Please note: sale to France is prohibited.

Chalk Grey is the lightest grey in the Neotec 3 line — a soft, low-saturation tone closer to stone than to silver, and the one that suits the current generation of grey-and-black adventure and touring bikes without simply matching them.

Five stars from SHARP — and the number behind them

SHARP rated the previous-generation Neotec II as well, which makes this an unusually direct comparison. The Neotec 3 was tested in February 2024 under ECE 22.06 — a standard that adds impact sites, a second test speed and an oblique rotation measurement that did not exist before 2021 — and returned five stars out of five.

Improving a result while the test gets harder is the clearest evidence that development went into the shell rather than the brochure.

About the Chalk Grey finish

Light greys are underrated on helmets for a reason that has nothing to do with taste: most riders assume they show dirt like white does. They do not. The tonal distance between a mid-light grey and road film is small, so a wet week leaves it looking used rather than neglected — the same effect that makes Matt Deep Grey so practical, achieved from the other direction. What Chalk Grey adds over the darker greys is thermal behaviour and visibility. A pale shell reflects a meaningful share of solar energy instead of absorbing it, which is felt when you pick the helmet up off a hot bike; and in flat light or at dusk it stands away from tarmac far better than anthracite or black. It is the quiet compromise between the white and the dark end of this range.

P and J, and what ECE 22.06 actually tests

Everything fitted to the helmet goes through 22.06 as fitted — visor, sun visor, vent covers. It sounds like a technicality and is not: it is why a drop-down sun visor cannot be retrofitted to a helmet approved without one, and why the QSV-2 shade in this shell had to be part of the original submission.

The approval itself is dual P/J, covering the helmet closed and open.

AIM, three shells, and the steel that holds the chin bar

A word on what a fibreglass composite does in a crash, since it differs from a thermoplastic. A laminate is stiff: it spreads load quickly across a wide area, then delaminates progressively, absorbing energy as the layers separate. A polymer shell instead flexes further before failing. Both work — the standard cares about the head inside, not the route taken.

AIM takes the laminate route, in three shell sizes over multi-density EPS.

CNS-3C and QSV-2 — and the Neotec II trap

A Pinlock lens works by physics rather than chemistry: a second screen sealed against the inside of the visor on a silicone bead, trapping a thin layer of air that keeps the inner surface above the dew point of your breath. It does not wear off the way a coating does — but the silicone bead does harden over a few seasons.

The lens here is the EVO DKS301, matched to the CNS-3C and included with the helmet.

Quiet by design, and what that costs in airflow

Panel gaps are the enemy of a quiet modular helmet, and they are hardest to control precisely where a flip-up needs them: along the seam the chin bar closes against. Shoei's answer is an eccentric bar movement that brings the panels together rather than sliding them past each other.

🔵 The consequence for airflow is that this shell is deliberately tight. It is not a helmet chosen for hot-country touring.

Noise Isolator, glasses, and talking to the helmet

Shoei's intermediate-oval head shape is the reference point for a large share of the European market, and it is why so many riders find a Shoei fits them "correctly" without being able to say why. If your head is markedly long front-to-back, or markedly round, this is the first thing to check rather than the last.

Within that shape, pad thicknesses and an insertable vertical pad allow real adjustment.

Where it sits in Shoei's range

The J.O2 at the bottom of this table and the X-SPR PRO at the top bracket what Shoei does: an urban jet at 399 euros and a racing full-face at 799. The touring helmets sit between them, and the Neotec 3 is the modular one — the format that has grown fastest in touring over the last decade.

It is also the only helmet in this table with a five-star SHARP rating on record.

1750 grams, and the rest of the honest list

Weight is the specification riders under-rate at the counter and over-rate after a long day, so it belongs here rather than buried in a table. At 1750 g the Neotec 3 sits where fully equipped modular helmets sit. Nothing about that is unusual; it is simply the honest cost of a hinge, a latch, a sun visor and a composite shell built to hold five stars.

Ventilation, likewise honestly: adequate, not abundant.

When something wears out

Pad thicknesses are the tuning mechanism most owners never use. If the helmet is the right size but moves when you shake your head, thicker cheek pads fix it. If it sits too low or too high relative to the visor aperture, the insertable vertical pad fixes that. Both are inexpensive and both are stocked.

🔵 Visors: CNS-3C, and the DKS301 Pinlock lens that matches it.

In the box

• Shoei Neotec 3 helmet — Chalk Grey
• Pinlock® EVO DKS301 anti-fog lens
• Helmet bag
• Instruction manual and ECE approval documentation

Size guide

Specification

• Model — Shoei Neotec 3
• Part number — 12.07.030.2
• Colour — Chalk Grey — Chalk grey
• Homologation — ECE 22.06, dual P/J (protective and jet)
• Safety rating — SHARP 5 of 5 stars (tested February 2024, ECE 22.06); chin bar fully locked in 93 % of impacts
• Helmet type — Flip-up / modular
• Shell — AIM (Advanced Integrated Matrix) — fibreglass and organic fibres in resin; three shell sizes (XS–M / L / XL–XXL)
• Weight — 1750 g (size M)
• Sizes — XS to XXL (six sizes)
• Visor — CNS-3C, tool-free quick-change, central lock, gap-width detent, angled upper edge
• Anti-fog — Pinlock® EVO DKS301 supplied
• Sun visor — QSV-2, integrated, stepless, covers below the eyeline; optional yellow contrast version
• Impact liner — multi-density EPS assembled from elements of differing absorption
• Retention — micro-ratchet chin strap; stainless steel chin bar locking mechanism
• Ventilation — intakes into the airstream, branched internal network, removable insect filter in the lower front vent
• Interior — 3D centre pad, Noise Isolator 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 EPS recesses for the SENA SRL3 Mesh system
• Serviceability — visor, sun visor, all pads and the Pinlock lens available as separate parts

• 1x helmet
• 1x clear CNS-3C visor (pre-fitted)
• 1x Pinlock EVO anti-fog lens
• 1x set of spare pins
• 1x maintenance tool
• 1x breath guard