is an awesome idea but Bose are usually pretty pricey to butcher up. I've found even the cheap Chinese knockoffs do a pretty decent job.

 

[Mtnviper]

Yeah I was a little hesitant to take apart a set of Bose headphones due to the cost. At the time that was pretty much all that was available at the time. On the plus side though, if you plug in an Ipod they have excellent acoustics!
I don't use an Ipod very often though, I did it mainly for the active noise cancellation. If I was to build another set I probably try the cheaper knockoff set.
The determining factor would be the cup depth size of the cheaper headphone. The Bose are cups are slightly smaller diameter and only slightly deeper/thinker then the Quiet Ride cups, so they fit on the bladders pretty well.
To take up the difference in diameter in the helmet cup pocket, I used some pieces of Dana-mat foam that I had laying around as "shim stock". (if that make sense)

The rectangular box on the side of the helmet is a remote power supply/battery box that I made for the headphones. It has a push button switch on the outside with an LED indicator light. The box uses two AA batteries and I modified it so that the output voltage is the correct 1.5 volt input for the headphones. Basically one battery powers the headphones and it uses both batteries to power the LED indicator light. It really makes it easy to turn the headphones on/off with a push of the button on the side of my helmet.

This year my battery box quit working though, I set the helmet a little to close to the wood stove and melted it slightly. So I had to go back to using the stock AAA battery in the headphone and switch on the back of the cup. It's not as convenient as my battery box set up and I need to see if I can find another one to modify.

Bill

 

[Mooseman]

Just wanted to update with my review of the Quiet Ride Muffs.

So February 2021, I received the kit and proceeded to install them in my 509 Delta R3. Man it's nerve wracking cutting and drilling into a mega-dollar helmet. Drilling because I had to relocate the chin strap as the muffs would be located right on top of them. If you follow along with the pics, you will see how it basically went. You'll notice that I also installed the earpieces from my Fodsports communicator.



So last season, I tried them out right away and immediately noticed a difference in noise level. My biggest noise problem was track drone/howl, and to a lesser extent, engine noise, and for that they delivered. Noise levels were markedly reduced and the sound from the communicator for music and talk was good. When pumped up, they squeeze onto the skull and blocks out about 90% of the noise, which makes for a much more enjoyable ride.

However, the bladders would not hold air for very long and would deflate on their own. When they did deflate, the noise would increase but was still tolerable, still better than without them. I checked and found that the release valve leaked.

I contacted Quiet Ride Muffs right away. Very nice and quick customer service. They sent me two more valves. However, by the time I got them, all the trails were closed as the melt was already on and my season was over. This year, I tried one of the new valves and it also leaked albeit not as quick. Tried the third one and it leaked worse so I have to believe these are low quality or they received a bad batch.

Contacted QRM again today and he talked about putting some KY Jelly in it to help sealing although he said it was for the previous version, not this one with the integrated valve and splitter. He also mentionned to not use any petroleum based product as it would destroy the seal in the valve. KY Jelly being so thin, I had the idea to try using silicone based dielectric grease. Put a bunch in where the bulb goes on the valve and in the splitter. That did the trick and didn't see anymore leakage or it's so slow that I couldn't detect it in water.

If my fix doesn't work, I give up on trying to fix these and just keep using them deflated. They still reduce noise enough. And since I cut up my helmet I can't go without them. If I were to do this again, I would just find a set of noise cancelling headphones and put those in there, like @Mtnviper did, or even just protective ear muffs or regular headphones.

 

[Mtnviper]

Good write up Mooseman. As a follow up to my post above, I was able to find another battery box and modify it to use a power supply for the Bose head phones. It makes it pretty easy to turn them on/off with a push of the button on the side of the box.
Usually if I'm off trail/mountain riding, I will leave them off and just use the passive (like regular ear muffs) noise reduction. If we are doing a fair amount of trail riding in order to get to the play areas, then I will turn on the active noise cancellation as it does significantly reduce track drone.

 

[Mooseman]

Last follow-up. The silicone grease helped a little but they still deflate in about 15-20 minutes. I'm probably going to remove the bladders and set them on some foam pads just to make them stick out a little past the internal shell so they'll sit a little tighter.

I can't recommend them with this problem since you could make something yourself at lower cost or with active noise cancelling headphones. Too bad as the idea is good but the hardware isn't.