The Best Full-Face Helmets for E-Bikes, EUCs and Scooters

When you need a full-face helmet

Not every rider needs one. The framing below comes from the electric-unicycle community, which has thought about this harder than anyone, and it travels well to scooters, e-skate and fast e-bikes:

Speed is not the only trigger. One kind of vehicle makes a chin bar the right call at any speed:

• You ride an electric unicycle or a one-wheel. A cutout or a nosedive pitches you forward with no handlebars to catch you. This is the strongest case for a chin bar in all of personal electric vehicle riding.

Two more situations make a chin bar worth considering, even at lower speed:

• You ride in traffic. A face-first hit on a car door or a curb does not care what speed you were doing.
• You are still learning. Beginner falls are the most frequent and the least controlled, which is exactly when riders tell themselves they are only going slowly.

If none of that describes you, a well-chosen open-face helmet is a perfectly reasonable choice. That includes most e-scooter riders at commuting speed, and our helmet guide covers those.

What each certification tests

This is the part most buying guides skip, and it matters more than any other spec on the box.

CPSC 1203 and EN 1078 do not test chin bars. These are the US and European bicycle standards, and almost every bike helmet carries one or both. A helmet can pass both with a chin bar bolted to the front that has never been impact tested at all. That is legal, it is common, and nothing on the sticker will tell you.

ASTM F1952 is the downhill mountain bike standard, and it does test the chin bar. If a helmet has a bar, the standard hits it with a weighted striker (about 20 joules of energy, roughly a 5 kg weight dropped 40 cm) and the bar must not deflect more than 60 mm. Helmets with a removable bar are tested both with and without it. F1952 also drops helmets onto its curb and hemisphere anvils from 1.6 m where CPSC uses 1.2 m, and its test line sits lower at the sides and back, so more of the helmet has to protect you.

NTA 8776 is the Dutch standard written for speed pedelecs, electric bikes that travel up to 45 km/h (28 mph). It tests impacts at higher energy than EN 1078 and over more of the temples and back of the head. It says nothing specific about chin bars, so it answers a different question from F1952: F1952 tells you the chin bar is real, and NTA 8776 tells you the shell was tested with electric bike speeds in mind. Very few full-face helmets carry both, which is why the ones that do lead this list.

Above 28 mph, stop shopping for bicycle helmets. DOT and ECE 22.06 are motorcycle standards, and ECE 22.06 is generally the better of the two because it adds rotational testing. A motorcycle helmet is heavier and hotter, and that is the price of the speed.

Two practical tips. First, look for the certification label inside the helmet, not just in the marketing copy. Second, if a listing says only "ASTM" without a number, it may mean F1952, or it may mean something else; the label inside will tell you.

How to read Virginia Tech stars

Virginia Tech's Helmet Lab runs every helmet it rates through the same set of impacts and turns the results into a score and a star rating from zero to five. It is the best independent comparison available, and it has two limits worth understanding.

It scores the shell, not the chin bar. Virginia Tech's bicycle test measures how well a helmet protects your brain from impacts to the head. It does not score how the chin bar protects your jaw. That is why certification and stars answer different questions and why we look at both.

Very few full-face helmets have been rated. Of the 308 helmets on the list in September 2026, only 16 are full-faces. Popular models like the Fox Proframe RS, Troy Lee Designs Stage and Bell Super DH have never been tested, so "not tested" in the table below is a gap, not a fail.

One more thing. Virginia Tech tightened its star thresholds in 2025 and many helmets dropped a star. Some makers still advertise their old rating: Bluegrass lists the Vanguard Core as 5 stars, and Virginia Tech's current list has it at 4. Check the live list rather than the box.

The standout finding from the current list: exactly five full-face helmets hold a 5-star rating and NTA 8776 together. Three are from Sweet Protection (the Fixer Carbon, Strayer and Fixer Composite), plus the 6D Alterra and the Leatt Gravity 5.0.

Fixed chin bar or removable?

A convertible helmet lets you take the chin bar off, so one helmet does the slow commute and the fast ride. It is a genuinely useful idea with real caveats.

In favour: you own one helmet instead of two, and you can ride open-faced on hot slow days and clip the bar on when the riding gets fast.

Against:

• Many removable chin bars are not certified. Bell's best-selling Super Air R, for example, lists CPSC only, so its bar has never been through the F1952 deflection test. Bell's Super DH and MET's Parachute MCR are certified to F1952 with the bar fitted.
• They are heavier than a comparable fixed full-face, because the attachment hardware has to live somewhere.
• A bar you can remove is a bar you will remove. Be honest about whether you will actually put it back on before the fast part of the ride.

If you will switch modes often, buy a certified convertible. If you will pick one mode and stay there, a fixed full-face is lighter and simpler.

Fit and weight

Everything in the open-face fitting advice still applies: measure your head about a finger's width above your eyebrows, sit the helmet level, and check that it moves your scalp when you shake your head. A full-face adds three checks:

1. Cheek pads should feel snug to tight when new. They compress with use. A full-face that feels roomy on day one is often a size too big a few months later, which is why good helmets ship with two pad thicknesses.
2. Check your view in a riding position, not standing in a shop. Look down to where your front wheel would be and up to where a traffic light would be.
3. Try the chin strap and buckle with gloves on. Magnetic buckles (Fidlock) are much easier than a double D-ring when your hands are cold.

Full-face helmets on this list run from 690 g to over 1,200 g. Half a kilogram is felt in your neck after an hour, and a tired neck is a real safety issue on long rides. For commuting, the lighter mountain bike full-faces make the most sense. For short fast runs, the heavier downhill and skate shells are fine.

Ventilation, visors and goggles

Mountain bike full-faces are built to be pedalled in, with 17 to 27 vents and a chin bar you can breathe through. They pair with goggles or sunglasses and a peak visor that keeps the sun out of your eyes. That setup suits e-bike riders and anyone riding in warm weather.

Skate and electric-unicycle helmets like the TSG Pass 2.0 take the other route: a full clear visor that seals against the shell, which keeps out wind, rain and bugs at speed but runs warmer. The failure mode is fogging, and it is the main reason riders stop wearing a full-face they paid for. Nose ports, air channels that push air across the visor and an anti-fog coating are not marketing features. A fogged visor at speed is a real hazard.

If you wear glasses, try the helmet with them on. Some chin bars and cheek pads press the arms against your head.

When to replace a full-face helmet

Replace it after any crash where your head or chin bar hit the ground, even if it looks fine. The foam that protects you crushes once and does not spring back, and damage can hide under an intact shell. Replace it too if you see cracks, crushed foam, or a faded, chalky shell from years in the sun.

The common five-year rule is better treated as an upgrade interval than an expiry date: helmets improve quickly, and a new helmet is often measurably better than the one it replaces. Leatt runs a three-year crash replacement program for its helmets, which is worth registering for if you buy one.

What we would buy

• Most fast riders: the Leatt MTB Gravity 5.0. 5 stars, NTA 8776 and ASTM F1952, and in stock on Amazon.
• On a budget: the OutdoorMaster Rhino. A 5-star full-face for around $120 to $130.
• Most protection: the Sweet Protection Fixer Composite, 12th of all 308 helmets Virginia Tech has tested.
• One helmet for everything: the Bell Super DH, a convertible with a certified chin bar.
• EUC and e-skate: the TSG Pass 2.0, for its visor and compact shell.

The Sweet Protection Strayer 2Vi MIPS scores even higher than the Leatt (8th of 308) and carries both certifications, but when we checked it was out of stock at Sweet Protection's US store and unavailable on Amazon. If you find one in stock, it is an excellent choice.