It’s often referred to as a snow helmet, but it’s not, the GM 11 is what GMax is for season multi-purpose lid, Street riding in the summer, snowmobiling in the winter, with a bit of motocross thrown in for good measure.

Pricing
I was skeptical at first because this is a hundred and fifty dollar lid that claims to do the job of three helmets, so far as I can tell, though, G max has pulled it off.

Specifications
It comes with a removable Sun peak, removable face shields, double lens Franchi fogging, speaker pockets, removable and washable liner, chin curtain, breath guard, six chin bar vents, two forehead vents, two chimneys, and six exhaust vents.

Now, two things I like and two things I don’t like. On the positive side, this face shield opens wider than any of the other helmets on my list, making it easy to use even large frame goggles in here whether you keep the face shield on also if you take it off.

Weight
The other thing I like is the weight of this thing, this is a basic plastic shell, and yet this large comes in at one thousand eight hundred and thirty grams, which is only 40 grams more than the Shoei Hornet X2.

Visor
For the two things I don’t like, I wish the G max gave us thumb screws rather than Phillips heads for the visor because the Sun peak isn’t very aerodynamic. So I’m probably going to want to take it off for extended highway riding.

That’s not a huge deal, but there’s also a bigger problem, this helmet is only DOT rated, and I have more peace of mind in an ECE or Snell lid.

Helmet Shape
This helmet has a neutral head shape, so it’s somewhere between a long oval and round, and I would classify the GM 11 is suited to an equal mix of on-road and off-road use.

It does ventilate well with the breath guard taken out, and the I-port works perfectly with goggles.

Insulation & Noise
At the same time, though, this is a secondary purpose snowmobile element, so it has excellent insulation, which translates into decent on-road noise reduction, but what if I’m a dual-sport rider that sees more dirt than pavement?

I grew up riding motocross, so I know how a much lighter and cooler looking helmet can be. In the dual-sport category, Bell takes it to those extreme limits with the MX 9 adventure, and this is the best ADV helmet for trail riding.

Bell MX-9 Adventure MIPS
Weight

At 1,650 grams, it’s even lighter than Aries XD4. for the MX9 Adventure is a variation on bells MX-9 off-roading helmet. They just angled the Sun peak down for better highway aerodynamics.

They added the face shield, and then they truncated the chin bar for better insulation and crash safety. Other than that, though, the MX9 Adventure still behaves like a motocross helmet.

It is super light with loads of air coming through the chin bar and the big open gap underneath. There events on the forehead in the rear as well, but they’re not closeable, and to me, that’s a misstep from Bell.

Sun Shield
Though, in my opinion, the Sun peak catches a lot of wind on the highway, but Belle seems to know this because they gave us thumb screws, and that makes it easy to take the Sun peak on and off.

Of course, I’m not supposed to be doing too much road riding in this helmet anyway, nor would I want to because it’s deafening in traffic.

Whether you keep the face shield on or off, it’s super easy to wear goggles with this helmet.

And because of the big gap, the Bell left between the face shield and the shell of the helmet itself you can wear goggles and have the face shield down at the same time.

Personally, that’s not a useful feature to me; if it’s muddy or dusty, you’re hot enough to be wearing goggles, and keeping the face shield on is just like asking for it to get fogged up or scratched.

Shape
The mx9 Adventure is a neutral head shape that fits right to the sizing chart online. It has a DOT and an ECE safety rating, which you know I love, and it cost $270 even for the black and high-vis illustrated version, which is a misnomer by the way because the base color here is gray.