LS2 FF901 Advant X Carbon Horizon Silver Grey – Flip-Up Touring Helmet ECE 22.06 P/J

Horizon does what its name promises: a single long line divides the shell, silver grey above, bare carbon below, with the split running level through the visor aperture and carrying on across the chin bar. Rotate the chin bar back and the line stays continuous — which is the trick this graphic was drawn to perform.

The chin bar that folds out of the airstream

Flip-up helmets are usually a compromise you accept for the convenience of talking to a petrol pump attendant without taking the helmet off. The Advant X is built to remove that compromise. Its chin bar rotates through 180 degrees and lies flat against the rear of the shell, which puts it out of the wind rather than into it, and turns "open" from a thirty-second state into a riding position you can hold for an hour.

What makes that workable is the material. The bar is carbon, not injection-moulded plastic, so the mass moving over the hinge is low and the helmet does not become rear-heavy when it is stowed. The release is single-control and firmly detented; you will not open it by accident, and you can close it one-handed at a set of lights.

P and J: one helmet, two homologations

P/J is the specification that turns a folding chin bar from a convenience into a second helmet. Under ECE 22.06, "P" approves the helmet with the chin bar in place — including tests of whether that bar stays locked when the helmet is struck on the front. "J" approves it, separately, as an open-face. This helmet holds both approvals, which is why riding it open is legal rather than merely possible.

It is not a given: dual homologation costs a manufacturer a second full round of testing, and a good many modular helmets on sale today are P-only. If you intend to actually use the open position on the move — and with a chin bar that stows out of the airstream, you will — this is the line on the label to check.

About the Horizon Silver Grey finish

The Horizon is the most restrained of the four graphics and the most carefully engineered. Its horizontal division has to survive a chin bar that swings through 180 degrees, so the line is set at the height where the two halves of the shell meet whether the helmet is closed or open — a detail no static full-face has to solve. Silver grey sits above it in matt, and below the line the carbon is left visible under clear lacquer, so the graphic is not so much painted onto carbon as cut out of it. The effect is that the helmet reads as two materials rather than two colours. Grey is also the most forgiving shade on this list for road film and brake dust, and it is genuinely neutral: it will not fight a red tank, a green fairing or a bare aluminium frame. If you want the carbon to be obvious without the helmet being plain, this is the one.

Carbon 6K — chin bar included

The shell is carbon fibre — 6K, meaning each tow in the weave carries six thousand filaments, the mid-weight cloth that gives a helmet the visible checkerboard without the coarseness of 12K. What matters more than the number is where LS2 used it: the chin bar is carbon too. On most composite modular helmets the bar is injection-moulded plastic, because it is a complicated shape and plastic is easy to mould. Here it is laid up in the same material as the shell.

That decision explains the weight. A flip-up carries a hinge, a locking mechanism, a second visor and a bar that has to be stiff enough to pass an impact test — all of it hung off the front of the helmet. Building the bar from carbon takes mass out of exactly the place where mass is felt most, at the end of the longest lever from your neck.

What SHARP found, and why we are not claiming it

There is an independent safety rating in circulation for the Advant X, and you deserve the full story rather than a star count. SHARP — run by the UK Department for Transport, not by any manufacturer — tested a helmet it lists as "ADVANT X" in July 2024 under ECE 22.06 and awarded four stars out of five: straight fives across all five zones at the two lower impact speeds, threes at the sides at the highest, and a chin bar that remained fully locked through 63 % of impacts.

The catch is in SHARP's own specification line: composite fibre, 1.6 kg. That is the HPFC version of this helmet, not the carbon one you are looking at, which uses a different shell and weighs 50 grams less. Ratings are not transferable between shell constructions, so we leave this helmet's test field empty rather than borrowing a result. It is a rating the Advant X family earned, and it is not one this particular variant has been given. We stock that helmet: it is the LS2 FF901 Advant X in HPFC composite, same chin bar, same P/J approval, 50 g heavier and 70 € cheaper — and it is the one carrying the stars.

