LS2 FF901 Advant X Nova Black Red Blue – Flip-Up Touring Helmet ECE 22.06 P/J

The Nova blades again, inverted: a matt black base with red blades sweeping back along the flanks and a bright cyan-blue counter-stroke through them, each fading out into fine line-hatching. Dark where the white version is light, and considerably more aggressive for it.

Four stars from SHARP — and this is the helmet they tested

Most helmets on sale have never been independently tested at all. ECE 22.06 is a pass/fail certification — a helmet either meets the threshold or it is not legal — and it tells you nothing about how far above that threshold a given lid sits. SHARP exists to answer that question, and it has answered it for this helmet: four stars out of five, July 2024, tested against ECE 22.06.

The detail matters. Five out of five in all five zones at 6.0 and 7.5 m/s. At 8.5 m/s, five at crown, front and rear; three at left and right. Chin bar fully locked in 63 % of impacts. SHARP logged the shell as composite fibre and the mass as 1.6 kg — HPFC, 1600 g, this helmet. We do not transfer that result to the carbon version, and neither should anyone else.

About the Nova Black Red Blue finish

Reversing the base changes what the pattern does. On white, Nova's blades read as decoration laid on a bright field; on black they read as light cutting through darkness, and the hatched gradients look like motion blur rather than shading. The cyan is the element that makes it: a saturated, almost electric blue used sparingly against the red, and it is the colour that survives at distance when the red has gone dark. Matt is a deliberate choice on this one — a gloss coat would put highlights across the blades and break up the gradients, while the flat finish lets them run uninterrupted from the brow to the rear exhaust. What you give up is the visibility of the white version: this is a dark helmet with bright details, not a bright helmet, and at dusk it behaves much closer to matt black than to Nova White. The reflective stickers supplied in the box are worth applying to the rear and the lower flanks.

A chin bar that folds out of the airstream

Every flip-up is a compromise between the convenience of opening it and the penalty of carrying the mechanism. The Advant X attacks the first half of that trade directly: its chin bar rotates 180 degrees and stows flat at the rear of the shell instead of standing proud on the crown. In the airstream that is the difference between a step and a smooth shape.

Practically it means you can leave the helmet open through a town, up a pass, in a customs queue or on a hot day in slow traffic, and shut it again with one gloved hand when the road opens. The mechanism is detented so the bar stays where you put it — there is no intermediate position it can drift into.

P and J: two homologations on one label

Check for P/J on any modular helmet you are considering, and here is why. "P" alone means protective-with-chin-bar and says nothing about the open position. "P/J" means the manufacturer paid for a second full homologation so that the helmet is also approved as a jet. This one has it, printed on the label riveted to the chin strap.

It has a practical consequence beyond legality: the chin bar was tested as a load-bearing structure, not as a wind deflector, and its lock was tested to hold under impact. That is a certified property rather than a marketing claim, and on a helmet whose defining feature is a chin bar that moves, it is the specification that underwrites everything else.

HPFC — what the shell is actually made of

The shell is HPFC — LS2's high-performance fibre composite, hand-laid rather than injection-moulded. In the LS2 hierarchy it sits above the KPA and HPTT thermoplastics used on the entry-level models and below the carbon 6K of the Advant X Carbon, and it is the material LS2 uses on its touring full-face helmets too.

What a composite gives you is stiffness per gram and, more usefully on a modular helmet, the ability to reinforce specific regions. The Advant X shell is interrupted in three places — pivot, latch and sun-visor housing — and every one of those interruptions has to survive the standard. Fibre laid around them is how that is done.

What the ECE 22.06 plaque actually means

Worth a paragraph, because most shops leave it as a line in a table. ECE 22.06 tests up to eighteen impact points where 22.05 tested five, uses more than one impact speed, and — the substantive change — measures rotational acceleration through an oblique drop onto an angled, abrasive anvil.

Straight-line impact was always the easier problem. Rotation is what a real crash usually delivers, and it is what damages the brain at energies a shell survives comfortably. The standard also brings the visor and every fitted accessory into the test, and has been mandatory for new helmets sold in the EU since January 2024.

The tabs a paramedic looks for

Retention is a micrometric metal buckle — a toothed tongue clicking into a sprung catch, adjustable in millimetre steps, released with one gloved finger. It is what touring riders ask for, because a helmet that comes on and off fifteen times a day should not need a double-D knot each time.

The feature that is unusual at this price is the emergency release. Red tabs at the base of the cheek pads allow the padding to be extracted while the helmet is still on the rider's head — the safest way to remove a helmet from someone unconscious. On a modular helmet it works even better than on a full-face, because the chin bar can be rotated clear first and then the pads come out. You will never operate it yourself. That is the point of it.

Three screens, one shell

Vision is where the Advant X spends more of its budget than the price suggests. The outer visor is hardcoated against scratches, UV-stable, cut wide and sealed to the shell; it releases without tools. Inside the shell, a tinted sun visor drops on a slider and retracts fully out of the way — the feature that makes a touring helmet usable when you ride east in the morning and west in the evening.

And for the days when a drop-down shade is not enough, a fully tinted second outer visor is supplied. The anti-fog insert is a Pinlock® 120 MaxVision™ XLT (DKS433), and it is worth knowing the code: Pinlock lenses are visor-specific, and the DKS521 or DKS147 from other LS2 helmets will not fit.

