Please note: sale to France is prohibited.

Matt Deep Grey is the commuter's answer in this range. It is the finish that looks the same on a Friday as it did on a Monday, and on a helmet worn five days a week that is worth more than almost any styling consideration.

Five stars from SHARP — and which GT-Air earned them

Five stars is a minority result. Across roughly two thousand helmets SHARP has rated since 2007, the top score goes to a small fraction — and among sport-touring helmets with integrated sun visors, where the shell has to accommodate a shade mechanism, it is rarer still.

The GT-Air3 holds it, from a June 2024 test conducted under ECE 22.06.

About the Matt Deep Grey finish

There is a specific reason this finish stays looking clean, and it is not that it repels dirt. Road film — the grey mix of brake dust, diesel residue and rain thrown up at the front of a motorcycle — is tonally very close to a mid-dark grey, so it lands and simply does not register. On gloss black the same deposit is a visible film after two wet rides. Add matt's tendency to scatter light rather than reflect it, which stops swirl marks and fine scratches forming the bright highlight that makes them visible, and you have the lowest-maintenance finish Shoei offers on this model. The honest limits are the ones every matt lacquer has: insects need soaking off, and hard scrubbing dulls the surface permanently rather than polishing out.

What ECE 22.06 actually tests

A second, lower impact speed was among the least-discussed and most useful changes in ECE 22.06. A helmet that performs well at 8 m/s does not automatically perform well at 6 — the energy management that works at high speed can be too stiff at low — and most real impacts happen well below the maximum test energy.

22.06 tests both, and the GT-Air3 was certified against it.

AIM, three shells, and the EQRS release

There is a protection argument in the shell count that gets overlooked. Impact energy is absorbed by the EPS crushing, and that liner needs to be the right thickness for the head inside it. Stretch one shell across six sizes and the small sizes carry more foam than the standard requires while the large ones get the minimum.

Three tools — XS–M, L, XL–XXL — keep every size closer to its design thickness.

CNS-1C and QSV-2 — the two screens

An optional yellow QSV-2 is worth knowing about even if you never buy one. A yellow shade does not darken the view; it raises contrast in flat light — dusk, fog, heavy overcast — which is precisely when a tinted shade is useless and reading the road surface is hardest. It fits the same mechanism, tool-free.

The standard tinted QSV-2 covers almost the entire usable field of view.

Air in, air out, and why it is quiet

The gap-width first detent on the visor is the position most riders end up using most. It admits enough air to clear a misting screen and to make slow traffic bearable in summer, without opening the visor far enough to catch wind or let rain in — and it holds there rather than creeping shut at speed.

The main ventilation runs from front intakes through internal channels to high rear exhausts.

Interior, glasses and talking to the helmet

Removable ear pads are a genuine seasonal choice rather than a fixed part. Left in, they close the path by which turbulence from beneath the shell reaches your ears and the helmet is markedly quieter; taken out, it is cooler and you hear more of the road and of an intercom.

The rest of the interior — centre pad, cheek pads, strap cover — is removable and washable as standard.

Where it sits in Shoei's range

Price ladders in helmets are usually a proxy for shell material. In Shoei's range they are not: the composite construction runs through all of these, and what changes is format and equipment. That makes the table below unusually easy to read — pick the shape of helmet you want and the price follows.

The GT-Air3 is the sport-touring full-face, from 599 euros for the solid finishes.

Around 1700 grams, and the rest of the honest list

A five-star rating is not a guarantee, and it is worth saying so on the page that quotes it. SHARP measures how a shell performs in a laboratory against a defined set of impacts. It cannot measure whether the helmet fits your head — and fit determines whether the helmet is where it should be when it lands.

The measurable limitations here are weight, at around 1700 g, and a communication unit that is sold separately.

When something wears out

The QSV-2 sun visor is replaceable, and worth replacing rather than tolerating if scratched. It retracts into a slot at the top of the shell where it collects whatever comes off a glove, and a mark on an internal shade sits permanently in your line of sight — unlike an outer visor, you cannot flip it out of the way.

An optional yellow contrast-enhancing version fits the same mechanism, tool-free.

In the box

• Shoei GT-Air3 helmet — Matt Deep Grey
• Pinlock® EVO anti-fog lens
• Breath guard and chin curtain
• Helmet bag, manual and ECE approval documentation

Size guide

Specification

• Model — Shoei GT-Air3
• Part number — 11.20.025.2
• Colour — Matt Deep Grey — Matt deep grey
• Homologation — ECE 22.06
• Safety rating — SHARP 5 of 5 stars (tested June 2024) — the first-generation GT-Air scored 3
• Helmet type — Full-face, sport-touring
• Shell — AIM (Advanced Integrated Matrix) — fibreglass and organic fibres; three shell sizes (XS–M / L / XL–XXL)
• Weight — approx. 1700 g (Shoei figure; independent measurements vary with size and finish)
• Sizes — XS to XXL (six sizes)
• Visor — CNS-1C, tool-free quick-change, staged detent with gap-width first position, blocks over 99 % of UV; six tints available
• Anti-fog — Pinlock® EVO lens supplied
• Visor tints available — clear, mellow smoke, dark smoke, Spectra silver, Spectra blue, Spectra rainbow
• Sun visor — QSV-2, integrated, stepless, glove-friendly slider, EN 1836; optional yellow contrast version
• Impact liner — multi-density EPS assembled from elements of differing absorption
• Retention — micro-ratchet chin strap
• Emergency system — EQRS — Emergency Quick Release System for the cheek pads
• Ventilation — intakes into the airstream, high-placed exhausts, removable insect filter in the lower front vent
• Interior — contoured centre pads, 3D pre-shaped cheek pads, removable ear pads, chin strap cover — removable and washable, several thicknesses
• Head shape — intermediate oval
• Communication — SHOEI COMLINK with pre-routed cabling and recesses for the SENA SRL3 Mesh (sold separately)
• Serviceability — visor, sun visor, all pads and the Pinlock lens available as separate parts

• 1x helmet
• 1x clear CNS-1C visor (pre-fitted)
• 1x Pinlock EVO anti-fog lens
• 1x set of spare pins
• 1x maintenance tool
• 1x breath guard