What the ECE 22.06 plaque actually means

The ECE 22.06 plaque riveted to the chin strap is the physical proof of a test regime that changed substantially in 2021. Impact points went from five to as many as eighteen. Testing gained a second, lower speed, because a helmet that performs at 8 m/s does not automatically perform at 6. And an oblique test was added: the shell is dropped onto an angled abrasive anvil while instruments measure rotational acceleration against the Brain Injury Criterion.

Everything fitted to the helmet is tested as fitted — visor, sun visor, vent covers. Since January 2024, no helmet without 22.06 may be sold new in the EU, which is also why 22.05 stock disappeared from shelves so abruptly.

Getting the helmet off a fallen rider

Safety on a modular helmet has an extra dimension, because there is a joint where a full-face has none. Under ECE 22.06 that joint is tested: the chin bar must stay locked when the helmet is struck. Beyond the certification, the specification is a reinforced chin strap, a micrometric buckle with a metal ratchet, multi-density EPS with the vent channels moulded in, and an emergency cheek-pad release.

Take the release seriously when you compare helmets. It is a set of tabs that let a paramedic pull the cheek pads out sideways and lift the helmet off without rotating your neck. It appears on very few helmets under 500 euros, it adds a few grams, and it is the one feature on this list whose value is measured entirely in what does not happen.

Three screens, one shell

Three screens come with this helmet, which is unusual enough to spell out. On the outside, a clear visor: scratch-resistant hardcoat, UV-stable, wide aperture, quick-release so it changes without tools. In the box beside it, a second visor already tinted — the part most manufacturers sell you separately for around fifty euros. And behind the outer screen, a drop-down sun visor on a slider, LS2's Twin Visor System.

A Pinlock 120 MaxVision XLT insert is also supplied. The numbers matter: 120 is Pinlock's highest optical class, MaxVision means the lens reaches the edges of the aperture instead of leaving a frame in your vision, and XLT is the extra-large cut made for this visor. On a flip-up ridden through winter, an anti-fog insert is not an accessory — it is the difference between seeing the road and guessing at it.

In at two ends, out at the back

The ventilation runs chin, crown and exhaust. What distinguishes it from a token system is the EPS: the channels are moulded into the polystyrene liner rather than relying on the gap between liner and shell, so incoming air is guided over the head instead of dispersing. Rear extraction does the pulling — without an outlet, an intake is just a hole.

On a modular helmet the chin vent has a second job. It clears the visor, and it supplies air at the one point where a flip-up's construction is most enclosed. The breath deflector behind the chin bar keeps your own exhaled air off the screen, which matters more here than on a full-face because the chin bar sits marginally further forward.

Fit, and the honest word on two shells

Two shells, seven sizes, split at XL: XS–L on the smaller tool, XL–3XL on the larger. Compared with the three shells on our LS2 full-face models that is coarser, and the practical effect lands on the small sizes — an XS carries the same shell as an L with extra polystyrene making up the difference.

It is a trade every modular helmet makes. The chin-bar pivot, the locking mechanism and the sun-visor housing are moulded into the shell itself, which makes each shell size an expensive, complex tool rather than a simple scale. What you get in exchange here is carbon in both the shell and the chin bar, which is where the money went. Riders in the middle of the range will not notice; riders at the very bottom of it should try the helmet on before committing.

X-Static silver, and laser-cut foam

Interior specification, plainly: X-Static silver antibacterial finish, laser-cut foam, hypoallergenic, breathable, fully removable and washable. The silver treatment is the one worth understanding — it is bonded to the fibre, not applied as a finish, so it keeps working after repeated washes. That is the difference between an antibacterial claim and an antibacterial liner.

Laser-cut foam sounds like marketing until you have worn a die-cut pad. A laser can vary the cut depth continuously, so a cheek pad can be shaped rather than simply stamped — firm at the jaw line to stop the helmet moving, relieved where a cheekbone or a pair of glasses arms would otherwise be pressed. Replacement pads are stocked, in different thicknesses.

Before you buy an intercom

One detail that no product page usually mentions and every carbon-helmet owner discovers on day one: on this helmet the intercom must be bonded on with adhesive. There is no clamp recess between shell and cheek pad for a mounting bracket to slide into. LS2 states it explicitly, and we would rather you knew before ordering than after.