In at two ends, out at the back

Ventilation runs chin, crown and exhaust, with a breath deflector behind the chin bar. On a modular helmet the chin vent carries a second job: it supplies air at the point where the construction is most enclosed, directly in front of your mouth, and it is the vent that keeps the visor clear when the temperature drops.

The channels through the multi-density EPS are what turn the intakes into a circuit rather than a set of openings. On a shell that also has to accommodate a sun-visor housing above your forehead, that routing is what keeps the airflow working at all — the housing takes up space that would otherwise be liner and duct.

Fit, and the honest word on two shells

Two shell sizes cover seven helmet sizes: XS–L share one shell, XL–3XL the other. That is fewer than the three shells on our LS2 full-face models, and it has a real consequence — a size XS is built on a shell tooled around an L, so it carries more polystyrene than the size needs and sits slightly larger on the head than a three-shell helmet would.

The reason is structural rather than economy. A modular shell has the chin-bar pivot, its locking mechanism and the sun-visor housing moulded in, so every extra shell size means a substantially more complex tool. Two shells is the norm right across premium flip-ups. It matters at the extremes: if you take an XS or an S and proportion is important to you, a full-face with three or six shells will sit closer. Through M, L and XL, where most riders are, the difference is academic.

The liner, and one claim we are not making

Take the interior out — it all comes out — and the construction is visible: laser-cut foam under a breathable, hypoallergenic fabric, held in with press studs and tongues rather than glue. Everything is machine-washable, which on a helmet ridden through summer is not optional.

An honest note on the specification. The Advant X Carbon's liner carries an X-Static silver antibacterial finish; this composite version's does not, and LS2 does not claim it. What that changes in practice is how quickly the interior starts to smell if it is never washed. What it does not change is the fit, the safety rating or the fact that the whole set is a replaceable part.

Before you buy an intercom

A word on communicators, because it changes what you should buy. The intercom mounts with adhesive on this helmet — no clamp slot between shell and lining. That is an LS2 specification rather than an oversight, and it is the normal consequence of a shell that already carries three deliberate openings for the modular mechanism.

Everything else about the installation is well provided for: recesses moulded into the EPS for the speakers, and a channel for the wiring so nothing runs under the liner in a lump. Take five minutes over the placement of the control unit — once it is bonded, moving it means removing adhesive from a painted shell — clean the area with alcohol, and let it cure before the first ride.

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 180-degree chin bar helps here: a modular bar parked on the crown sits in clean air and drums, while one lying flat 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.

1600 grams on a flip-up

1600 grams, ±50, measured the way the industry measures: a mid-size shell with nothing fitted to it. Read that against other flip-ups rather than against full-face helmets. A modular helmet carries a hinge, a latch, an internal sun visor with its housing, and a chin bar stiff enough to be certified as protective — the premium P/J touring flip-ups riders cross-shop this against generally sit between 1650 and 1800 grams.

Convert it into load and it stops being abstract. A head weighs about five kilograms; this adds roughly a third again, and every expansion joint on the motorway multiplies the total through your neck. If 50 grams matters to you, the Advant X Carbon is 1550 g — and 70 euros more.

Carbon or composite? A straight answer

We sell the Advant X in two shells and it is worth being straight about the difference, because the marketing will not be. This is the HPFC composite: 1600 g, from 399 €, and the version SHARP tested and rated four stars. The Advant X Carbon is carbon 6K including the chin bar: 1550 g, from 469 €, with an X-Static silver liner — and no independent rating of its own, because SHARP tested this shell and not that one.

So: 50 grams and a nicer liner against 70 euros and a measured safety result. Everything else — the 180-degree chin bar, the P/J homologation, the Twin Visor System, the Pinlock 120 XLT in the box, the emergency release, the ventilation, the two shell sizes — is identical. If you want the lightest, buy the carbon. If you want the one with the stars, it is this one.

Where it sits in our LS2 range

Two flip-ups and three full-face models frame this helmet in our LS2 line-up. Read the table for what the folding chin bar costs against a comparable composite full-face, and what the carbon Advant X costs above it.

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, six replacement visors from clear through to iridium gold, the tinted sun visor and its mechanism, plus complete replacement chin bars in every colourway, chin, top and rear vents in matching finishes, ratchet plates, pins and the chin curtain.

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 helmet — Nova Black Red Blue
• Carrying backpack
• Tinted visor
• Pinlock® 120 MaxVision™ XLT anti-fog insert (DKS433)
• Reflective stickers

Specification

• Model — LS2 FF901 Advant X
• Part number — 569012511
• Colour — Nova Black Red Blue — Nova graphic, matt black with red and blue
• Homologation — ECE 22.06, dual P/J (protective and jet)
• Safety rating — SHARP 4 of 5 stars (tested July 2024, ECE 22.06)
• Helmet type — Flip-up / modular, chin bar rotating 180° to the rear
• Shell — HPFC fibre composite, two shell sizes (XS–L / XL–3XL)
• Weight — 1600 g (±50 g)
• Sizes — XS to 3XL (seven sizes)
• Anti-fog — Pinlock® 120 MaxVision™ XLT (DKS433) supplied
• Visor — Twin Visor System, scratch-resistant, UV-stable, quick-release; tinted second visor 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 — laser-cut foam, hypoallergenic, breathable, removable and washable (no antibacterial treatment specified)
• Intercom — prepared for the LS2 intercom — adhesive mount only, no clamp slot