The reason is structural. A clamp mount works by squeezing a bracket between the shell edge and the padding, which means designing a gap into the shell. On a carbon shell that gap is a stress raiser in a laid-up laminate, and LS2 chose not to put one there. The helmet is prepared for the current LS2 intercom with recesses for the speakers and a channel for the wiring — but the control unit goes on with the adhesive pad, and once it is bonded, moving it means removing adhesive from a lacquered carbon surface. Choose the position carefully, clean the area with isopropyl alcohol first, and let it cure before riding.

On noise

Nobody publishes a decibel figure for this helmet and we are not going to invent one. What can be said is where the noise comes from: turbulence at the base of the shell, air entering under the chin bar, and open vents. A chin curtain is fitted as standard, and it is the single most effective piece of quiet in the box — provided it stays in the helmet after you clean it. The chin bar rotating fully to the rear helps here: a modular bar parked on the crown sits in clean air and drums, while one lying behind the head does not.

The rest is not the helmet's doing. A tall screen that pushes dirty air straight at your head will make any lid loud, and a naked bike at 130 km/h will beat the best-sealed helmet on the market. Earplugs remain the cheapest upgrade in motorcycling.

1550 grams on a flip-up

At 1550 g (±50) this is a light helmet in absolute terms and a remarkably light one for what it is. The comparison worth making is with other P/J modulars: they cluster around 1700 to 1800 grams, because a mechanism that has to rotate, lock and pass an impact test does not come free.

Two decisions bought the difference — a carbon 6K shell, and a carbon chin bar rather than the moulded plastic almost everyone else uses. Taking mass out of the chin bar is worth more than taking it out anywhere else, because the bar sits at the far end of the longest lever from your neck. Wind load at motorway speed compounds it further.

Where it sits in our LS2 range

This is the only flip-up in our LS2 line-up, so the comparison below is deliberately cross-type: it shows what the same money buys as a full-face, and what the folding chin bar costs in weight and price. Set against the FF811 Vector II Carbon — same carbon 6K, same manufacturer, 150 grams lighter — the Advant X asks 90 euros more for a chin bar that moves and a second homologation.

When something wears out

A helmet is not a sealed unit and the parts that wear are not the shell. Interiors compress, visors scratch, vent covers snap off in a car park. We stock the Advant X liner in every size, cheek pads in several thicknesses, six replacement visors from clear through to iridium gold, the tinted sun visor and its mechanism, plus the carbon chin curtain, complete replacement chin bars in every colourway, the chin-bar ratchet system, pins, plates and chin, top and rear vents in matt or gloss black.

That matters for how long the helmet lasts you. A liner that has taken a summer of sweat is the usual reason a helmet that once fitted starts to move on your head — and replacing it costs a fraction of replacing the helmet. The full parts list is in the FF901 Advant X Kit.

In the box

• LS2 FF901 Advant X Carbon helmet — Horizon Silver Grey
• Carrying backpack
• Tinted visor
• Pinlock® 120 MaxVision™ XLT anti-fog insert (DKS433)
• Reflective stickers

Specification

• Model — LS2 FF901 Advant X Carbon
• Part number — 569015565
• Colour — Horizon Silver Grey — Horizon graphic, matt silver grey over exposed carbon
• Homologation — ECE 22.06, dual P/J (protective and jet)
• Helmet type — Flip-up / modular, chin bar rotating 180° to the rear
• Shell — Carbon 6K, chin bar in carbon as well, two shell sizes (XS–L / XL–3XL)
• Weight — 1550 g (±50 g)
• Sizes — XS to 3XL (seven sizes)
• Visor — Twin Visor System, scratch-resistant, UV-stable, quick-release; tinted second visor supplied
• Anti-fog — Pinlock® 120 MaxVision™ XLT (DKS433) supplied
• Sun visor — integrated, tinted, drop-down
• Impact liner — multi-density EPS with moulded ventilation channels
• Retention — micrometric metal buckle, reinforced chin strap, emergency release system
• Ventilation — chin intake, top intake, rear exhaust port, breath deflector
• Liner — X-Static© silver antibacterial, laser-cut foam, hypoallergenic, breathable, removable and washable
• Intercom — prepared for the LS2 intercom — adhesive mount only, no clamp slot